4 June 2007
Subway emergency exercise
Operation Crystal, Sunday 3 June
All the emergency services and staff from Strathclyde Partnership for Transport took part in the biggest ever trial of emergency procedures in Glasgow yesterday evening.
Operation Crystal - as it was code-named - was designed to test responses to a series of incidents in the city's Subway system which would place all emergency services on full alert. The operation was called Crystal because the trial was set up to test communications systems in the event of an emergency.
The first alert came at just before eight o'clock in the evening at Kelvinbridge Subway station with news breaking that a subway train had been halted between Kelvinbridge and St George's Cross stations following reports of an explosion.
Shortly after that there was another alert announced - this time at Shields Road station - another train halted after reports of a fire on a train.
There was then a full scale mobilisation of all emergency services - the Fire Service, Police, British Transport Police, and the Scottish Ambulance Service - along with staff from SPT to deal with the emergency. Operation Crystal was set up to test responses and procedures and all the officers involved operated as though they were in a real life emergency.
The Park and Ride car park at Kelvinbridge was the location for the emergency response there. Just after eight o'clock it was crowded with fire engines, police vehicles and ambulances as the operation kicked off. Subway staff reported to the police that there had been reports of a "loud bang" on a Subway train and the driver had stopped the train on the Outer Circle between Kelvinbridge and St George's Cross. Recently there was a real life incident like this on the Subway when an engine casing blew off due to a mechanical fault.
So Operation Crystal saw the Fire Service entering Subway tunnels at Kelvinbridge and organising the evacuation of five passengers and the driver from the train. The passengers and driver were brought up to the car park at Kelvinbridge and given medical attention from attending medical staff. The Fire Service then withdrew to allow the police to undertake a detailed investigation of the train and tunnels to establish what could have caused the incident.
Similar emergency procedures were put in place to deal with the reports of a fire on a train at Shields Road. In the Operation there were no casualities reported at Shields Road.
Whilst this was all on-going a further alert was received from St Enoch station of a van parked unusually near the entrance. This proved to be a false alarm but was another emergency which the Control Unit of Operation Crystal had to deal with.
An emergency control involving all services and an emergency media unit were established at the Broomloan maintainance depot of the Subway, in Govan, throughout the exercise. There will be a full debrief of the lessons learned in the exercise on Friday morning. This will involve representatives of all who took part.
SPT Chief Executive Ron Culley said "All the reports from the operation last night indicate that it was an extremely useful exercise to test the readiness of all involved to a possible emergency. Of course this was an exercise but it was still useful to test procedures should the city be confronted with a real emergency at some time in the future".
A Strathclyde Police spokesperson said: "Emergency exercises such as this are designed to enhance the preparedness of the participating organisations for major incidents and from a Strathclyde Police perspective, provides an effective tool in our ongoing work and training.
"Early feedback indicates this has been a positive multi-agency exercise, and any learning points will be assessed and put into good practice."
ends