Wow - What a lucky escape!

News tonight on the main BBC News of an incredible escape for 150 passengers on a US Airways that has crashed into the Hudson River in New York.

Incredible.

Falling down around our ears

Anyone with a modicum of interest in public transport in the UK cannot have failed to have noticed the string of problems that have affected the West Coast Main Line over the last few days.

Problems have included:

• A fatal plane crash on 2nd January, near Stafford, which destroyed overhead power lines and caused service cancellations for a few days
• The power cables coming down near Watford Junction on 4th January, again causing a total suspension of services
• Another set of power cables coming down on 6th January, somewhere near Wembley, causing a total line closure, and
• Further power cable problems (this time in Warwickshire) today, 8th January.

Now, the first of these incidents was obviously a tragic accident, but the rest do seem to call into question the nature of engineering work and/ or maintenance of the West Coast Main Line infrastructure.

According to reports, Network Rail have set up a major enquiry into the events of this week. That is good to note - in my line of work a Post Incident Review would be instigated for events that would have a far smaller operational or financial cost.

I do not know what staff turnover is like within either Network Rail or its subcontractors, but I do wonder whether the person who has trained people how to tie up the power cables actually knows how to do it?

I'd be better off keeping On Topic

Yesterday morning I suggested that the M40 may have reopended following an accident.

That information was incorrect - I've just heard on LBC that following two early accidents, the road didn't properly re-open until almost 9 o'clock last night. Sorry if I misled - the good news is that nobody reached my pearls of un-wisdom by searching directly for news on the incident(s).

There is still quite a bit of snow hanging around, but I've only seen it in the dark. Three train companies used yesterday (Chiltern, First Capital Connect and East Midlands Trains), hopefully, just the one today.

Mind you I got suckered into one of those wretched paper Travelcard surveys this week.... Joy.

Crunchy Morning

I think a lot of people are going to have a testing commute today.

A short while ago the M40 was closed in both directions between Junctions 4 & 6 following an accident. I think the motorway itself is now open, with some of the slip roads still closed. Visit the Traffic England website for more.

Meanwhile, the station car park and platforms are covered in a thin layer of snow that has frozen into a solid mass of ice. From what I can see of rural Buckinghamshire this morning (there's a faint glow in the sky), it will be picturesque this morning, but I'll be long gone before it is light enough to take a picture.

Knife Arch in the Country

Friday evening, Princes Risborough station - What's this? A knife arch and lots of police (well, four) stood around.

Obviously not fitting the right profile, I just wandered into town to do some late night shopping, without having to be analysed, probed, questioned or otherwise delayed.

Once I got to Tesco, another surprise. In the side car park was a huge police lorry belonging to the Thames Valley Police 'Mounted Section'. What? Police horses and a knife arch. What was happening to this backyard of relative rural tranquility?

Well, it transpires that two things had caused are local boys and girls in blue to get a bit twitchy and to bolster the local police cloak of invisibility with a year's worth of resources:

• On the previous Saturday night, according to the Bucks Free Press, there was a mini-riot with a fight erupting at a private party on the north side of the town. Apparently there were worries that some of those involved might return to continue their misdemeanours on Friday. On the night in question I had been enjoying a meal in a local pub with a friend and we had noticed a number of police cars haring up the road from High Wycombe toward Princes Risborough. As we live in such a quiet relatively crime-free backwater, we had just assumed that there had been a road traffic accident somewhere.

• Trouble makers from the Thame Show were expected to come into town and cause a bit of bother. A quick bit of research into this theory would suggest that it can quickly be discounted as the Thame Show is a one day show that finished the day before.

When I returned to the station, the number of police had increased to 9 or 10. It transpired however that, as it was getting a bit late for them (it was nearly ten o'clock), they needed to work out how to remove the aforementioned knife arch and return the train station to its usual state of late night desolation. I can't say for how long the police horses stood in the Tesco car park, munching their hay.

As an interesting aside, a local commented to me yesterday that he hoped that Risborough 'wasn't going to go back to how it was in the 1970s'. Apparently Princes Risborough was a regular hot-spot for Mods & Rockers who would travel on trains to the town, half way between High Wycombe and Aylesbury, to fight. I am unable to confirm this by means of a link to some obscure corner of the internet, as I usually would.

How the world has moved on - Princes Risborough has, I think, changed little over the years whereas the population mix of the two larger neighboring towns has changed dramatically over the last three decades.

As if I hadn't already had enough excitement for one evening, a broken down train on the Risborough to Aylesbury single track line had caused some delays to Chiltern Ralways' services, so I was almost 30 minutes later than expected in getting home.

Central Line Derailment in the East End

A west bound Central Line train derailed in a tunnel, at about 9.02am this morning, between Mile End and Bethnal Green. Thankfully there appear to have been no serious injuries though it must have been a frightening incident for all involved. Temperatures apparently got very hot for those stuck in tunnels.

The Rail Accident Investigation Branch are carrying out an investigation into the incident. According to the tfl website, control of the line was handed back to London Underground at 5.30pm. It is however exceedingly unlikely that the line in the area of the accident will reopen in time for the Friday morning peak.

The Central Line is currently closed in both directions between Liverpool Street and Leytonstone, with severe delays on the rest of the line. For travel advice click here and for the current live travel position, click here.

A sensible bus driver

There was an accident at the Target Roundabout late this afternoon. A car had caught the back-end of one of the aforementioned rail replacement buses. The struck bus had a few passengers on and the accident, though apparently minor, had all the signs of causing absolute gridlock with two lanes blocked.

What did our driver do? He pulled infront of the stranded bus and then escorted the handful of passengers to our bus- we were on our way within seconds.

This action shouldn't be worthy of a mention, but it is. Why? Because in my experience there are very few bus drivers in my part of London who demonstrate any sense of empathy with their passengers- tonight's should be applauded for having good, perhaps old fashioned, customer service values.