Cable broken. Catenary equipment fell over a GWR train outside Paddington on the night of December 6, 2023 (Image by Andrew Haines posted on LinkedIN) (Image by Andrew Haines, posted on LinkedIn)
It has already entered folklore as the “Great Paddington Dewiring”. When a major terminal is brought to a standstill, services are disrupted at one of the world's busiest airports, a flagship subway comes to a standstill, shoppers, celebrities and business bosses are stranded on stationary trains, and it all happens in London in the run-up to Christmas, you have the scenario that defines the six o'clock news. It certainly did. Oh, and there was a strike.
If you're going to tear down the wires over the tracks on the approach to Paddington station, you probably don't want to do it on a December day when Christmas traffic is building up and commuters are preparing to head home in the evening. Oh, and it would probably be a bad idea to do this when the CEO of Network Rail is on the train. Thursday's unwiring in London was probably the worst publicity the beleaguered British rail network could have feared.
Haines on board because of 'painful experience'
Let's get the perspective straight. Anger and frustration at the trainload, to be sure, but there were no injuries or fatalities among the hundreds trapped on stalled trains, nor among the tens of thousands left on draughty platforms from Penzance, Plymouth and Port Talbot to Patchway, Pangborne etc Paddington, or Heathrow Express passengers, miss their flight. However, this was undoubtedly a PR disaster for the industry. On the same day, widespread industrial action hit the north of England – but this isn't London, so the media focused exclusively on the disaster in the capital.
Andrew Haines is chief executive of Network Rail and was caught up in Thursday night's chaos
“Firstly, the vast majority of customers have been absolutely brilliant. “Calm, patient, even supportive,” said one passenger, who happened to be Andrew Haines, the chief executive of Network Rail, Britain’s infrastructure agency, and the man at the head of the transition team tasked with managing the transition to an organization with greater responsibility for Tracks and trains, the much anticipated Great British Railways. “We have left thousands of passengers stranded following an extremely disturbing incident just outside Paddington station. I've had the pain of experiencing it first hand, both as a customer and as a colleague wanting to support others in a testing situation. It wasn’t pleasant and I had the advantage of being on an auxiliary powered train with a great crew.”
“You’re (not so) beautiful,” is Blunt’s reply
One passenger quoted on social media said the evacuation of the train and the walk in the dark to nearby Westbourne Park station was like a war experience. A fellow passenger declined to call the place a war zone. That more reserved passenger was chart-topper James Blunt, who knows what he's talking about. The former British Army captain, who claims to have been shot more times than gangland rapper Fifty Cent, was a passenger on an Elizabeth Line train and caught up in the chaos. “I've been stuck somewhere outside Paddington for almost four hours now. No more peanuts and wine,” he commented on his notoriously self-deprecating social media feeds.
It's no stranger to dancing in the dark. Singer James Blunt was luckily without his guitar when he was stranded on board an Elizabeth Line train
The Elizabeth line was the unfortunate service most affected by the unwiring. The service has already landed in last place in reliability statistics, largely due to its remarkable popularity, which led to delays at train stations. Popular television presenter and celebrity mathematician Rachel Riley, co-host of the long-running language and numbers quiz show Countdown, was counting down the hours to save herself from one of those busy trains across London. “Almost four hours after we got in,” she said; “We’re getting off the Elizabeth Line, woohoo!” may not be the most convincing endorsement Transport for London would have hoped for.
Regression in customer service
Due to the short daylight hours in winter, it was already pitch black when the lines were shut down. Images published online suggest that a Great Western Railways express was involved, and it appears that this was the train on which Andrew Haines was traveling along with 981 other passengers – according to his own statements. “This is not the place to go into the whys and wherefores, the causes of the incident remain to be determined,” Haines said in a lengthy statement. One gets the feeling that Haines has the motivation and even the position to incorporate this experience into future planning – just not immediately, as the lines collapsed again on Sunday, which in turn affected the Great Western Main Line and also the venerable East Coast Main Line – Bad luck for thousands of Newcastle United football fans, even if they avoided witnessing their team's heavy defeat at Tottenham in London.
“That poor TfL guy had quite a night,” TV presenter Rachel Riley posted on her social media feeds (pic.twitter.com/6aT9R07h1L)
“We have failed as a system,” Haines said. “Too many individual actors saw the risk from their own perspective, making it harder to get things done while maintaining safety. Multiple self-evacuations cannot be considered good safety practice due to the speed at which we were able to move or even access trains. “We have taken steps backwards in terms of customer service. Passenger support tools that I would have used as a station manager in 1987 – before I had even seen a cell phone – were not available. We can do better than we did. We take our customers’ legitimate concerns seriously. None of us would have wanted our friends or family to go through that. I sincerely apologize. I intend to use my own painful experience to improve the way we deliver to our customers and support our colleagues, especially when things go wrong.”
Further reading:
Comments are closed.