7/7: "Things you never expect to deal with"

The station manager Stephen Goszka had been in charge of Edgware Road tube station for just four days when he heard the "muffled boom."

Looking out of his office window, he checked the nearby A40 flyover expecting to see a crash. Nothing.

Then the phone rang. His station supervisor was on the platform downstairs. All she said to him was: "You better come down here."

Two minutes later Stephen Goszka was on the platform. Already some of his staff were down the tunnel.

In the dark he could see the tail lights on back of the train. He thought it might be a train crash.

Then, out of the dust and smoke he saw commuters walking along the tracks out of the tunnel.

They had blackened faces and dishevelled clothes. He called the control centre to "get some help down here."

As more people came out of the tunnel the injuries got worse.

Stephen Goszka and his staff helped them through a small grey metal gate onto the platform.

His staff then helped them up the stairs and into the ticket hall. There they sat them on the floor next to one another.

This was when the London Underground staff were on their own. The emergency services had yet to arrive.

As Stephen Goszka told me they were "dealing with things that day that you'd never expect to deal with."

Five years on and the team is much the same at Edgware Road although after 3 years Stephen Goszka moved onto the Piccadilly Line.

In the main though, they've stuck together. They say stations on the Underground operate like families and that's what happened here.

For 22 days while Edgware was shut, the staff had to go to other stations and they didn't like that.

When the station re-opened they got on with it. There's been counselling and most of the staff are still here now.

Wider criticisms

Away from Edgware Road, a London Assembly report after the bombings found that communication between the emergency services "did not stand up on July 7th".

The teams at Tavistock Square couldn't use the radios to talk to each other and talk to the control rooms.

Workers had to run to the trains and back to the platforms to communicate.

In five years has that changed?

A new digital system Connect was finished in 2008. It's the same system for the whole network whereas previously each line had its own system.

So, for example, control can now send a message to all staff at the same time. It has had teething problems but TfL says it is far more reliable than the old radios.

Another system for the emergency services, Airwave, was completed in October 2008 five months ahead of schedule. It means emergency services can use radios underground.

The London Assembly report also recommended first aid kits should be placed at stations and there should be clear instructions for passengers about what they should do in an emergency. Both have been acted on.

After the bombings, Transport for London also said it would increase the number of CCTV cameras on London Underground.

There were 8,500 CCTV cameras on the system. The pledge was to increase it to 12,000.

There would also be a move to digital technology away from magnetic tape. Transport for London said in 2008:

"This will ultimately mean that no one will be able to enter the Underground network without their face being recorded by CCTV camera."

It says it has implemented these changes. On the buses there are now 60,000 cameras fitted on the fleet.

There were also calls in 2005 for screening devices and detector arches at the entrances at stations on the Tube to detect whether someone was carrying explosives.

These were ruled out as being impractical, expensive and they'd become a target themselves.

There have undoubtedly been improvements to monitoring and the way emergencies are dealt with but is the transport network safer?

Police numbers on the transport network have increased but could they stop an attack similar to July 7th? Extremely unlikely.

And as many people have said to me, the reality is it is extremely difficult to stop a suicide bomber on a mass transit system like the Tube.

Back at Edgware Road, there are beautiful colourful flowers on the station concourse now and in the corner behind the kiosk where a staff member sits is a plaque bearing the names of those who died here.

Every year away from the cameras the families return.

The staff are helpful and friendly and as the commuters rush past, it could be a normal tube station.

It may now look everyday but for this station and its staff as Stephen Goszka said:

"What happened that day was just the beginning. This was weeks and months of recovery for us."

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