TUBE UNION RMT today praised the intervention of a Bakerloo Line tube driver which prevented a potential tragedy involving a 12 year old boy

The incident took place on Monday at 3.30 pm. The 12 year old boy was over-carried (on board the train after its final passenger stop) into the Queens Park sidings. Previously these trains used to be physically checked that they were empty prior to going into the sidings. RMT objected to the ending of detraining and said at the time that getting rid of detrainment staff was unsafe.

The boy was going to Kensal Green. When he found himself on the train in the sidings, he shimmied up and out of the train squeezing past the inner car barrier (an apparent engineering solution to stop people trying to get off the trains in these situations) and got onto the track. He could have killed himself as he was in close proximity to the 430 volt live positive rail. .

It was only the alert actions of the driver that spotted him. He told the driver “he was going to walk home to Kensal green on the “charcoals”, ie the ballast. The driver got him back on the train.

This recent incident comes after RMT warned LU only a month ago that not detraining trains was dangerous and unsafe and after two recent incidents of children on tube tracks that have reinforced the safety critical role of tube drivers.

RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said:

“With Boris Johnson mouthing sound bites about driverless trains and de-staffing the tube at the Tory conference, yet again only the quick intervention of a driver in the North Sheds on the Bakerloo Line prevented a 12 year old boy, who had managed to shimmy up and over the ‘inner car barriers’ and out of the train, from getting hit by a moving a train or electrocuted on the rails.

“Management have rightly called an investigation into this shocking incident but this does not go far enough for RMT safety reps. We want a meeting to review the whole detrainment process and a return to a safe way of working.”

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