This incident caused the cancellation of the train. The crew were relieved of duty.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/danwarman1/18789584972/

Don't understand what happened.

The Driver saw the green light and started to move. Unfortunatley for all involved, the passengers were still leaving the passenger cars.........

I can see replacing the crew, but cancelling the train seems a bit overkill.....

dave

At least three factors made cancelling the service look sensible:

The train was almost at the end of its run to London Paddington, and by the time the incident had been investigated had stood long enough to make the engine short of water.
The station at Reading has a very frequent service of other trains to London, to which passengers were transferred with little inconvenience.
Finally even in England, it may be difficult to come up with a replacement steam crew at a few minutes' notice in the late evening!

Chris Cook
UK

Extensive Google search finds no links on this. Any supporting information?

There is quite a lot of discussion on the UK rail groups and forums:

My conclusion from reading the comments is this:

Engine is left hand drive. Train was against a right hand platform.

Driver will have been using a radio and (as is traditional) the fireman to communicate with the Station Manager and the Train Guard (conductor).

The Main Line signal dropped to green.

The rest is on the original video.

The Female in the orange vest who comes up to the train cab is the Station Manager.

This video shows the train being towed away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_WoLyz0qmQ

As the platform was on the right hand side of the train the driver would receive the "right away" signal to depart from his fireman who was on that side. If the guard was not clearly visible his signal would be relayed forward by First Great Western platform staff.

Obviously the signal to depart was not given but it would appear that the fireman believed (for a short time) that it had been.....

There may have been a fair number of people on the platform - detraining, watching, waiting for the next train. This would complicate the transmission of the correct authority to depart.

At major stations on UK rail authority to depart is given to the guard by a platform despatcher when that person is happy that all doors have closed. The guard than closes his door and sends an electronic signal to the driver which is authority to depart. In this case when the platform staff were happy that all doors were correctly closed they would inform the guard who would then send a visible signal (green flag waved or green light held steady and high on his handlamp either direct to the loco crew or relayed by platform staff if there was no direct line of sight).

Something went wrong and the train moved forward a short distance. It is then normal procedure to relieve all train crew from duty pending investigation of the causes of the incident. FGW and WCRC will obtain reports from all concerned and should take any necessary action if any member of staff are deemed to have erred. RAIB will be informed - the further information they receive from the Train Operating Companies involved will allow them to decide whether to investigate further.

Years ago this would not have been an uncommon incident and would have been dealt with (in most cases) at the time - frequently involving a range of oaths/swear words - but rarely passed further up the chain.....but then there was only one railway...now multiple companies are involved - as in this incident - and the safety authorities keep a very close eye on any irregularity.

Utterly absurd, typical of today's lack of common sense and over managed railway, i feel for the crew and the shame this caused them by orange vested power hungry management........a few years ago this would have been dealt with swiftly and quietly and without the embarassment of the crew for what was a simple misunderstanding, if the light was green and the train had been standing for a while why were passengers still disembarking and what were the station staff doing to hurry the process up.

Shameful British Railway today


Mike

Have only just "caught up" on this one as I was in Poland at the time it happened.

From what I have seen on one of the more sensible/informed internet groups here, the means of dispatch from Reading should be the platform staff pressing a plunger/turning a switch on the platform that illuminates the letters "RA" (Right Away) adjacent to the signal aspect, giving the train permission to depart.
In this case, the driver allegedly misheard a radio communication and took it that the Right Away had been given, when it hadn't and the "RA" was not illuminated.

There appear to be various versions as to whether the doors on the train were all closed or passengers alighting, but it seems they were all closed - it was just the correct departure sequence that was not followed.

What would have been a fairly minor error in the past has now been blown out of all proportion in the internet age, though on the 2 groups I generally look at, it had all died down by Tuesday!