Person hit by train between Southall and London Paddington - 15 October 2014

[whole diary]

[Chris from Nailsea]

From FGW^▸ (First Great Western) JourneyCheck:

Cancellations to services between Southall and London Paddington

Due to a person hit by a train between Southall and London Paddington some lines are blocked.

Train services running to and from these stations may be cancelled or delayed. An estimate for the resumption of normal services will be provided as soon as the problem has been fully assessed.

Last Updated: 15/10/2014 13:55

[ChrisB]

Ealing Broadway is the location being tweeted about....

[Chris from Nailsea]

Indeed - from FGW^▸ (First Great Western) JourneyCheck:

London Underground Update

Ealing Broadway Station Closed
The station is closed whilst the police respond to an incident, your tickets will be accepted on the local buses.
This Information will apply from 15/10/2014 13:17 to 16/10/2014 01:29.
This will affect journeys from 15/10/2014 13:17 to 16/10/2014 01:29.

Last Updated: 13:17:59 15/10/2014

and

Cancellations to services between Southall and London Paddington

Due to a person hit by a train between Southall and London Paddington some lines are blocked.

Train services running to and from these stations may be cancelled or delayed. An estimate for the resumption of normal services will be provided as soon as the problem has been fully assessed.

Cross Country are conveying passengers between Taunton and Plymouth in both directions until further notice.
First Berkshire Buses 1B & 2 Slough (Bus Station) - Burnham, First Berkshire Bus 75 Maidenhead - Taplow - Burnham - Slough (Bus Station) - Langley, First Berkshire Bus 76 Burnham - Slough (Bus Station) - Langley and First Berkshire Buses 71, 77, 191, 701 & 702 Slough (Bus Station) - Windsor are conveying passengers via any reasonable route until further notice.
Cross Country are conveying passengers between Reading and Birmingham New Street in both directions until further notice.
South West Trains are conveying passengers between Reading and London Waterloo in both directions until further notice.
Chiltern Railways are conveying passengers via any reasonable route until further notice.

Last Updated: 15/10/2014 14:14

[TaplowGreen]

...........goes without saying that thoughts are with all concerned, seems to be becoming virtually a weekly event on the PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains)-RDG^‡(resolve) line, must be awful for driver's morale.

Sadly it's difficult to know what can practically be done to prevent it once someone has set themselves on a course of action (.....once again I'm assuming it's suicide)

[Chris from Nailsea]

From GetWestLondon:

Man dies after impact with train at Ealing Broadway station

There have been four fatalities at or near this station in the last four months

A man was hit by a train at Ealing Broadway station at about 1.45pm today (October 15).

British Transport Police (BTP^▸ (British Transport Police)), colleagues from the Metropolitan Police Service and London Ambulance Service attended and the man was pronounced dead at the scene.

A spokesman for British Transport Police (BTP) said: ^His death is not being treated as suspicious. Officers are now working to identify the man and inform his family. A file will be prepared for the coroner.^

A spokesperson from the London Ambulance Service said they sent a duty officer, an ambulance crew and a single responder in a car, and London's Air Ambulance were also called. She said: "Sadly a person was found dead at the scene. "

First Great Western said the incident happened at 1.40pm today. There were cancellations and delays to trains between Paddington and Ealing but all lines are now open and there are no delays.

[Electric train]

This the last station in the area without (full) Fast Line Platform Fencing

[JayMac]

Is it not the case that the fast line platform faces at Ealing Broadway remain unfenced as the station has an emergency function should London Paddington not be available?

I seem to remember instances in the past of long distance services terminating at Ealing Broadway then heading back west  when Paddington had to be evacuated and closed.

[stuving]

Is it not the case that the fast line platform faces at Ealing Broadway remain unfenced as the station has an emergency function should London Paddington not be available?

I seem to remember instances in the past of long distance services terminating at Ealing Broadway then heading back west  when Paddington had to be evacuated and closed.

I thought the plan for Main Line platforms went like this:
1. All Crossrail stations need platforms on all four running lines, to implement "7-day railway", as well as other tremporary working patterns. So many Main Line platforms have to be built/rebuilt/.extended, and any platform face fences removed.
2. Most stations have no regular stopping services at the Main Line platforms, so access to them will be gated and the gates kept locked except when rarely needed.
3. Island platforms will need fences to divide them, into which those fences go.
4. That leaves the stations with some services at the Main Line platforms on most days - Slough (all day), Maidenhead and Twyford (peaks only). I'm not sure what the plan is there - I can think of a number of alternatives.

For some reason the planning documents about this have been kept private. However, I did find one that relates to platform 3 at Langley (http://www.rgsonline.co.uk/Deviations/Deviation/13-089-DEV.PDF). It describes this fence as:

168.4 m of 1.4 m high fencing grey galvanised fencing to restrict access to the main line side of the island platform (platforms 2 and 3) at Langley; of this 168.4 m, 11 m would be out of compliance and is what the derogation relates to.
There will be four sliding gates within the fence to allow access and egress where necessary between the main lines and relief lines.
These gates can be left open in the rare occasions where services need to call on the main line platforms at the station and or when the station is unmanned, such as overnight.

(Compliance relates to GI/RT7016 requiring 3.0 m of platform width.)

There follows a discussion of how this fence relates to other suicide prevention measures.

[JayMac]

I was of course referring to historic, and maybe current, provision.

[a-driver]

...........goes without saying that thoughts are with all concerned, seems to be becoming virtually a weekly event on the PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains)-RDG^‡(resolve) line, must be awful for driver's morale.

Sadly it's difficult to know what can practically be done to prevent it once someone has set themselves on a course of action (.....once again I'm assuming it's suicide)

It doesn't really affect morale. I think most drivers in the country know there is a good chance they will have a fatality especially if you work on LU and the routes Ealing to Slough and Shenfield to Stratford.  It's now considered part of the job.

Those barriers they have installed are causing us more problems on Sunday, especially at places like Southall.  They are making the main line platforms very narrow and what we are finding is passenegers do not use the full length of the platform, they all congregate  in the area of the rear carriage often standing on the edge of what is a 125mph platform.

[stuving]

I was of course referring to historic, and maybe current, provision.

Yes, but the newly installed fences are supposed to provide what you said - access only when needed - which fencing of the platform edge cannot. And given the underlying logic, you'd expect Ealing Broadway to get that fencing too.

However, having now got into the Ealing Borough planning search (it's tucked up in bed at night), I can see that the current plans do not include any access control fencing on platforms 1 and 2. What's there now is shown as "existing", but nothing as new in the D&A statement or plans. That does seem a bit surprising, unless NR^» (Network Rail - home page) reckon they can do that without any planning application so they left it out.

The planning reference is P/2013/5387; granted with conditions 15/8/2014 though I can't see any way to access the decision itself!

Those barriers they have installed are causing us more problems on Sunday, especially at places like Southall.  They are making the main line platforms very narrow and what we are finding is passenegers do not use the full length of the platform, they all congregate  in the area of the rear carriage often standing on the edge of what is a 125mph platform.

Is this another case where the 3 m minimum could not be achieved, or is that narrow enough to discourage people moving along it?

[onthecushions]

I was on it. It was a three car Turbo from Bedwyn, ex-Reading at 1222. There was a collision in Ealing Broadway station, at c1245 with ballast thrown up between the train and the up main platform. The train stopped for 80 minutes. A chopper landed just North of the station  bringing in the police. The Guard kept all passengers informed by going down the train personally every 10 minutes or so. In addition there were two driver managers on board, one attended to the driver, the other came down the train offering to make calls for passengers. At Paddington, a coffee + shortbread trolley, staffed by a lady in purple was provided.

12/10 for all the staff involved, (please let someone high up know how good they were), sympathy for the driver and those on the track after, and of course the bereaved.

This is my third one.

OTC

[Chris from Nailsea]

Many thanks for posting so objectively and sympathetically, onthecushions.

It was a rather bad couple of days altogether on the railways in London, apparently.  From London24:

Normal service resumes at Paddington after person hit by train at Ealing Broadway


Twitter user @colin_p_cor tweeted this photograph of the empty departures board at Paddington station

Trains in and out of London Paddington have returned to normal after a person was hit by a train at Ealing Broadway, causing severe disruption..

The incident happened at around 12.45pm, and is believed to have involved the 11.39am service from Bedwyn to Paddington.

British Transport Police confirmed they were investigating.

Initially all lines in and out of the busy west London station were cancelled, grinding all FirstGreatWestern and Heathrow Express services to a halt.

The Tube station at Ealing Broadway was also shut this lunchtime, with no access to the Central and District Lines.

A spokesman for London Ambulance Service confirmed they were called to the station at 12.59pm - but when paramedics arrived on the scene the person was found dead.

A person was killed on the tube tracks at Archway station yesterday morning, whilst a man was rushed to hospital after he was hit by a train at Woolwich Dockyard in the afternoon.

[Electric train]

Is it not the case that the fast line platform faces at Ealing Broadway remain unfenced as the station has an emergency function should London Paddington not be available?

I seem to remember instances in the past of long distance services terminating at Ealing Broadway then heading back west  when Paddington had to be evacuated and closed.

If that was the reason the design would include more gates, the real reason I suspect is the impending deconstruction and rebuild of Ealing Broadway as part of the Crossrail work