Cyclist crashes onto rail track (BBC News)
 

A cyclist is seriously injured after overshooting a station platform and crashing onto the live railway track.

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Reminds me to get my brakes over hauld next pay day !

Not being funny but, wasn't that a rediculous thing to do in the first place?

DEFFINTALTLY But trains will run late as i susopect he has been late for work and tried to save a few minutes and ende up cathching the 999 toHOSPITAL Instead !

Before reading the story I presumed it was going to be someone who was quite young. You'd reckon that by the time you hit forty that youi'd know better than to rdie bikes down stairs.

This is an issue that I've raised with the railway several times before. For a very long time now there has been a Railway by law which prevents the riding of bikes or the use of rollerskates/skateboards on platforms. When I've politely pointed this out to people the usual response is, "where does it say that then ?"

I believe that there should be signs which clearly state that it is an offence (and dangerous) to do so.

I just tell them that if they fall onto the live rail whilst wrapped round a metal bike they are going to fry. In the time that it takes to get the traction current turned off they'll have turned into a hog roast. It sometimes gets a response.

Try reading the letter 'Keep off the track.' in the letters page of www.fenlandtoday.co.uk

I hope someone has "SPOKE" to him about this. Why "SADDLE" the railways with this problem. He sounds like the sort of person who would say the railway was trying to "FRAME" him. He needs to wear the right "GEAR" if he intends doing this again. Mind you he was probably "TYRED" and fell asleep.
I know I am being flippant, but these people are nutters are'nt they. Riding a bike down stairs. Smart arse.
Paul.

Ok you cant CYCLE - SKATE BOARD or ROLLER SKATE on the Sation but yet it doeent say anything about doing the HOOLA HOOP does it.

Plus there are so many things ypou cant dor must not do whilst on the railway so what can you actually do on the railway apart from Catch a Train.

Plus do the BTP ever do anything about crowd control in the peak time or stop peolpe running for the train at the last minute and squeezing on in to th smalest place they can or stand up when there are seats available this gets on my nerves.

Would crowd control be the responsibility of the BTP, or would it be up to the operating companies? I wonder if there's a point where something stops being merely overcrowded and becomes dfangerously overcrowded? I mean obviously there is such a point, but is there somewhere where it quotes figures?

I supose a train say a 142 for example could become dagerousley overcrowded when its that heavy that it wont move and the engine is about to blow !

Yeah, but is there a figure for it? Would, for example, an insurance company say that 120 people in a carriage is acceptable, but 121 isn't?

AFAIAA, unlike a bus there is no limit for the number of people allowed on a train. I've driven a train that was so full it stalled halfway up a hill. Fortunately a reboot brought it back to life and it struggled to the top.

Although a severely crowded train train doesn't cause a big worry for the TOCs, seriously crowded platforms do. There will come a point where the station staff close off the barriers/gatelines to prevent anymore customers enterring the station. This happens regularly at London Victoria where a beeping alarm warns passengers coming off Southern & Southeastern platforms that the LUL entrances are being temporarily closed due to overcrowding down on the tube platforms. Most passengers are used to it and just wait patiently - it's part of living on an overcrowded island.

That's intersting. About 5 years ago I was sitting on a fairly overcrowed HST train waiting at Paddington when the "train manager" made an annoucement before departure time that the train was overloaded and he wouldn't let the train depart until some people got off.

I did get off, but perhaps I should have been a bit smarter and demand an upgrade to first class and free FGW coffee in compensation.

I have ocassionally wondered how he had decided the train was overloaded, especialy as I have travelled on many worse overfilled trains on this route. Perhaps one of the power cars wasn't working - so the train would have had no chance of getting out of Paddington against the gradient and round the curve

I wonder what his criteria was. Under Thameslink there was a local instruction that when trains out of Brighton were diverted via Lewes/Keymer Jn the driver had to ensure that he was able to move through the train to the far end in order to do the reversing shunt at Lewes (you can't go outside the train as there's no cess to get down on). Since you only take this route when the mainline is stuffed you can be sure the train would be utterly packed. The instruction stated that the driver must tell enough people to leave the train at Brighton to ensure that it was possible for him to get through. Fortunately I never had to try this one out, as I really wouldn't want to tell someone who had been waiting for hours that they must get off whilst others could stay on.

Yes I suspect that there was probably some underlying issue/problem that he didn't let on about.