We're here at Woolwich Elizabeth line station this morning to deliver our first volunteer exercise as
part of the trial operations programme. We'll be welcoming 450 volunteers shortly who'll be
joining us here boarding a train and we'll be going to Custom House to complete the exercise.
The exercise this morning is an evacuation on the open route which means it's not in the tunnel and
we'll be bringing the volunteers off the train via a short ladder walking along the walkway and up to
Custom House station where they'll be finishing today. We're looking to test the rule book,
the processes, the people involved to make sure that it all functions and runs properly and we can
deliver an evacuation in a safe effective way and put the railway back to normal service afterwards
so hopefully it all goes well today and we're really excited, we're happy to welcome people here
to see the station and all the teams here are really excited as well to finally get
some passengers in and to see what the Elizabeth line is all about.
i really like the station. I like the lights, i like how bright it is
and the columns, the detail on the columns is really good. It's beautiful, it's just so spacious
and the engineering is just phenomenal. It's really great. It's a bit like the Jubilee line
but a bit longer i think and very clean, nice and the architecture is all great yeah yeah.
Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Elizabeth line station.
We've been working towards this for a long time so we're very very excited to show you the railway
and conduct our very first volunteer exercise. It's quite a big deal for us so have fun,
stay safe and enjoy seeing parts of the network no one else gets to see. Thank you everyone.
Yeah, okay Liam can you give an issue of movement for it for 9Y51
as far as 339 please. Exercise start 11:58am.
I would like to report that my unit has lost all power and air, over.
Driver...how many people you've got roughly on your train please? "300
or we go on the safety side we go 400". You ever see that thank you driver. Given it's relatively
close to the station it feels to me as though the quickest and safest way is to walk on the track.
So are you happy with that. Yeah that's fine. It's confirmed that
an evacuation needs to be taking place from the train to Custom House.
Good afternoon everyone. This is your driver speaking. My sincere apologies
further today to your journey today if we have a competent person like perhaps
maybe any police officers on board, if they would like to make their way towards me that would be
very much appreciated. Driver, just to confirm so you have
a retired railway person and a police officer both giving you help and assistance?
Currently they are in the process of agreeing what we call on the railway a line blockage
and that is making the area safe for the incident response manager who was attending the incident
to make their way to the incident train which has declared itself a failure
to allow the commencement of the evacuation. You can also hear in the background the driver who's
contacting their control function, they're stating details of additional individuals on the train who
need assistance such as people of reduced mobility, people who are visually impaired,
people with buggies or children and also any individuals on the train who may be able to offer
additional assistance. Liam on workstation one is currently arranging the protection for the safety
of the line with the instant response manager as well. I've made the the line block available
the name of it is charlie, uniform, sierra, underscore, lima, bravo.
Allison, just to make you aware, Peter and i are finalising the line block now.
Good afternoon everyone, this is your driver speaking. We have a little small update.
It doesn't look like this train will be moving but i would like to remind everybody that this
is an operational railway and as soon as i have any more information i will relay it to you.
Again, if i could have confident members of staff towards me
in the cab that would be great and if you'd like to talk amongst yourselves
and thank you very much. I'll give you more information as i have it. Thank you.
i think exercise is going going really well. The driver's kept us informed. Clearly got a
sense of humour and yeah, hopefully we'll be evacuating soon. I wanted to take part in the
exercise because i live in Woolwich so i really wanted to, you know, have a first view of what the
trains look like, what the station's like. I live in Abbey Wood so i wanted to see the experience to
get to see it because we're going to be using this and it's an opportunity and experience to see how
the thing is, make sure that everything's been prepared properly and everything so
everything has been looked after for the proper operations. I was surprised how smooth it is.
It's quiet as well. I like the fact that i can walk all the way through so it's a
lot easier. Should be able to carry a few more people than normal so yeah, i like the train.
RFLI signaller of the RCC, statement driver.
A contingency plan has been implemented between Paddington and Whitechapel but in order to make
sure that no other train movements approach the area of the incident train that protection is
applied so the signaller and the incident response manager know that there's nothing
going to come anywhere near where they're working to make the line safe but because the passengers
will be evacuated onto the ballast and walk along the ballast to Custom House station, the overhead
line will remain energised because there isn't a contact risk. That's all received driver of nine,
yankee, five, one, just giving you a call back to advise you the incident response manager has now
taken the line block and is making their way to your train as we speak, over. Our fighting around
so the individuals that you saw in orange hi-vis clothing walking off the end of the platform
at Custom House, they were the incident response manager so that's who Liam has been talking to in
terms of signalling and again the protection that i mentioned before and also London Underground's
emergency response unit, those individuals have all now gone from Custom House and are walking the
200-250 metres to the location of the incident train. They will then begin the process of
de-training those passengers. They will have to use i believe one door and one set of ladders
in order to ensure safety at site and making sure that everyone is detained properly as per process.
If you can let me know once the first batch is off and then we can let Custom House know
and then we can get the passengers to safety. Okay so evacs starting immediately. One ladder.
We've arrived here at Custom House. We've got our volunteers now joining the platform being
evacuated from the train that involves them coming down from ladders onto the track and being walked
safely along to the end of the platform. It's great to see them arriving, hopefully
they've had a good time on the train, you know, there is a bit of a wait, it does take time for
this kind of thing to take place but there's lots of learning that we can take out of that
and look to make process improvements going forward. I'm feeling absolutely elated. Tired
but really exciting. You know, i've been planning this for six years, a lot of my team have been
here for four or five years kind of feeding into this planning so it's great to finally
get here. Better do this and also to invite people to see the infrastructure firsthand.
Okay, so you're looking to give up a line blockage authority number one, three, zero, two, one, two,
five, seven, so blockage given up one, five, two, zero, I will revoke the epas shortly. I'll
give you a call back once the epas have been revoked. Line block given up 15:20pm 15:20pm.
I'm feeling really good actually yeah it's gone really well today and it's been a really good
start to our volunteer exercise program. Everything's gone smoothly and as well
as we could have hoped it to go so yeah really looking forward to the next exercises from here.
We've done Trial Running, we've moved into Trial Operations and now we might say we're
sort of in the big league. It's all about practicing and rehearsing what we hope will
almost never have to do when the railway's open but making sure that we can do it
quickly enough and do it with confidence so that we're ready for when real customers arrive.
We're in the last part of Trial Operations now.
150 different drills and practices and of course, six mass evacuation exercises so to get the first
one out of the way really does signify coming into the home straight to open the Elizabeth line.