7/7

[Colin]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned it yet but today is the 17th anniversary of the terrorist attacks at Aldgate, Edgware Road, Russel Square and Tavistock Square which killed 52 and injured 700 people.

As I *ahemcough* drove my train eastbound through the Aldgate area just after 8.50 this morning I had a moment of reflection at how it was almost exactly 17 years to the minute when I was passing through. How it was the exact same time 17 years ago that I'd just got off my c2c train at Fenchurch Street on my way to Acton Town to book on.

Time is a great healer but I will never forget that day.

[class411]

Is the '*ahemcough*' because you were in ATO?

[Colin]

Jul 7, 2022 16:42:48 GMT class411 said:

Is the '*ahemcough*' because you were in ATO?

Absolutely!

Seems a bit cheeky claiming I was driving when I was merely in the cab monitoring the train driving itself.

[class411]

Well, think of yourself as the captain of an aircraft when the first officer is flying a leg. You're still the captain.

[spsmiler]

I was in Berlin on that day ... just been to where the infamous wall used to be when I received a call from my mother on my mobile phone telling me not to worry, all family members had been accounted for and were not involved.

At first I had no idea what the message was about - until then I had not heard about the events of the day.


One of the ladies killed on the bus at Tavistock Square had been living in Jerusalem but returned back to London because there were frequent suicide bomb events on buses in Israel and she was scared of becoming a victim.

[stapler]

It was a terrible set of events. I was on the JLE, and we were all tipped out at Waterloo. I got on a red arrow, when the driver had just heard the news over his radio, and sirens were going off everywhere. I was due to work late that night, by which time all tubes had ceased. But a colleague gave me a lift to Upper Holloway station, near where she lived; never was I so glad to see a class 150. And then a no 20 bus back home from Walthamstow.
The great euphoria that London would get the 2012 Olympics, announced on the sixth, dissipated very soon.

[trt]

I was on the escalator down from the ticket hall to the circulation area at Euston. The lights went out and the escalator stopped. Then the lights came back on. Walked down, got on the southbound Bank and as we approached King's Cross we were told we were non-stopping due to a supply issue. Then non-stopping Angel, Old Street, Moorgate, Bank... very odd, but I knew London Bridge was on a different supply section - it's where I was getting off anyway. It was about two hours later that I started getting desperate text messages from my family up north. Colleagues were coming in telling me something was going on but they had no information. So I turned on the BBC News via the internet. I had been on the last train through the Bank branch. The network had shut down minutes afterwards. When the scale of it became apparent, we were told to either stay in the building overnight or get home any way we could. I ended up catching a riverboat (packed) up to Westminster, then walked up through London, past Downing Street, Trafalgar Square, Tottenham Court Road... Euston was closed. Ended up walking as far north as I could until I was able to get on a mainline train that had been then running occasionally. Just basically get as close to home as I could.

[jamesb]

I was working as an admin temp at Whipps Cross Hospital during my summer break from uni. I remember getting texts from my father, and then hearing a voiceover on my supervisors pager declaring a major incident. It is hard to believe that was 17 years ago. I got a lift home from my supervisor and remember seeing police officers standing outside Roding Valley station (which is quite unusual) as well as a train in the platform (presumably it had remained there since the network wide code amber alert had been issued).

The strangest part for me was getting an underground train for the first time a few days later, thinking about what it must have been like for the people who were on those trains, mixed with feeling anxious and hypervigilant.

What I also think about is how it was LU staff who were first on scene, helping people. That terrible event showed the very worst of human nature, but the very best of human nature in the aftermath.