I understand that recently, following an overhead catenary power failure, several trains were stranded outside Paddington Station for several hours without lighting and sans explanation. 

But here’s the rub: no one could access the toilets because, like everything else on the train, without electricity nothing works. No mechanical fallback or failsafe battery backup.

This is true of everything about our daily lives today; totally dependent upon obtaining a digital signal and an electricity grid supply.

The government seems not to have contemplated the possibility of a grid failure either through hacking or a shortfall in generated power. 

This is deeply troubling, especially as a move to sustainable energy generation might well mean that we can only operate the washing machine on a Thursday (or indeed anything else for that matter) when the wind is blowing.

We need a government plan B big time and tout suite.

Peter Desmond-Thomas 

Drayman’s Way, Alton