Today's problem with the Bakerloo

I'm afraid that's par for the course with the current set up, along with 5-6 trains cancelled throughout most of each day. Hey ho

Well said rbisko!

In the period between the removal of detrainment staff and the start of industrial action there were over 3,000 passengers overcarried into sheds/sidings on the Bakerloo....yes, over three-thousand!!!! This caused considerable distress for many of those passengers and sheer unadulterated panic in some, so much so that one one occasion a young boy managed to get himself off the train and very (and I mean VERY) close to electrocution but for the rapid intervention of the Driver!!! And this is before you even get on to the subject of verbal assaults. This dispute is about one thing and one thing only - safety. There is considerable support amongst regular Bakerloo users for this action, so much so that I have not heard of one instance of a driver being taken to task over it by a passenger...and I work on there!!!!

I suppose the PR department won't let them away with broadcasting a message about delays due to Industrial Action then...

Believe you me cso, as a tube employee of many years standing, if a passenger is disgruntled about something they will at least ask about what is going on and in this case this is NOT happening! Quite the reverse!! On platform 3 at Queen's Park I personally have had at least 20 people throughout this dispute say 'we support what you are doing' (something I have very, very rarely heard before from anyone!!) and the 95% of the other 207 drivers on the Bakerloo that are tipping-out have had the much the same. I have even had three separate people asking for the address of 'Customer Services' because they want to write in and complain specifically about LU's questionable attitudes towards their safety!! Give the travelling public a little more credit for being able to see what is ACTUALLY going on!!!

Jubilee???


Luckily I saw the big gaps in the Bakerloo last night before committing to it for the middle leg of my journey home. It seems that I now have the choice between a political "Good Service" on a crippled line, or the possibility of arriving at Green Park via the Jubbly and finding the Vic platform stuffed solid (knowing I could have boarded fine at Oxford Circus). Oh Joy!!

No argument with the drivers.... all that has been said here seems very sensible.

Perhaps you should consider why disptach staff were implemented in the first place.

10 years ago a passenger died after falling from a train at Liverpool Street sidings, the passenger was obviously conscious of the fact no one was on the train and they shouldn't have been in that location At that point they decided to try and leave the train. How often does a passenger leave a train in passenger service because they've been stuck in a tunnel for a few minutes? Of course anyone is free to leave the train at any time, but when a train has been is entering or shut down in a siding they will panic because they realise they shouldn't be there and attempt to get out.

If it was deemed necessary for dispatch staff to be implemented in 2002 then why all of a sudden are they not needed?

I know about the incident at Liverpool Street, but the person concerned was also drunk, so how clearly they were thinking is open to debate. The trains have supposedly been modified to prevent such an easy exit to the track from the car end doors, so the rules have been changed. The question surely should be how much money should be spent to protect passengers from their own actions; drunk passengers also use the end doors to get from car to car when the train is in motion, should the doors therefore be more securely fastened? I can recall when the end doors on the 1972 Mk II stock were fitted with alarms (during the stock refurbishment), but that the alarms were soon disconnected as the doors were not always closed properly when used (whether by staff walking through or by passengers using them).

The trains entering the sidings are not there for long periods of time during reversals, at Harrow, there is normally ten minutes from arrival of northbound and departure south again. At Queens Park, there is really a big difference between a train on one of the through roads, waiting to get onto the Network Rail track or into the platform and a train in one of the center sidings in the north shed?

Arrghh, I knew there would be one that I'd missed. Although most of the Jubilee trains reverse at Stanmore in the platforms, with one train in every three to four reversing at Willesden Green or Wembley Park via the sidings.

Not wanting to get in to an argument, but you are saying that the industrial action is a good thing because 20 people have said so.. and what about the other 248+ people that are regularly on the Bakerloo Line (and this is just the seated people according to Wikipedia!) who may not think this is a good thing because their service is being delayed? Strangely enough, as I'm sure you're aware, not everyone using a tube train gets on at the starting point and off at the terminus point - so they don't have the chance to speak to you the driver! 

There are moves afoot to end the delays by the introduction of staff - the SRT so rumour strongly has it - on platforms once more, but this has been 'the word' so for a couple of weeks now. You are right Phil, this is going round in circles, so this will be my last post on the matter before any major change on the ground but I will say once more that a genuinely huge positive has come from this because many, many passengers have been able to see straight through LU's 'operational issues' nonsense! They want a safer railway and so do we.

In most metro systems where the trains reverse beyond platforms, there is a narrow platform along the siding to allow the drivers to change ends without walking through the train. Incidentally, this means that the drivers will not be in direct contact with anyone carried beyond the terminus.

Would it be possible to add such a platform at Queens Park, and other commonly used reverse in sidings locations? (I think it is already used at Waterloo on the W&C).