Safety On The London Underground
This post has been inspired by this article on The Times, which is entitled Woman Who Lost Limbs In Tube Accident Seeks Sadiq Khan Meeting.
This is the sub-heading.
Sarah de Lagarde has launched legal action against Transport for London, which she says has not accepted responsibility and needs a comprehensive safety review.
These two paragraphs add a few details to the story.
A public relations executive who lost her right arm and leg after being hit by two Tube trains has called on Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, to meet her to discuss Transport for London’s “outdated” attitude to safety.
Sarah de Lagarde, 46, slipped on a wet and uneven platform at High Barnet station in north London in September 2022 and fell down the gap between the train and the platform. No one heard her cries for help after she broke her nose and two teeth in the fall. After being hit by two trains she was rushed to hospital, where her limbs were amputated.
These are my thoughts.
The Brave Paramedic
My late wife was a family barrister and one of her clients had been one of the brave specially-trained paramedics, who go under London Underground trains to rescue those who’ve tried to commit suicide or have just fallen, as this lady had.
He said that many don’t succeed in committing suicide, but lose a number of limbs and/or end up in a wheelchair for the rest of their lives. So professionally, he told my wife, he would never recommend it as a method to commit suicide.
Suicide Pits
It should also be noted, that large numbers of Underground stations have suicide pits, where if you fall you may avoid injury or survive. Wikipedia says that a pit halves the number of deaths.
These galleries show the lines at various platforms on the Northern Line.
Angel – Southbound
These pictures show the Southbound track at Angel station.
It should be noted that Angel station does not have platform edge doors.
The suicide pit was installed or rebuilt, when the station was rebuilt in 1992.
Bank – Northbound
These pictures show the Northbound track at Bank station.
It should be noted that Bank station does not have platform edge doors.
The track was rebuilt in the last three years.
Bank -Southbound
These pictures show the Northbound track at Bank station.
It should be noted that Bank station does not have platform edge doors.
The track was built in the last three years.
High Barnet
These pictures show the tracks at High Barnet station.
It should be noted that High Barnet station does not have suicide pits or platform edge doors.
Woodside Park
These pictures show the tracks at Woodside Park station.
It should be noted that Woodside Park station does not have suicide pits or platform edge doors.
These are a few final thoughts.
I don’t like being on the platform, when a train goes past or comes in. Would platforms be safer, if there were shelters or recesses, where passengers could stand back and hold on away from the platform edge?
As an instrument engineer, I wouldn’t be surprised that a specialist camera system couldn’t be developed that could detect bodies on the track.
I have a feeling that some judges might say that London Underground were not doing enough to stop injuries to those falling onto the tracks.
English Motorway Gantries Get New, More Secure Design
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on The Guardian.
This is the sub-heading.
National Highways hopes design will prove more resilient to trespassers after last year’s Just Stop Oil protests
These two paragraphs outline the design.
National Highways has unveiled a new design for motorway gantries that it hopes will prove harder for protesters to mount and use to cause disruption.
The renovated structures, which are expected to become the standard design in England from 2025, will have their maintenance steps hidden inside their pillars and will be more difficult to gain access to without authorisation.
As a scientifically-correct non-driver, I wouldn’t support Just Stop Oil.
But I do remember a tale from a few years back, when a friend, who was travelling up the M1, towing two horses in a trailer behind his pick-up. A guy was on a motorway gantry, threatening to commit suicide and traffic was stopped for several hours.
At the time he was informed by the police, that increasingly, they were seeing suicide attempts from motorway gantries.
If these new gantries can stop a proportion of suicides, that must be a good thing all round.
Chaos Between London And Leeds
On Tuesday, I had booked myself between Kings Cross and Leeds on the 11:03 LNER train. My idea was to do a short round trip to Harrogate from Leeds before going across the Pennines to Manchester and sign in to my hotel, before going to see Ipswich play at Rochdale in the evening.
But it all went wrong, as someone decided to commit suicide and was hit by a train at Grantham.
Finally, I got to Leeds at around two, which was too late to carry out my plan.
- I just missed a Harrogate train and it was getting too dark for photographs.
- I eventually got a very crowded TrainsPennine Express to Manchester Victoria.
- My supper was just a gluten-free egg and waterfresh sandwich from Marks and Spencer.
At least, I’d only paid just under thirty pounds for my First Class ticket to Leeds, which was only six pounds more than I paid to cross the Pennines.
Conclusion
This is the second time recently, after Did Someone Try To Steal The Electrification?, when I’ve been seriously delayed by problems on the railways, which are nothing to do with the trains or train companies.
Staff at LNER told me that suicides are common in November, as Christmas approaches.
Short of putting a security guard every hundred metres along the railway, I don’t think there’s a certain way of stopping these incyursions.
Plastic Platforms At East Croydon Station
Platforms 1 and 2 at East Croydon station now have glass reinforced plastic surfaces.
They look good and feature.
- Shorter stepping distance into and out of trains.
- Underfloor heating to prevent ice and snow build up.
- Blue LED edge lighting.
- The lights are blue, so they can’t be confused for signals by the drivers.
- The lighting is designed to deter suicides.
The keen-eyed will notice that the lights aren’t switched on. Apparently, some have failed!
The Curse Of The Coeliac Traveller
On Tuesday with my jaunt round the East Midlands, the weather played its part in that my intended pit-stop in Carluccio’s at Lincoln had to be cancelled because of the rain. This wasn’t too serious as I’d had a double-egg pot at Leon in Kings Cross before I left.
I could have got something in Nottingham before I went up the Robin Hood Line, but I decided to do the trip to Worksop first.
Unlike many other main stations like Birmingham, Cambridge, Manchester Piccadilly and Sheffield, there is no Marks and Spencer Simply Food, so there was nothing gluten-free to eat in Nottingham station. Except possibly salads and a banana, which I’ve eaten so much of on my travels, that aversion therapy has worked its evil magic.
After returning from Worksop, I had about forty minutes to get something to eat before catching the hourly train to Peterborough to get home. This was not enough time to have a meal in any number of places in Nottingham, so I decided to go to the city centre to get some sandwiches in Marks and Spencer. But they didn’t have any!
I was quite hungry by now, but luckily I found a Holland and Barrett, where I bought a couple of EatNakd bars to replace the two I’d brought from London and eaten en route.
After all I only needed to keep going for another couple of hours until London, where I could either eat at Kings Cross/St. Pancras or after a short bus ride to Islington.
I got to Peterborough with ease and then I sat for an hour in a train waiting for clearance to leave.
But it never did, as there had been someone killed by a train at Sandy.
So in the end hunger got the better of me and I left the train and walked in to Peterborough to get some supper in Carluccio’s.
I finally got home at eleven, which was about three hours later than planned.
I do wish that people wouldn’t practice assisted dying using trains!
It must be so much easier for non-coeliacs to travel, as they can pop-in to so many places to buy a sandwich or a burger.
Two Solutions To Make Crossing A Railway Safe
On the way to football tonight in Ipswich, I went to have a drink with a friend, who lives near Thurston station on the Ipswich to Ely Line, where there is a good real ale and cyder pub. Crossing the tracks at Thurston is via a simple walk across controlled by traffic lights between the two platforms.
Of all the stations I use regularly, this is the only place where such a system is in use. Unless of course you count the trams at Ampere Road by the Croydon Ikea. A few hundred metres to the west of the station a bridle way and cycle path crosses the railway and Network Rail have built this bridge.
There have been reports like this one in the East Anglian Daily Times, which has a headline of Poll: £1.5m ‘monster’ railway bridge at Thurston is dubbed a ‘total waste of money’
This bridge is an interesting case of what to do where there are gated crossings of railway lines.
I think before being too critical of Network Rail we should bare these points in mind.
1. Suicide
This article on the BBC web site talks of a death at a crossing in the Thurston area. Network Rail get far too many deaths on the railway and it is a sad fact, that stepping in front of a train, is a common method of suicide.
2. The East-West Rail Link
The East-West Rail Link will use this line to get from Ipswich and Felixstowe to Cambridge and Ely. This link will be an electrified 100 mph railway that will run trains between East Anglia and the Midlands and the West. So although the line carries perhaps a couple of trains every hour each way, in perhaps ten years time, this will probably be a few times more. And as the line is pretty straight as the pictures show, the operating speed could be a lot higher.
3, Horses
If you read all the comments about the bridge no-one mentions taking a horse over the railway.
Horses are flight animals and if spooked will run fast away from the perceived danger.
Many horses too, don’t like going under high-voltage cables. Whether it is because they can sense the magnetic field generated by the electricity or they don’t like the whistling sound,I don’t know. But if the crossing is going to be used by horses, it will have to be of the size it has been built.
I’m not sure, but I think this is the only way to get a horse from one side of the railway to the other, unless you go all the way and go under the bridge by Thurston station.
4. Getting The Design Right
This bridge illustrates that getting the design right and satisfying all users and critics who never use the bridge is an almost impossible task.
Aesthetically, I don’t like the bridge, but unless they dig a subway under the railway, there is nothing else that can be done to satisfy all users and critics of the design.
Note that when the railway is upgraded to be part of the East-West Rail Link, Thurston station will have to be rebuilt and I suspect it will have a bridge over the railway, probably with lifts and a price tag well upwards of £2million.
There will be some serious discussions.
Death On The Line
This story on the BBC about a badly-handled death on the railway between Slough and Reading is tragic. These are the first few lines of the story.
A rail company has apologised after a staff member told passengers the train was delayed because someone “couldn’t be bothered to live any more”.
Passengers aboard a train to Plymouth were delayed after a fatality on the line.
But the staff on First Great Western could have handled it better.
On the other hand I sympathise very much with staff and passengers on this stretch of line out of Paddington, as this death was not a once in a decade happening.
Just after a previous incident, I was travelling back on an almost empty train to London from Oxford and I said something like “You must get a bit fed up with all these incidents.” to the conductor. He replied something like “More than just a bit!”
It is getting to the point, where something drastic needs to be done to stop people getting on the line. I think we really won’t see any improvement until all of the stations between Paddington and Reading become part of Crossrail and there is barrier access and more staff about on the platforms, if they follow a typical Transport for London policy.
The Long Way Back From Rayleigh
For various reasons, I go to a dentist in Rayleigh near Southend.
Usually, it is a simple out and back from Stratford.
But today although it was easy getting there, coming back was a long journey, as a man was killed by a train at Harold Wood according to this report in the Romford Recorder.
I was informed that there would be a long wait at Rayleigh, so as a bus arrived, which was going to Southend, I took that as if the Liverpool Street was closed, I could at least get a c2c train to Barking or West Ham.
It is only when you are forced to take a bus in a strange town, that is information-free and nearly all your fellow travellers are wearing head-phones, you realise how most buses are terrible outside London.
I haven’t been to the centre of Southend since the 1960s, so it was only because my phone told me, that I was somewhere near the centre, that I got off at the right stop, near Southend Victoria station.
After buying my ticket and a drink, I was then informed that the trains were still not running. So I decided to walk to Southend Central station for the c2c train. This Google Earth image shows the two stations.
Central Southend
Victoria is at the top and Central is on the railway line that runs across the image.
The walk was easy, if rather windy and after ascertaining that c2c would happily accept my GreaterAnglia ticket, in a few minutes I was on a train to London. These pictures taken on the first part of the journey, illustrate the quality of the weather and how close the line is to the coast.
The weather was certainly worse than I encountered on the Cumbrian Coast.
In the end I changed onto the Metropolitan Line at Barking and then came home my usual way via Whitechapel and Dalston Junction.
Stopping Suicides On The Railway
Some months ago, I posted about how the rail industry and The Samaritans were getting together to cut suicides.
Today, there is a good article about the results of that initiative, on the BBC’s web site.
The training would appear to be working.
So perhaps we ought to look at other suicide points like bridges and car parks and create some appropriate initiatives, drawing on the railway’s experience.
The Selfishness Of Suicide
A good friend of my late wife’s has recently died of cancer. He had been suffering for some time and having gone through two cancer-related family deaths in recent years, I can understand in some ways, how his wife felt.
Some doctors were worried I might be suicidal, but I wasn’t, partly because, my wife had prepared me for the future and also because I had strong support from my son and of course, lots of others.
Sadly though, in my late wife’s friend’s case, his wife thought the best thing to do was commit suicide. I don’t think she had any idea of the number of devastated people she would leave behind her. I wish that someone had told me of the cancer, as I might have been able to say something of value. On the other hand, I probably couldn’t have done! But I have been rather down for the last few days!
Life may be very bad at times, but there is no excuse for suicide, unless possibly it is totally in agreement with all those around you.
The Anonymous Widower 