Delays this morning (25/07/12)

[whole diary]

[Louis94]

there must be some way of moving them one at a time rather than just leaving them all where they are...you'd think

You clearly desire a Railway where safety of passengers is second, and the keeping trains running during failures is a higher priority.

[bobm]

It is at times like last night that the "old" system of manual boxes every few miles would have saved the day as any problem would have been more localised - but then how often do you get a failure on the scale of last night's?

[johoare]

there must be some way of moving them one at a time rather than just leaving them all where they are...you'd think

You clearly desire a Railway where safety of passengers is second, and the keeping trains running during failures is a higher priority.

That isn't what I said though.. I was just wondering why they can't move the trains one at a time.. obviously it would have to be done slowly for safety's sake if it was possible at all?

(Btw since you mentioned passenger safety - I'm not sure leaving a 37 week pregnant lady on a very hot train to be terribly safe for her to be honest either - we convinced her to come in a taxi the rest of the way as I don't think any FGW^▸ (First Great Western) staff members would have done anything)

[HexDriver]

To be fair it sounds like you are making an assumption about FGW^▸ (First Great Western) staff there

As for your first point, first thing the signaller needs to work out is where every train is and without detection this isn't as simple as you'd think and then they need to arrange for a pilotman to guide the trains through the section one by one at cautionary speed. This does take time to organise though and trains can't be moved until then

[johoare]

Yes apologies I did think that after I typed it.. I just wonder if she somehow could have got a free taxi.. The Barrier staff certainly saw her going through and it was quite obvious (since the trains had already been stuck for so long) that we didn't really live in Slough and that she was very pregnant..but nothing was said.. To be fair though we also didn't ask..

They were good enough not to attempt to see our tickets mind 

And yes.. I think Southern Stag's reply re what is possible and what isn't re moving trains was very informative to be honest..

I'm just glad we were stuck at a station.. Does anyone know if there were trains stuck in between stations for the hour and a half or so as that would have been most unpleasant on an overcrowded, air-con not working, turbo?

[argg]

Yes, I was on a non air con turbo which stopped just before Maidenhead.  Fortunately by then it was not overcrowded so if you sat still and had enough battery life on your smartphone/tablet/e-reader of choice (or a good old fashioned book) it was just about bearable.

The driver did his best to keep us informed however with a very poor quality, low volume PA^▸ (Public Address (broadcast loudspeaker announcements) or Passenger Assist (railway staff providing physical assistance to passengers with mobility issues), depending on context) system coupled with the windows open and the engines clattering away it was very difficult to hear the information, however over the course of the hour or so I managed to get:

"sorry...delay...signal problems...all signals at red...power outage at slough"

  some sort of UPS or backup power source would be a good idea