Re: Big train wreck in England! - 70 Dead?

["Daniel Bowen" <dbowen@#DELETE#custard.net.au>]

David Ready <ds_ready@usa.net> wrote in message
eZYK3.850$e6.309752@amsnews02.chello.com">news:eZYK3.850$e6.309752@amsnews02.chello.com...
> We were in London for business last Friday. We drove from The Netherlands
to

We were in London until Tuesday night. On Tuesday (our last day in England)
we were planning to go to Paddington and check our luggage onto Heathrow
Express, then take the kids via train to Windsor (Legoland). We got as far
as Farringdon around 10am and saw the a sign saying No mainline service via
Paddington because of an accident - all services via Waterloo. An
Underground staffer told us two trains had collided, and at the time he'd
heard there was 1 dead, 100 injured. Unfortunately of course that estimate
was well under the actual figures.

It screwed up our plans for the day, but we're thankful we weren't
travelling a couple of hours earlier when we could have been caught up in
the thick of it. In fact, a fortnight ago we caught a couple of Thames
"turbo" trains from Paddington to/from Oxford...

Tuesday's (London) Evening Standard told of 7 dead (headline: DISASTER AT
PADDINGTON), but the real figures were just starting to become apparent by
the time we were flying to Melbourne that night. The survivor accounts in
the Standard were particularly moving.

There are parts of England's rail system that are obviously antiquated -
many swing door sets still run in some areas. But overall it's a good
system - reasonably reliable and most services, even in country areas, run
to frequencies we could only dream about here. Let's hope they pull their
fingers out and do what ever is necessary to make it safe.


Daniel
--
Daniel Bowen, Melbourne, Australia
dbowen at custard dot net dot au