That looks to me like 6 tracks. Either side of the station there are 4 tracks. As I understand it, 2 fast lines and 2 slow lines, all the way from Reading to Paddington. Even as far as Swindon, maybe, but I might be wrong about that one. Anyway, I digress.
Why is it that a fatality at Southall causes all of these lines to be closed? Surely some trains can be let through? OK they have to go through slowly, as there's bound to be a lot of Police, Notwork Rail staff and so forth on the track, but is it really necessary to shut them all down totally for several hours, causing chaos for the whole afternoon and into the evening?
An occasion where even I can't blame Third Rate Western for the bedlam.
6 comments:
4 lines for train services.
the other 2 you see are sidings for Freight =]
Police take control of the line, when they are satisfied that nothing else is on the other lines, belongings or hate to say it but body parts, they will start to release parts back.
For example today the relief lines were handed back after about 2 hours.
I was stuck on the train for 2 hours on my journey to London.
Would they offer me a refund?
My travel to London was futile, as I made a day trip to attend an event at 4pm.
I reached at 5.15pm, by that time, it was over.
How do I go about getting a refund?
xeem - quite simply, you won't. I've tried it before - I was on a train last year that hit a person at Southall, coincidentally, and the response to my request for a refund was that there are no refunds in the case of a fatality as it is effectively an "act of God".
oll1e - I can see what you are saying, it just strikes me that in the past, the priority would have been on getting things moving again. These days it seems that it's all about making absolutely sure a full forensic examination of every last chunk of ballast has been done in case someone sues them.
James,
In terms of how long it takes, I agree in some cases it does take too long and it makes you wonder how bad it can be, I tend to find that the quickest the line has been opened is after 45mins, which was when there was a fatality at Ealing Broadway last year.
It's unfortunate it can't be speeded up, but in the long run police have to do their job fully for the record I suppose. I don't know the full workings around it so I won't pretend to.
I had an unfortunate experience at Pilning last April, as did the poor driver of the train. In that case we were going again in just over an hour. Not bad given that Pilning is in the middle of nowhere.
The Insider has posted on this subject in the past too, interesting to hear a FGW employee's view on it, and what has to happen before the line can re-open.
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