Wednesday, November 01, 2006

When Does Four Plus Two Become Three and a Half?

It was only after chatting about this with a former station announcer earlier this evening, that I remembered that I had forgotten to blog a recent incident.

I have previously mentioned that Marylebone Station now has six platforms rather than four, as was previously the case. Yomping is optional to Platforms 4, 5 & 6.

One day last week while travelling in to London during the rush hour, we sat in the tunnels outside Marylebone for 25 minutes with not so much as a by-your-leave. An explanation was given as 'congestion at Marylebone'. Strange- that shouldn't happen with an extra 50% platform capacity.

No trains went past us, leaving the station.

When we eventually arrived at the terminus, there were two empty platforms, we pulled into an otherwise empty (third) platform and a train immediately left, totally vacating another platform.

So, within one minute of arriving there were two long full platforms, one (with our train in) half full and three empty platforms. Hardly congested.

Clearly the 'A-Team' were not on duty that morning at the Network Rail Signalling Centre. Probably nothing to do with Chiltern Railways.

I am only a passenger so clearly have no knowldge on how a railway is run, but it did seem daft that we were delayed for 25 minutes for no real reason.

Oh- And my maths may be out!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Probably a signalling problem. The signalman might have been asleep in his post and wrongly routed a train, but seeing as you weren't informed of what the problem was, somebody was obviously too scared (or too proud) to admit it!