Mock Tube disaster to test rescue

London Underground is to stage a major Tube accident this weekend to help improve safety standards.

The exercise will train staff to deal with a real emergency and see how well LU works with the emergency services. Around 80 volunteers will take part in the "disaster" on the Metropolitan line near Hillingdon on Sunday.

Details of what form the incident will take are being kept secret to make it as realistic as possible. Volunteers playing the role of passengers are given their own identities. For example, a blind person takes part in every exercise, and often a non-English speaker.

In past exercises, participants have been known to burst into tears because they take it so seriously.

The Metropolitan line at the location of the "accident" is closed for engineering work at the time it takes place, and the event has been publicised so passers-by do not mistake it for a real disaster and raise the alarm.

Neil Cassidy, London Underground duty operations manager said: "Utmost planning and care is taken in organising the live exercises to make them as authentic as possible. On the day, it is treated as an actual incident - it would be pointless running them otherwise.

"We have to plan for the unexpected and this exercise demonstrates this."

The staged accidents are held at regular intervals on all Tube lines to maintain safety standards, and are carefully planned in order to avoid disruption to services. Sunday's exercise took nearly six months to plan.

London Underground held a similar exercise last year on the Waterloo and City line called Operation Trolley Wood. It attempted to emulate what might happen if a night worker was run over by a train. In another exercise, a fire in a tunnel was simulated near Walthamstow Central station.