Man hit by train in Woolwich dies

UPDATE: It has been confirmed that the man hit sadly died.

ORIGINAL: An incident has caused all trains to stop running on the Woolwich line tonight (Friday 23 Nov).

It appears a person was sadly hit by a train. Terrible news and hopefully all those affected including the driver are ok.

The response by Southeastern is again raising questions. People have reported being stuck on trains and at stations with little communication.

While the company cannot be blamed for tragic issues such as this, their response is often lacking. Staffing at stations is extremely limited in the evenings with communication both at stations and on trains lacking. The driver affected by the incident cannot be expected to talk to passengers, though little information on board other trains impacted is a continual issue.

It’s as if the Lewisham incident a couple of years ago never happened where poor communications saw people exit trains onto the trackside.

As an example of staffing issues at station, I was sent photos of Woolwich Arsenal station (the busiest on the line)  earlier to show staffing levels. This is far from unusual. Many busy stations like Eltham and Greenwich are similar.

Despite being the busiest station on the line Woolwich Arsenal staffing is regularly lacking. Not even one member of staff either on gates or the ticket office.

No staff at all

As for tonight, one passenger reports being in a tunnel for an hour:

I saw similar scenes a couple of weeks after another incident blocked a line. No staff whatsoever at busy stations to assist when things went wrong.

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I've lived in south east London most of my life growing up in Greenwich borough and working in the area for many years. The site has contributors on occasion and we cover many different topics. Living and working in the area offers an insight into what is happening locally.

10 thoughts on “Man hit by train in Woolwich dies

  • At this time of night pretty much no Southeastern station will have public facing staff to help. It’s hard enough after the morning rush hour is over.

    They won’t hire as they have no clue if they will be in charge in a few months.

    It’s bizarre in a major world city to operate some public transport like this. Totally different story in many other parts of London.

    Reply
  • A person was hit by a train. This is bound to block the line in both directions and require the power to be switched off.

    The staff presence at Woolwich Arsenal is 24 hour but restricted to the office on the London bound platform.

    Reply
    • Hi Chris, why are staff restricted to the office?

      Reply
  • Staffing levels at abbeywood are good, is this because it’s run by TFL because of crossrail

    Reply
    • Yep. As soon as they took over the TFL policy of visible staff from first to last train took hold. It’s not perfect though far better than previous when few seen after 8pm and during the day outside of peaks.

      Reply
  • I totally agree. It is great to have TFL staff at Stations as proven at Abbey Wood Station with staff present from first to last trains.

    I wish TFL would take over all South Eastern Stations. However, we do need station staff to take more action on fare evasion as there has been a rise in this of late and sadly this may be also be linked to some of the incidents we have heard about of late on our public transport networks.

    Reply
    • I was on this train on the Friday at around 9.50 ish coming home with friends. the train stopped for about 15-25 mins.the driver mumbled something over the intercom but nobody could hear anything over the fans.eventually we decided to get off and find out what was happening. we thought it was just a standard delay. When we got off to my horror we saw dozens of police officers,ambulances,paramedics and fire fighters.i asked one of the fire fighters what was going on ,and he told me that they thought that some one was trapped underneath there.they were looking for the person with flash light under the tracks and we were all panicking .all the passengers aboard the train were told to leave the station.when i eventually got home i went on the internet to see if the person was okay but i only find this article today.

      Reply
    • TfL are being blocked by Tory politicans. The fun thing is that inner M25 means it is an own state, so the TfL will win in the end. It is SHAMBOLIC how Southeastern Railways are running their franchise. The most dangerous part of Britain are their trains and stations (whch they only lease)

      Reply
  • I was on this train on the Friday at around 9.50 ish coming home with friends. the train stopped for about 15-25 mins.the driver mumbled something over the intercom but nobody could hear anything over the fans.eventually we decided to get off and find out what was happening. we thought it was just a standard delay. When we got off to my horror we saw dozens of police officers,ambulances,paramedics and fire fighters.i asked one of the fire fighters what was going on ,and he told me that they thought that some one was trapped underneath there.they were looking for the person with flash light under the tracks and we were all panicking .all the passengers aboard the train were told to leave the station.when i eventually got home i went on the internet to see if the person was okay but i only found this article today.

    Reply

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