Richard Clinnick
National Rail Awards shines spotlight on special staff
“The country looked at this humble man as a hero, fearless enough to tackle these extremists single-handed, and yet he thought he had failed. It speaks volumes of those who protect the railway family.”
“He was repeatedly slashed and stabbed. But he kept on battling, his only thought was to protect innocent people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“There were too many of them Guv - I’m sorry.”
The remarkable words of British Transport Police Constable Wayne Marques to BTP Chief Constable Paul Crowther, in the emergency ward in the aftermath of the London Bridge terror attack on June 3.
On patrol that evening in the capital, Marques will have seen hundreds of people enjoying themselves. Couples out for an evening, friends socialising in the popular Borough Market and London Bridge areas, and people getting to and from work will all have been normal for around 2200.
The screams of someone in trouble, however, were not. Marques went to investigate, and when he saw terrorists armed with knives on London Bridge his first instinct was to run at them. These men had credible-looking bomb vests strapped to them, and had got out of a van they had used to ram innocent people on the bridge.
As Marques tried to tackle them he was repeatedly slashed and stabbed. But he kept on battling, his only thought was to protect innocent people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The thought that kept going through his mind: “Don’t go down.”
He knew what was likely to happen, but it didn’t deter him. His aim was to slow down the attackers, to buy members of the public time to flee.
Marques suffered extremely severe injuries, and yet as he lay there in hospital, he felt he needed to apologise to his Chief Constable. That says so much. The country looked at this humble man as a hero, who was fearless enough to tackle these extremists singlehanded, and yet he thought he had failed. It speaks volumes of the men and women who protect the railway family.
Two weeks earlier, on May 22, a bomb had gone off in the Manchester Evening News Arena, after an Ariana Grande concert attended by thousands of children and their parents.
As is usual with any such event, Manchester Victoria station was busy. BTP officers were present, as were Arriva Rail North staff.
After the bomb was detonated, these frontline staff ran to the scene, arriving within minutes of the detonation. They were met by a scene they described as “absolute carnage”.
A BTP officer with a year’s experience was one of the first on the scene. Police Community Support Officers quickly followed, one with only one month’s experience. People were panicking, fleeing from the scene, trying to look for their loved ones - hoping their loved ones were OK. As these people fled, the staff were only concerned with heading into the arena, to where the blast was - to help, to serve and to protect.
These officers and staff experienced horrible scenes: people dying in their arms in front of their families; children asking where their parents were (some had perished); people desperately searching for friends and family. What should have been a memorable and enjoyable night out for thousands in a bustling, vibrant city turned into the ultimate nightmare.
Yet the actions of these brave men and women showed the character of those we have protecting us. They are trained to do this, to aid with the grim recovery of bodies and ensuring that the fallen are treated with dignity and respect. And there are more heroes on the railway. Two GB Railfreight Train Managers, training a new recruit on a light locomotive move, helped save the life of a teenager who was showing suicidal intent near Milton Keynes.
While Steve Read contacted the signal box to request an all-lines block, his colleague Sam Lawrence went to talk to the teenager. He kept talking calmly, and when the arrival of the BTP may have spooked the individual, Read kept contact with the officers and eventually both he and Lawrence were able to coax the teenager onto the platform and safety. They saved a life.
Greater Anglia Driver Stuart Connell was driving a Class 170 at 84mph one Sunday, when a tractor came into view on a crossing near Thetford.
Realising the impending accident, Connell immediately went to warn passengers, having pulled the emergency brake. Despite suffering a serious hand injury, he walked through the derailed train to assure the 135 passengers that all was OK. Passengers responded by calling him a hero in the local media in the following days. They were right.
Stuart Barrett, Assistant Station Manager with Merseyrail at Southport, saved a man’s life. Running to assist a man who had collapsed, Barrett checked for breathing… nothing. He attached a defibrillator and, when vital signs were detected, administered a shock and started CPR. Again, there were no vital signs, so he administered a second shock and CPR just as the paramedics arrived. Then, rather than return to work, he comforted the stricken man’s wife until her husband went to hospital.
At Bredbury station on March 16, Retail Sales Assistant Anne Mason noticed something unusual. A 14-year-old boy arrived at 0630 carrying a bag and requesting a one-way ticket. This rang alarm bells in Mason’s head, and she engaged the child in conversation to establish his intentions. These were to run away from home, and to meet someone he had been communicating with on an internet chatroom. Mason offered the teen two choices: either she could call the police or she could call his parents. He chose the latter and was soon collected.
It turned out that the boy had been in contact with another teenager, rather than something more sinister. His father said: “Had it not been for Anne’s swift actions who knows what might have happened, especially if my son had boarded that train and reached his destination.
“We are often quick to contact an organisation to express our disappointment if a service or product is not to our satisfaction. However, equally we can often be just as guilty of not highlighting when something is exemplary.”
These stories of heroism have all been highlighted, with special recognition at RAIL’s National Rail Awards at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel on September 21 (see pages 10-11). And rightly so.
Shining a light on the rail industry shows insight not only into how it works, but also on how the people make the railways. These heroic men and women, all of whom believe they were merely doing their duty, are some of the many shining lights on the UK railway.
People make the railway. It’s humbling to recognise their heroism.
Nigel Harris will be back next issue.