Fatalities at Hayes & Harlington - merged topic

[whole diary]

[dviner]

But all the trains on the main SHOULD have been slowed to let us get back on to the main line without any of them being able to overtake us, that is the whole point! If anything it is some of the later departures that should have been left on the relief, especially if they were less likely to catch up to a stopper in the process.

Unfortunately, that's not the way it works - I believe that it is deemed better to let an already very delayed train accumulate more delay, rather than contribute to the delay of other services. Lesser of two evils.

[eightf48544]

But all the trains on the main SHOULD have been slowed to let us get back on to the main line without any of them being able to overtake us, that is the whole point! If anything it is some of the later departures that should have been left on the relief, especially if they were less likely to catch up to a stopper in the process.

Unfortunately, that's not the way it works - I believe that it is deemed better to let an already very delayed train accumulate more delay, rather than contribute to the delay of other services. Lesser of two evils.

Dviner you have hit on the precise problem with the way lateness is recorded by train and not by minutes. In BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) days we recorded by minutes and divided by number of trains Thus it was better to have two trains 5 minutes late than one 15 minutes down.

Thus there was incentive to minimise delays to all trains. In which case Jane s is right her train should have been switched to the Main at Dolphin or Slough West.

A classic case of statistics distoring the outcome for the worse.

[dviner]

Dviner you have hit on the precise problem with the way lateness is recorded by train and not by minutes. In BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) days we recorded by minutes and divided by number of trains Thus it was better to have two trains 5 minutes late than one 15 minutes down.

Thus there was incentive to minimise delays to all trains. In which case Jane s is right her train should have been switched to the Main at Dolphin or Slough West.

A classic case of statistics distoring the outcome for the worse.

In BR days there probably was Delay Attribution*, but I doubt that it had all the financial fun and games associated with it that there is today.

With the possibility of trains from different Operating Companies being involved in an incident, the delay can't be averaged out, so it has to be dealt with on a train-by-train basis.

*Something that is a bit of a dirty word nowadays, but, putting the whole money-go-round part of it aside, it does need to exist, as it should have an important role in the whole root-cause analysis and corrective action process.

[eightf48544]

Yep it's the "bean counters who rule the roost not the railwaymen". Plus the silly idea that TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) should compete.

I remember helping with a delay analysis at Essex House measuirng delays in the up peak at Victoria. In those days it was manual we collected the guards reports which gave detailed running times. So it was possible to look at which trains that were normally delayed and where it first occured. Thus it led to tweaks in the timetable (not padding) to rectify the situation.

[BBM]

Dviner you have hit on the precise problem with the way lateness is recorded by train and not by minutes. In BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) days we recorded by minutes and divided by number of trains Thus it was better to have two trains 5 minutes late than one 15 minutes down.

Thus there was incentive to minimise delays to all trains. In which case Jane s is right her train should have been switched to the Main at Dolphin or Slough West.

A classic case of statistics distoring the outcome for the worse.

There was one annoying thing which used to happen regularly, maybe every couple of weeks or so, when I commuted in BR days on the loco-hauled trains from Twyford. Even after an on-time departure from Maidenhead (the last stop before Paddington) where it was put onto the Up Main, at Slough West the train would be switched back to the Up Relief and would trundle to Dolphin Junction where it would stand for a couple of minutes until an HST^▸ (High Speed Train) went past (presumably a late-running one?) before returning to the Up Main. This could cause a delay of about 8-10 minutes to my train. Therefore it would appear that priority was being given to a late-running HST over an on-time local semi-fast, so yes it looks like it was better to have two trains late than one train (the HST) being delayed further.

[grahame]

It's tough on the people on the delayed (first) train ... but isn't there a sense in leaving it to find its own way / path through an otherwise normal set of other trains, rather than reducing its lateness (but still running it out of path) and knocking on to running following trains out of path too?

Single train delayed ... knock on is only to the rest of that diagram.  Multiple trains delayed ... knock on is to lots of diagrams and could bring general chaos.

I'm noticing today that the Paddington -> Newquay train is 30 late and is terminating at Par, starting back from there too.  Presumably that's done to avoid a knock-on delay to the next train on the branch, and also other knock-ons when the service gets back into Devon and beyond.  But pity the people who turn up at Newquay for the 15:00 to Paddington.  How late will they be when they get back into London?

Just looked up to answer my own question ... 3 hours late by London - not 20:39 but 23:41.  By which time many will have missed their last train to the 'burbs.

[Ollie]

It's tough on the people on the delayed (first) train ... but isn't there a sense in leaving it to find its own way / path through an otherwise normal set of other trains, rather than reducing its lateness (but still running it out of path) and knocking on to running following trains out of path too?

Single train delayed ... knock on is only to the rest of that diagram.  Multiple trains delayed ... knock on is to lots of diagrams and could bring general chaos.

I'm noticing today that the Paddington -> Newquay train is 30 late and is terminating at Par, starting back from there too.  Presumably that's done to avoid a knock-on delay to the next train on the branch, and also other knock-ons when the service gets back into Devon and beyond.  But pity the people who turn up at Newquay for the 15:00 to Paddington.  How late will they be when they get back into London?

Just looked up to answer my own question ... 3 hours late by London - not 20:39 but 23:41.  By which time many will have missed their last train to the 'burbs.

Road transport will be resourced which will reduce the delay for those from Newquay. Delay was because the train hit a tree.

[Louis94]

I'm noticing today that the Paddington -> Newquay train is 30 late and is terminating at Par, starting back from there too.  Presumably that's done to avoid a knock-on delay to the next train on the branch, and also other knock-ons when the service gets back into Devon and beyond. 

In my opinion it has caused more delays terminating it at Par, especially with the higher speed limit on the Newquay line now, it would easily make its return service and would not delay anything as it does not pass anything at Goonbarrow in both directions, last summer when I travelled on that service it arrived 7 minutes early without the increased speed - Intend to travel on this service tomorrow - see how early it arrives, if it makes the whole journey that is! 

Terminating the service at Par involved shunting it around or something, and that has delayed the following Paddington to Penzance service further. Can only see this being for one reason and that being that the Newquay - Penzance unit uses crew from the Newquay HST^▸ (High Speed Train) service, so would be blocking the platform to allow the HST to continue to Newquay.

[grahame]

Just looked up to answer my own question ... 3 hours late by London - not 20:39 but 23:41.  By which time many will have missed their last train to the 'burbs.

Road transport will be resourced which will reduce the delay for those from Newquay. Delay was because the train hit a tree.

Yes .. sorry Ollie .. I didn't see a "road transport" note like I sometimes do on the short-run report, so I made an incorrect assumption. Probably 21:21 into London for Newquay passengers, then.

[inspector_blakey]

Unfortunately, that's not the way it works - I believe that it is deemed better to let an already very delayed train accumulate more delay, rather than contribute to the delay of other services. Lesser of two evils.

Dviner you have hit on the precise problem with the way lateness is recorded by train and not by minutes. In BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) days we recorded by minutes and divided by number of trains Thus it was better to have two trains 5 minutes late than one 15 minutes down.

Thus there was incentive to minimise delays to all trains. In which case Jane s is right her train should have been switched to the Main at Dolphin or Slough West.

A classic case of statistics distoring the outcome for the worse.

I'm not sure what you've said is strictly true eightf: BR (and the railway companies before that) had a longstanding practice of giving rush-hour commuter trains priority over late-running express services, so this sort of operating goes back well over 60 years. I'm not saying that the response to the incident last week was perfect, and of course the lines these days between purely express and commuter traffic are blurred somewhat, but it's misleading to say that allowing a heavily delayed train to get later rather than mess up a bunch of right-time services is a product of privatization.

[IndustryInsider]

There's also a lot more trains now than there used to be making more stops to cope with the number of people that want to travel.  To compare the 1965 timetable with today the number of departures from Paddington between 5-6pm was 20 and it's now 26 - that makes it much more difficult to regulate trains sensibly, especially given that quite a few of those missed out calls at Reading.

Off-peak and the difference was even larger - for example now Paddington to Ealing Broadway has eight trains each off-peak hour.  Back in 1965 it was three.  Hayes used to have two, but now enjoys six.

[HexDriver]

A pertinant point regarding crossing trains from relief lines and main lines and vice versa is the track lay out, where as other lines have two up lines and then two down lines the gwml has up and down main and up and down relief. This means that potentially to cross a train from the relief to the main you have to slow down/stop a up service as well as stopping the one on the down main meaning that potentially you now have three delayed trains rather than just one.

[bobm]

Another incident at Hayes just at the start of this morning's rush hour.

From the Uxbridge Gazette.

A MAN was killed after being hit by a train at Hayes and Harlington Station this morning (Friday).
The incident happened just after 7am, and the line was closed, causing major delays to commuter traffic. The train involved was the 7.06am Paddington-Paignton service.
In a statement released at 9.40am, the British Transport Police said: "BTP^▸ (British Transport Police) officers were called to Hayes and Harlington rail station on Friday, July 20, following a report of a man being struck by a train.

"BTP and Metropolitan Police officers attended the incident, which was reported to BTP at 7.20am and is currently being treated as non-suspicious. 

"Paramedics from London Ambulance Service also attended but the man was pronounced dead at the scene.

"Enquiries are ongoing to establish the identity of the man and inform his family.

"A file will be prepared for the coroner."

The line was handed back to Network Rail at 8.30am.
The London Ambulance Service sent three crews of paramedics, and a hazardous area response team (HART), who are specially trained to provide medical care to patients in dangerous environments.

Jack Griffith writes from the scene:
First Great Western staff in high visibility jackets could be seen shovelling sand on to the tracks of platform one, where the person was struck.
One commuter travelling to Paddington, who did not want to be named, said: "When I got here at around 8.30am the station was closed, and there was police everywhere. I saw the ambulance take the body away.
"This is the second time it has happened in a few weeks. I have lived in the area for about 20 years and I have never seen anything like it."
Twenty-year-old Antonio Martinez was killed after being hit by a train at the station on June 26.

Councillor Janet Gardner (Lab, Botwell) called the Gazette and said she hoped to organise a meeting between the area's Safer Neighbourhood Team and Network Rail, which owns the station.

While she stressed she did not want to prejudge the reasons behind the man's death, she said: "The station is too accessible, people can just walk in."

[gpn01]

I was on the 07:08 Maidenhead - Paddington HST^▸ (High Speed Train) this morning that was affected by the fatality near Hayes.  First we knew something was amiss when we slowed down quite briskly and came to a stop at West Drayton.   

Due credit to the Train Manager who made annoucements providing updates that commenced with "the driver's gone to find out what the matter is", "fatality on the line, expected to be delays of unknown duration", "you may want to consider taking the bus to Uxrbidge and taking the tube from there" plus other useful announcements - although the one about transferring onto a train on another platform (which looked like it left before anyone managed to cross the platforms!) may have been better timed.

As soon as we stopped I checked the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) site and that said there'd be an incident (soon updated to confirm it was a fatality).  Twitter (#fgw) was useful too.

It's during events such as this that information and progress updates are invaluable, so well done to the team who ensured this happened - both the on-train team and those who update the website & twitter feeds.

[Electric train]

I was on the 07:08 Maidenhead - Paddington HST^▸ (High Speed Train) this morning that was affected by the fatality near Hayes.  First we knew something was amiss when we slowed down quite briskly and came to a stop at West Drayton.   

Due credit to the Train Manager who made annoucements providing updates that commenced with "the driver's gone to find out what the matter is", "fatality on the line, expected to be delays of unknown duration", "you may want to consider taking the bus to Uxrbidge and taking the tube from there" plus other useful announcements - although the one about transferring onto a train on another platform (which looked like it left before anyone managed to cross the platforms!) may have been better timed.

As soon as we stopped I checked the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) site and that said there'd be an incident (soon updated to confirm it was a fatality).  Twitter (#fgw) was useful too.

It's during events such as this that information and progress updates are invaluable, so well done to the team who ensured this happened - both the on-train team and those who update the website & twitter feeds.

I was on the 07:03 from Maidenhead this morning it arrived at Padd 07:23, 4 mins ahead of time, however there were not announcements (that I heard)about delays although head down and aim for the Tube.