Trains overshooting the platform....

[sanf]

On the 1530 Kings Cross - Glasgow on Friday. We came into Newark a little hot, and ended up stopping with the platform end alongside the backend of carriage E. The last part of the stop had been quite abrupt and the brakes really smelt.

After a few embarrassed announcements, the train was 'reversed' into the station (the delay was the driver changing ends) - before allowing us all off the train, some 10 minutes later. A few points occurred to me;

Does this happen very often (across any lines in the UK) ? I've been using this line for 15 years and it was a first?
Are there any implications - such as any incident on an aeroplane, or just an embarrassed driver?
On the 225 can only ALL the doors be opened at once, not selective ones?? Why did they not just move us all down to where the doors where on the platform?

Thanks folks

[williamp]

I've often thought is this: use longer trains to increase capacity, and make sure the people at the very edn know they have to move down. It happens at loughborough station, it could happen everywhere.

[TommoAE86]

I have only seen sets of doors open on SWT's Waterloo-Weymouth/Poole trains, so if none of the complete sets are in the platform then you'd always be opening doors to fresh air. I'm hoping this has more credibility as the announcements which say "please move to the front/rear 4 or 5 coaches"

However I was just a commuter and therefore I am happy to be told I am a fool and am wrong!

The trains I've been on are Class 444's and 450's

[MitchT]

sanf said:

Why did they not just move us all down to where the doors where on the platform?

Probably 'health & safety' or something. I remember in the early '90s I used to enjoy regular jaunts up the Settle & Carlisle line. At the time the trains were loco-hauled and had eight coaches. At the stations with shorter platforms passengers would simply board and alight via the first four coaches. Can't see that being allowed these days though. The trains through my town into Leeds are horrifically overcrowded but only ever have four coaches as most of the platforms on the line are only long enough to accommodate four coaches. Even two new stations on the route (opened in the last year) are still only four coaches long. Fail! In any sensible world they'd increase capacity by running longer trains and building longer platforms to accommodate them, but that would require the train operating companies to spend money on rolling stock instead of giving it to their directors and shareholders, and there'd have to be joined up thinking between them and Network Rail who own the infrastructure. Can't see either of the above happening before hell freezes over.

[C0ffin D0dger]

He'll not be happy:



On another note, why does he always have two henchmen / body guards with him? Always getting threatened by members of the public as the trains are late or cancelled?

[MitchT]

That's the reason I've been given by train staff on my local line.

[untakenname]

The worst ones are the ones that inexplicably break into two with one end going to a different destination. Woke up in Sandwich one night on the last train after getting on at Waterloo, wasn't too pleased.

[MitchT]

untakenname said:

The worst ones are the ones that inexplicably break into two with one end going to a different destination.

Happened to me at the end of a break in Munich. Made for an interesting few minutes trying to work out which bit of the train I should be on to get to the airport!

[Yertis]

TommoAE86 said:

I have only seen sets of doors open on SWT's Waterloo-Weymouth/Poole trains, so if none of the complete sets are in the platform then you'd always be opening doors to fresh air. I'm hoping this has more credibility as the announcements which say "please move to the front/rear 4 or 5 coaches"

However I was just a commuter and therefore I am happy to be told I am a fool and am wrong!

The trains I've been on are Class 444's and 450's

[4REP]
"Passengers for stations beyond Bournemouth should move to the front four (or eight) carriages..."
[/4REP]

I am old...

[alangla]

TommoAE86 said:

I have only seen sets of doors open on SWT's Waterloo-Weymouth/Poole trains, so if none of the complete sets are in the platform then you'd always be opening doors to fresh air. I'm hoping this has more credibility as the announcements which say "please move to the front/rear 4 or 5 coaches"

However I was just a commuter and therefore I am happy to be told I am a fool and am wrong!

The trains I've been on are Class 444's and 450's

Modern ones generally use GPS to locate the train & select the correct number of doors to open (assuming the train is correctly stopped on the platform!), the Great Western ones (AIUI) either the guard chooses a door on an HST & selects either "all forward of here" or "all rearward of here" or on an Adelante the driver turns a dial with the number of coaches to open.
There is, of course, the extreme situations like ScotRail stopping at Beauly (a station the size of a bus shelter) - there the guard opens one door & everyone gets on & off through the one door. Beauly, needless to say, does not have the same volume of traffic as East Croydon.

[gadgit]

Just so you all know......
This event is always taken seriously today, but would have been insignificant quite a few years ago.
The driver will have contacted the signaller, who will know if the emergency brake has been applied, and discuss the incident making a judgement if the driver can continue forwards to the next location where the driver will be fully assessed. The signaller would have given the driver permission to change ends and drive back into the platform. the driver would have been embarrassed, or even very upset depending on the circumstances of why the train did not stop. The signalman would have to report this incident to the train operating company TOC.
The driver will be seen by a driver manager asap to assess if he is fit to continue driving, and if not, will be relieved from duty.
He would then be booked off duty for an investigation into the incident the next day.
To confirm the incident details, the driver manager will download the trains black box......well its not black, but you know what I mean....
So, after the investigation by the driver manager, and without going into to much detail......... If he his record is good he will be back on the iron road within a couple of days. Believe me, you can't get away with anything much?
This is only highlighting some area of this incident....... There is much more to it than I can go into....believe me this is not Croyden.....
A train is still one of the safest ways to travel...

Gadgit.

[MitchT]

When Pacers were first introduced we got three-car 144s on my local line. They were always overshooting until the drivers learned to compensate for the reduced braking arising from only having four wheels per coach, compared with the outgoing 101s and 108s that we'd had before.

[alangla]

And some of them apparently had rubbishy cable operated brakes when they were new!!! (long since replaced by decent air brakes)

[surveyor]

gadgit said:

Just so you all know......
This event is always taken seriously today, but would have been insignificant quite a few years ago.
The driver will have contacted the signaller, who will know if the emergency brake has been applied, and discuss the incident making a judgement if the driver can continue forwards to the next location where the driver will be fully assessed. The signaller would have given the driver permission to change ends and drive back into the platform. the driver would have been embarrassed, or even very upset depending on the circumstances of why the train did not stop. The signalman would have to report this incident to the train operating company TOC.
The driver will be seen by a driver manager asap to assess if he is fit to continue driving, and if not, will be relieved from duty.
He would then be booked off duty for an investigation into the incident the next day.
To confirm the incident details, the driver manager will download the trains black box......well its not black, but you know what I mean....
So, after the investigation by the driver manager, and without going into to much detail......... If he his record is good he will be back on the iron road within a couple of days. Believe me, you can't get away with anything much?
This is only highlighting some area of this incident....... There is much more to it than I can go into....believe me this is not Croyden.....
A train is still one of the safest ways to travel...

Gadgit.

It all seem's a bit blamey.... Not really a 'just' culture.

http://www.eurocontrol.int/articles/just-culture

[Nik da Greek]

gadgit said:

Just so you all know......
This event is always taken seriously today, but would have been insignificant quite a few years ago.
The driver will have contacted the signaller, who will know if the emergency brake has been applied, and discuss the incident making a judgement if the driver can continue forwards to the next location where the driver will be fully assessed. The signaller would have given the driver permission to change ends and drive back into the platform. the driver would have been embarrassed, or even very upset depending on the circumstances of why the train did not stop. The signalman would have to report this incident to the train operating company TOC.
The driver will be seen by a driver manager asap to assess if he is fit to continue driving, and if not, will be relieved from duty.
He would then be booked off duty for an investigation into the incident the next day.
To confirm the incident details, the driver manager will download the trains black box......well its not black, but you know what I mean....
So, after the investigation by the driver manager, and without going into to much detail......... If he his record is good he will be back on the iron road within a couple of days. Believe me, you can't get away with anything much?
This is only highlighting some area of this incident....... There is much more to it than I can go into....believe me this is not Croyden.....
A train is still one of the safest ways to travel...

Gadgit.

Surely you missed a step there? The one where the driver is placed under guard by management until a Drugs & Alchohol team can arrive, check the toilets to make sure there is no pre-arranged bottle of virgin piss stashed away in there, tape over all the washbasins to stop the driver using water from the taps and pour dye into the toilets to stop the driver scooping out toilet water. Then the poor unfortunate fool will be expected to produce a specimen which, needless to say will get them instant dismissal should any "alchohol, undeclared prescription drug or drug or missuse" be found in their system.

Avoiding instant dismissal there is then the weeks of trial by messroom where the driver has to run a gaunlet of their peers whilst essentially sitting on the naughty step waiting for a manager to pull their finger out of their arse and actually settle the investigation.


Still, at the end of it you do get a nice highlighter pen gratis. Lovely

[sanf]

gadgit said:

Just so you all know......
This event is always taken seriously today, but would have been insignificant quite a few years ago.
The driver will have contacted the signaller, who will know if the emergency brake has been applied, and discuss the incident making a judgement if the driver can continue forwards to the next location where the driver will be fully assessed. The signaller would have given the driver permission to change ends and drive back into the platform. the driver would have been embarrassed, or even very upset depending on the circumstances of why the train did not stop. The signalman would have to report this incident to the train operating company TOC.
The driver will be seen by a driver manager asap to assess if he is fit to continue driving, and if not, will be relieved from duty.
He would then be booked off duty for an investigation into the incident the next day.
To confirm the incident details, the driver manager will download the trains black box......well its not black, but you know what I mean....
So, after the investigation by the driver manager, and without going into to much detail......... If he his record is good he will be back on the iron road within a couple of days. Believe me, you can't get away with anything much?
This is only highlighting some area of this incident....... There is much more to it than I can go into....believe me this is not Croyden.....
A train is still one of the safest ways to travel...

Gadgit.

Thank-you for that. So it is treated in a very similar fashion to the aviation industry. A family member had a minor incident they were flying commercially and I know the hoops they had to jump through.

The overall mood of the passengers on the train was quite jovial, and the whole thing seemed a little routine, no major dramas. But it's the first time in 15 years I've known it happen, and I travel an average once to twice a week.

[Jader1973]

In July 1995 a train failed to stop at the station in the town I lived in...sometimes they can't reverse back...







I was at work in the supermarket beside the station at the time - massive bang followed by someone shouting "A train has just gone right through the station".

[croakey]

I was on the HS1 out of St Pancras a few years back when the driver of a 12 car train stopped at the 6 car marker point.

Rather than move it up the platform they decided to hold it in position for nigh on 20mins.

... then pulled it forward , de trained everyone onto the platform and told them they'd need to get the service after.

An odd system but I'd imagine someone got a proper telling off

[Rick101]

Happens fairly regularly, esp around this time of year.

We are at the back end of the Railway 'Autumn' season now and poor adhesion should not be as much of an issue. It's more of a concern on lightly used branch lines tbh.

I don't think Friday's incident was Autumn related.

[Greshamst]

croakey said:

I was on the HS1 out of St Pancras a few years back when the driver of a 12 car train stopped at the 6 car marker point.

Rather than move it up the platform they decided to hold it in position for nigh on 20mins.

... then pulled it forward , de trained everyone onto the platform and told them they'd need to get the service after.

An odd system but I'd imagine someone got a proper telling off

Same here on a thameslink train out of St. Pancras a few weeks ago. Train driver overshot the platform, we all wait for 20 mins not moving, train driver walks up the carriages and back again, and we get 'de-trained' and crammed into an all stops service. Wasn't fun.