
Know When to Run: The Story Behind the Xmas Kings Cross Problems - lelf
http://www.londonreconnections.com/2015/know-run-story-behind-xmas-kings-cross-problems/
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Joeboy
When the trains are screwed I tend to just swear a lot and imagine that rail
engineering meetings consist of crack addled muppets riding around in clown
cars. It's interesting to get an actual behind the scenes explanation. They
should publicize this kind of thing more, it's good PR.

What I would really like to know is, what's the story behind the
London<->Norwich line being frequently down at weekends since I started using
it regularly about 15 years ago? Every now and again it seems to go back to
being mostly functional, but the rail replacement buses are getting
recommissioned _again_. What's up with that?

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twic
The Rail Accident Investigation Branch turns out really good reports on pretty
much every acute dangerous failure on the railway:

[http://raib.gov.uk/publications/investigation_reports.cfm](http://raib.gov.uk/publications/investigation_reports.cfm)

Two major incidents in my neck of the woods were the drill bit that came
through the roof of my regular commuting line:

[http://raib.gov.uk/publications/investigation_reports/report...](http://raib.gov.uk/publications/investigation_reports/reports_2013/report112013.cfm)

And the runaway engineering train where the crew on board jumped off as it
went through an underground station:

[http://www.raib.gov.uk/publications/investigation_reports/re...](http://www.raib.gov.uk/publications/investigation_reports/reports_2011/report092011.cfm)

But of course these are restricted to incidents that put lives at risk. As you
say, it would be really interesting to read reports like this on other kinds
of failures.

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bmsleight
The rail accident investigators, are very very good engineers. They area ready
attend any accident across the UK in a mater of hours. They even have powers
of arrest.

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parados
> They even have powers of arrest.

Source?

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walshemj
A lot of the X civil service org have some odd grandfathered powers BT's an d
the royal mail internal security have more powers the average function in an
ordinary PLC has.

Not Bruce Sheniers resignation statement and notice how careful he is to be
nice to BT security.

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bmsleight
Wow great piece of analysis. Quoting: Engineering train crew and contingency
at times of peak work will be treated with the same level of nationwide cross-
project scrutiny and planning as other resources in short supply, such as
signal testers and overhead line engineers.

Also: Contractors will be required to test any new equipment in an off-the-
railway environment before it is used on live railway work.

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Animats
The NYC MTA has Youtube videos
([http://www.aetherltd.com/communicating.html](http://www.aetherltd.com/communicating.html))
and a Flickr feed
([https://www.flickr.com/photos/mtaphotos](https://www.flickr.com/photos/mtaphotos)).
They're offered with little commentary; most of the videos are just raw images
of construction, repair work, and emergencies. You get a sense of the huge
construction and repair efforts required for a major subway system.

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Animats
Oops, wrong Youtube link. Should be:
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZHkn788ZQJO45542MXbv...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZHkn788ZQJO45542MXbvZ53j1mf_xARx)

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mdekkers
surprisingly interesting...

