Whole Line Suspended . . .

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Depends on the nature of the failure - if the local site communications are borked then getting a train *through* Liverpool Street could be fun.

I wonder if the 'suspension' is there to let the beleaguered souls in Wood Lane get a work around TT sorted?

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Let's see: where could you reverse Bethnal Green and British Museum? Neither of which are ideal and would require quite a few units dropping out of service to allow a sensible service density compromise.

Just a defective fuse (seriously).

Power fuse. And it wasn't the fuse itself, from my discussion with the Signal Incident Manager and DOME at 1945.

It must have on;ly just happened when I got to the platform at St Pauls, as the platform staff were trying to signal the train away despite the red signal. The driver said we'd be there a while so I went back topside. Hordes of people were still coming down the escalator at that time.

When I got to Bank by Shank's Pony, I could hear announcements saying they were tipping out a train there (e/b I think) so that another train (presumably in the tunnel between the one I'd left at St Pauls and the one already at Bank) could be got to the platform.

(A good job I hadn't been slightly earlier, or that would have been the one I was on!)

What's the usual rating for fuses of this type? Are they larger than your garden-variety 30/40/50A fuse?

I take it from your comments, 21146, that we can expect this one to get a mention in the media then?....

Just because train radio and traction current are available doesn't mean that there are no issues. If the signalling system (and thus the signallers) cannot see the location of trains, then you've got to be very careful about moving anything and making sure that you note where you've sent each train. I'd also want to confirm that a train I'd told to move from A to B had actually done so before I moved the train behind to position A. This will take time, and if the trains can only be moved in restricted manual then the moving will take significantly longer as well.

It takes time to detrain crowded trains - and you can be sure that Central Line trains in the rush hour are going to be crowded at a minimum. It's almost always preferable to detrain passengers at stations, and so once you've spent the time detraining the train in the the platform. There will have been people who didn't want to be detrained, and any staff on the platform to help detrain will be slowed down by passengers asking the questions, then add more time to allow the driver to get back to their cab through any passengers remaining on the platform. You've then got to wait for that train to move out the way (slowly) and confirm it has moved out of the way before you can move the train behind it from the tunnel behind it into the station. If you have more than one train between stations, you've then got to repeat this - making sure that there is somewhere for the first train to go. It could easily be that this second train you've now moved into the station was preventing the train in the platform at the previous station moving forward so the one behind it could move from the tunnel to the platform and then detrain it's passengers.

You can be sure the Central Line controllers earned their money today.

A station assistant at Marble Arch told me it was the North Acton to Leytonstone stretch that was suspended and there was still a service at the outer ends and they were advising passengers for the western end to get to Paddington and take NR to Ealing Broadway or the Piccadilly and then District Line from Hyde Park Corner. A service had resumed by early evening but not suprisingly 'servere delays' were advertised.

'fraid so !

www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23807806-tube-passengers-stuck-in-tunnel-for-hours-and-staff-didnt-know.do

As always, one wonders how accurate some of this "reporting" may be.

I got stuck on the Central Line in a tunnel once upon a time, but only for about 15 minutes. The train was moderately busy, but no seats remaining, and nobody was standing.

At the time, if felt like ages...

I don't think a passenger would ever leave a train after been stuck in a tunnel and say 'wow, I really enjoyed that experience'. It can feel quite traumatic.

I use the mental strategy 1. the traction current is still on, so thing's can't be that bad (if something serious had happened it would of been turned off), 2. it is doing my health good to be away from mobile phone signals for a while, which would otherwise be bouncing off my head constantly, 3. i am having an opportunity to sit or stand still, and 4. I smile at an attractive person in the hope they will notice me

Communication is what makes the difference. I think people want to feel that others are treating the situation with urgency, and understanding how they are feeling. The driver saying 'line control are incompetent' does not help. The driver saying, every 5 minutes, 'I am sorry for this. We are very close to the platform, there is a train already there, I can see the next station ahead. We cannot move because the signals have failed. We are held here because it is the safest option', followed by a greeting from staff apologising and feeling like people were waiting for the passengers to arrive. Whether or not the line controller is losing the plot isn't relevant to the passengers.

I always had an expectation (rather like when an aircraft would be evacuated) that the driver would say 'everybody off' and we would all be walking up the tract in a matter of 90 seconds! I now realise that this isn't the case. Many passengers probably don't even realise that the side doors do not open in a tunnel because there is no space.

Couldn't there be a standard paragraph that a driver would be expected to read out, if a train is stuck in a tunnel for any length of time? Explaining the basics - i.e. 'your safety is our priority. you are on this train because it is the safest place. open the end car windows for ventilation. allow passengers who are unwell to sit down. we are working quickly to resolve the situation' etc etc

This whole thing illustrates why tube drivers should be paid as much as airline pilots! The pay should reflect the pressures that drivers are expected to manage in difficult situations - because at that point in time, one LU driver is the only person 'on the ground' responsible for the safety of 1000 people in an isolated situation. He quite literally is standing in front of the only way out of the train!

Isn't hindsight a wonderful thing. And more to the point, isn't it nice to have all the time in the world to scrutinise decisions that are being made in seconds based on the available information at the time.

Now then:
At what point during the incident did you observe nothing being done? At the beginning? 10 minutes in? an hour into it?

What if the problem was resolved within 5 or 10 minutes and service control had already put the wheels in motion to have half the service put away? They may then potentially have to spend hours trying to put the service back together again when all they had to do was sit on their hands for a few minutes.

It is an unwritten rule that once a train has commenced a reversal it is left to complete the move, regardless of whether or not it is no longer necessary, in order to aid a quicker service recovery. Not helpful if the shutdown will be a short affair and you've gone down the road of assuming it'll be catastrophic.

Remember service control can only act based on whatever information they are receiving from those on the ground, and have little time to actually make a decision (the bulk of their time is spent implementing their decision) - so you as a punter could at times arguably know more about what is going on than service control!!

Whilst I would grant you that putting trains away is a recognised service control method, in this instance you would most likely need to have some idea of the nature of the problem before you could justify taking the action. Point is putting trains away is not always a clear cut or immediate answer to the problem. Now the Victoria line is a complete contrast; they have more trains in service than platforms, so it's almost a given that one of the first things Victoria line service control will do is knock a few trains out.
Maybe. Then again, maybe not.

The timings of crew reliefs and incidents are rarely the same every day, for starters, so every day is different and therefore cannot possibly be planned in advance.

Now depending on many factors, you can quite easily end up in a situation whereby a train is awaiting a crew relief but nobody has shown up. The DMT (Duty Manager Trains) is clueless.....well he will be cos the driver concerned hasn't even got off his first train yet and so the problem hasn't been flagged up let alone anticipated.

This scenario can repeat many times over when the service is half an hour or more off book - cancelling trains may ease the problem but it will never ease it by much and so this will always be an inevitable issue following major shutdowns.
Service control only know the time and location a relief is due [if everything is on book] - however train crewing is ultimately the DMT's domain. Service control can only act as per the DMT and whatever train crew he can or cannot provide. And of course it's down to the DMT to keep service control informed. On this occasion it would appear that communications were somewhat strained/confused regarding which train crew was on board and whether or not the train had been reformed.

This is quite a common occurrence unfortunately and is often the result of either the signaller, controller, DMT or such like leaving one or the other out of the loop of information that needs to flow around.
Booking off as in finished? or Meal relief? and don't forget to factor in walking time!!

If that driver was getting for a meal relief, it's a fair bet in these circumstances that they would either be running very tight for their next pick up as it was, or could already be a late relief (ie, they will definitely miss the pick up time of their next train).

Even if they're finishing they'll most likely be running late - trust me the last thing they'll want to do is mess about stabling a train they are supposed have been relieved off.

Most lines work in the same way (ie, what you see on the platform is a carbon copy of the signalling system). It seems that on this occasion the driver hadn't clocked the discrepancy on the platform indicators until it was too late.

Just goes to show we're all human.
That is absolute tosh - service control is only as good as the information they get coming in, and the people on the ground carrying out their instructions.
Really? How so? As far as I'm aware they use exactly the same methods & rule books as any other LU line.
Exactly - and isn't it ironic that your last sentence almost cancels out your whole post!!

I was a Controller (and latterly Head Controller) before train radio and all the other modern things (although both Cobourg Street and Earl's Court were up and running when I began). In the Central Line office above Leicester Square all we had was a timetable, telephone and log book (along with diagrams, etc), but no visual aids apart from the traction earth detectors for the line and Drico. There was thus no distraction from other people or illuminated diagrams, and the signalmen were our eyes and ears, along with alert station and train staff, all of whom had to use a telephone to pass information.

I agree, from a personal point of view, that there often too many trains on the road during/after a disruption. Nowadays, you have to keep as many trains on the road to make the figures statistics look good.

If, for example, there was a delay at Morden leading up to the peak, for every 2 minute delay, we would cancel a train. This wasn't done on a Controllers whim - it was the thinking at the time and was taught as such. The idea was that if there were fewer trains on the road, it would be better for them to be more easily and equally spaced, reducing the potential for congestion (i.e. provide some "breathing space"). A few cancelled trains also gave some extra crews to play with and gave the opportunity for Yard Masters to keep the trains going in the event of a train turning up with the expected crew not in position to take it over. I am not saying this was a "perfect" arrangement but we rarely had the "queuing" that sometimes takes place after a disruption (e.g. queuing Earls' Court to Acton Town on the westbound Picc, or Finsbury Park (area) up to Arnos Grove on the eastbound). Of course, it doesn't make it easier with the "super depots" (e.g. Bollo House - Acton and Ash House - Arnos Grove) being a distance from the real railway - but that's the oportunity for a discussion in a different thread - which I'm not starting !!

"Hindsight is a wonderful thing". A phrase I've heard a thousand times, which 99% of the time means, "we didn't have the foresight". Hindsight isn't holding a crystal ball, it's simply foresight that comes too late to people who can't think clearly under pressure but crumble into panic and anarchy. I make reasoned and latterly provable 'right decisions', 'at the time' without the benefit of hindsight after the event, but many of the people I work with don't. It has been commented on many times. It's simply that clear thinking is not something passed down through the ranks (in any business sector) these days in the way it was in previous generations - it has been 'factored out' of all commercial and operational discussion, either written or verbal, officially or pastorally (i.e. in mentoring). It's a great shame, but to pin down this mass failing on "not having the benefit of hindsight" is just the weakest excuse in the book.

Yes, LU really needs to learn the lessons from Ash House / Bollo House.

It's very nice to have a huge purpose-built office block for a crew depot, but these buildings are a disaster when the service goes up the wall. In my opinion the two facilities which *need* to be very close to the railway, on the platform if possible, are the DMT desk and T/Op messroom, and also the canteen if possible. Morden managed to achieve this almost to perfection, even if the crew depot building resembles a tired hospital..