Yesterday, I ended up in some of the worst disruption I’ve ever really seen on the UK rail network, at Birmingham New Street. Why? A fault with the overhead line equipment on Proof House Junction on the Vauxhall Flyover, effectively at the heart of the UK rail network.
For background, as most of you will know, I work for Chiltern Railways in my main role, within the stakeholder team. Not front-line in any sense of the word, although I can communicate! I had spent the day working from our depot at Stourbridge Junction, and saw the Control updates roll in and had a bad feeling… I decided to escape and jumped on a train to Birmingham Moor Street.
Now, compared to the West Coast Main Line, Chiltern is an incredibly small railway. So, when I arrived into Moor Street and saw that train managers couldn’t physically close doors on the tiny little 168s, you know something’s gone down… but anyway, that’s not what this is about! Chiltern did withdraw ticket acceptance shortly afterwards, for the safety of colleagues and customers.
After delivering some minor customer service, I wandered over to Birmingham New Street where my train home down the West Coast should have been… albeit it very much was not! I have never seen New Street like it, all the boards were completely blank, instead replaced with a holding message like the one below. All customer information was being manually controlled by New Street Control.
In terms of what caused all this, I’m heavily simplifying it, but somebody had reported a loud bang from a Class 730 operating 2R33 on the Cross City Line, and this was the result of the train having effectively ‘clipped’ the overhead line equipment with its pantograph, causing the overhead wires to be ‘pulled out’ of the gantries.
This was a hard message to land to customers who ended up waiting for trains at New Street (there are worse places to be ‘stranded’ by the way!) with many saying something along the lines of ‘how can one train being stuck cause the entire station to come to a standstill’. Several reasons for that, the main one of course being the fact that the overheads need to be isolated to allow for repairs to be undertaken safely. Although it’s hard to explain that to customers in all the pressure, I found!
What really struck me wasn’t just the scale of the disruption, but the sheer collapse of communication technology we often rely on. All customers were glued to their phones, refreshing National Rail or Trainline, all of which were very obviously lagging behind the reality on the ground, with New Street taking manual control of customer information as I mentioned earlier. The key message is don’t rely on apps or websites, rely on that manual information.
Even Arrakis, our internal system, was flailing – and if that’s unreliable for us, what chance does a passenger-facing app have?
So, I did what people might call crazy, and I headed straight into the madness. I’m not a front-line colleague, but it felt like one of those moments where you just go. I stayed in close contact with my own Control to make sure we were aligned on what was happening at Moor Street, and did what I could to keep the New Street team in the loop.
But it is harder than you might think. Being ‘on’ for three or four hours straight, supporting customers, trying to manage expectations, and calming tensions, all whilst the same questions are being asked repeatedly… it does take it out of you. Which I don’t actually think rail management quite get all the time.
But it’s tougher than it looks. Being ‘on’ for three or four hours straight – listening to people, trying to manage expectations, and helping defuse tensions, all while answering the same questions on repeat – really takes it out of you. I’m not sure senior rail management always grasp just how demanding that is.
Even so, being personable goes a long way, even when you’re shattered. One customer came back over for an update and I laughed: “You again?!” And yes – it was. Still standing there trying to get home (to Edinburgh, I think!).
Eventually, after a long evening, I managed to squeeze onto a full and standing Avanti service to Rugby – a good four hours after first arriving at New Street. Spirits on board were surprisingly high – that “laugh about it or you’ll cry” energy was very real. After all that, it was a lift home from Mum, a quick debrief with Control, and… breathe.
There’s a lot to reflect on, and plenty for the West Coast team to take away from a day like that. How we communicate disruption – with humanity – is just as crucial as how quickly we get services moving again. And when the systems fall short, it’s always the people who step up. A real “railway family” kind of day.
