Again I don't think anyone is expecting an instant replacement service. My question was really whether Merseyrail, or whoever, can just wash their hands of the stranded passengers, by not even attempting to lay on some form of rail replacement service.
I'm under no illusions about the logistical challenges of suddenly rustling up an alternative transport system during an adverse weather event, but one might expect some prioritisation of what alternative transport can be found, so that unaccompanied teenagers can get home etc.
Anyway thank you for your observations, which I've passed on to my friends in Liverpool.
Problem is these days that people expect *someone else* to 100% look after them and save them from their own bad decisions. The likelihood of bad weather was highlighted since early this week and the forecast as it got closer was more and more accurate. Maybe a little bit more thinking and a little less reacting is required...... we cannot all do everything all the time, nature still wins (weather wise especially).
(Admittedly if the MSM was less focused on COVID variants and channel migrants then maybe there would have been more awareness)
There would also be an attempt to get all the passengers you already had on the network home, even if it meant running slower, but not getting there.
As an industry this turfing people off wherever they have got to, or are even if about to start journey home because of a bit of wind, and some sleet is not on.
It might be acceptable if they have already organised rail replacement buses, but if buses not yet available then need to carry on trying to run something rather than abandon ticket holders.
It's really not that simple, there comes a point where it's not about running slower- it's about whether you can make the trip at all. When overhead lines and trees come down not much is moving, and this was not just rather more than "a bit" of wind- it was serious wind- and from an unusual direction.
And what can you do if no buses available? Nor is a comparison with years gone by helpful as in years gone by (a) a lot fewer people traveled in the evenings and (b) there was less travel overall and people would tend to heed the "only necessary" journey message
That is disgraceful. There’s no excuse for that and really shows how poor the railway is equipped for this sort of weather despite being warned for nearly a week.
Edited to say I’ve just seen messages that there have been people on the train for over 17 hours but the staff are within reach of shops and provisions!
Again there are limits, unless you massively resource the railway with people who mostly do nothing then this will happen. There are times when just so much happens at once you cannot hope to deal with it all at the same time. Services were halted to reduce the number of these instances.
It absolutely was not an overreaction. If you'd seen the amount of damage across the network you'd realise it was a very sensible decision to curtail services. Encouraging discretionary travel to be postponed was absolutely the right thing to do, otherwise we'd have carnage and even more passengers stranded scattered across various locations this morning.
Agreed, this was a particularly bad event.
Which begs the question, why deliberately put yourself at risk by travelling in the first place, when extreme weather is forecast, 'do not travel' messages have been put out, not to mention the weather warnings issued by the Met Office ? Surely people were aware of the oncoming conditions ? Or perhaps, like so many other things, it didn't actually apply to them ?
I don't wish to be rude, but that really is complete, utter, total nonsense. What measures do you think the railway should take to deal with 100mph winds and debris of all kinds, much of it from outwith the railway and including such things as trampolines, garden sheds and even in Scotland last night, a barn, being blown onto the line, struck by trains, and where there is OLE probably bringing the wires down too ? Promising passengers a normal timetable and sending trains out in the face of such conditions is madness. I have been on duty in such times when multiple trains have become stranded, resulting in staff being sent out in dreadful conditions to evacuate people, which, even sometimes with the assistance of the Emergency services (themselves under huge pressure as well of course) proved to be unsafe - Which is possibly the case of stevet1 at Huntly. A most unpleasant experience of course but at least the passengers, and traincrew, are safe.
Yup, definitely. Both road and rail services are badly effected, and the wind is not only strong but also from a direction it doesn't usually blow strongly from (north-east vs south west) so that will tend to increase the amount of damage as things like trees are "used" to winds blowing the other way.
In reality, there's very little travel that is strictly speaking "necessary" where there's a real risk to life and limb.
Interesting. I remember helping to shut the whole network down on a Sunday 20 years ago because of a similar storm, and advising people not to travel.
Aye, the only reason we tend to notice more now is the wider publicity. We also of course have the benefit of much better forecasting. But the ability of the railway to predict/respond has been in place for a long time.
Please re-read my post, I’m talking specifically about being stuck for 18 hours on a train in this specific incident. I read NRs plans this week in preparation for this storm, but considering this was the only train stranded on this line, where were the NR crews with chainsaws that were in place to deal with this exact type of incident. I wouldn’t expect them to be there within minutes, but 18 hours? This Isn’t acceptable in this day and age.
All depends on where the train was and how bad the roads were. There has been snow as well as wind and you'd be surprised at how remote some parts of the network are from an access point (or how challenging some access points can be). And how many trees will the chainsaw team need to remove for the train to get to the destination? One? 10? 20? Do they also have kit for winching big lumps of cut-up tree out of the way? How much chainsaw fuel/oil do they have?
Neither is it very clever to be using a chainsaw in the dark when it's very windy and there's only limited lighting (the sort of lighting you need to chainsaw in the dark needs it's own rail trolley and gennie).
I’d never in my life, heard wind as bad as last night in the Merseyside area, it was actually frightening at one point!
Multiple trees down across the whole West Kirby line, Kirkby line, Ormskirk line and Southport line as well as a roof collapse at a station on the Southport line last night, made conditions atrocious, with serious concerns about running a train service, with the likelihood of trains getting trapped or stranded by fallen trees. There was already 1 train trapped last night near Southport from about 2200 that didn’t get into Southport until well after midnight.
Multiple trees making clearance very challenging.............
We should congratulate the advances in weather forecasting which made it possible to predict the storm days ahead . Even ten years ago developing storms from the North were almost impossible to foresee with any accuracy.
Indeed, the weather forecasting is much better these days and Network Rail plus the Train Operators have a well-practised system for dealing with "weather emergencies" including a cessation of services to reduce the number of stranded passengers/traincrew.
The logistics will always be challenging, and it would appear from the footage of the storm that the railway mame generally good calls yesterday e.g. shutting down the ECML before the wires and trees came down (as no doubt was expected they would).
TPO