EAST COAST: IN CONTROL

摘要

King’s Cross station concourse is teeming with passengers. It is 17.00 and the evening peak is in full swing, but regular travellers realise there are problems brewing. The departure board is peppered with 'being prepared' signs where it should display 'boarding'. Suddenly a platform number appears and there is a stampede towards the ticket barriers. The East Coast turnround team, led on this weekday evening by Duncan Clark, has been working flat out to convert a flight of late arrivals into punctual return workings. They can be permitted just a few seconds of satisfaction before heading for their next task. But, 188 miles away in a building that looks like a trading estate warehouse, at the end of the car park sandwiched between York station platform 11 and the National Railway Museum, a higher power is at work orchestrating the response to these events.