Signalling problems Swindon - 26 Nov 13

[whole diary]

[Alan Pettitt]

For the first time in at least two months I decided this morning not to travel today but work from home, oh what it is to be clairvoyant! Seriously though, I wish all of you, wherever you happen to be stuck, a speedy remainder of your journey.

[Mookiemoo]

I bailed out and decided to spend an extra night at a friends.

Spent over 90 mins wtrying to get from monument to paddington (I was on the tube that caused the failure at all gate) I popped up at pad only to find everything cancelled

Decided it wasn't going to be my night

[SDS]

A lineside fire at London Bridge closed London Bridge, Charing Cross and Cannon Street NR^» (Network Rail - home page) stations during the main part of the rush hour.  Parts of Victoria were also shut to prevent overcrowding.

According to Tyrell "Core Incident message: 20
London Bridge Signal box area is completely out of use due to a fire in the relay room."


Latest Internal Update on Tyrell.
Southern: Major delays through London Bridge owing to signalling problems Trains are now running again between London Bridge and Norwood Junction via Forest Hill and also between Norwood Junction and London Bridge via Tulse Hill. Trains will still have residual delays of up to 60 minutes.

FCC^▸ (First Capital Connect): Major delays through London Bridge owing to signalling problems. Trains can call again at London Bridge but are being delayed by up to 30 minutes. A trespass incident is causing delays of up to 30 minutes through Tulse Hill. Trains on this route are already being delayed because of the signalling problem that has occurred at London Bridge.

Southeastern: Major delays through London Bridge owing to signalling problems. Train services running to and from this station may be cancelled, delayed by up to 90 mins or revised at short notice.

FGW^▸ (First Great Western): Signalling problems between Ealing Broadway and Acton Main Line. Train services between Swindon and Bristol Parkway/Gloucester/Bath Spa may be cancelled or delayed at short notice owing to signalling problems.

LUL^▸ (London Underground Ltd) Status:
District Line - Severe delays between Earls Court and Richmond and Ealing Broadway between Barking and Upminster to prevent overcrowding due to disruption on National Rail services.Minor delays on the rest of the line.
Hammersmith and City Line - Severe delays due to an earlier signalling problem at Aldgate.
Circle Line: Minor delays due to an earlier signal problem at Aldgate.
Metropolitan Line - Minor delays between Harrow on the Hill to Watford due to an earlier signalling problem at Aldgate


 

[Electric train]

A lineside fire at London Bridge closed London Bridge, Charing Cross and Cannon Street NR^» (Network Rail - home page) stations during the main part of the rush hour.  Parts of Victoria were also shut to prevent overcrowding.

According to Tyrell "Core Incident message: 20
London Bridge Signal box area is completely out of use due to a fire in the relay room."

Ooooo nasty ............. so glad the project I did to replace the power supply to the LB Sig box was last Christmas and I am not doing it this Christmas there were enough nervous senior managers and directors about a year go if this had happened they would been a panic and the work would have been canned.

[Southern Stag]

The London Bridge problems caused some of the worse disruption I've seen recently. There were no trains running at all through London Bridge for over 2 hours, right in the middle of the evening peak. The whole peak service from Charing Cross, London Bridge and Cannon Street was basically suspended. At various times London Bridge, Victoria and North Greenwich had to be closed because of the resulting overcrowding. The queues for the High Speed services to Kent stretched half the way round St Pancras station and were being controlled by the the BTP^▸ (British Transport Police). All in all, a pretty bad day for the rail network.

[SDS]

...and were being controlled by the the BTP^▸ (British Transport Police)...

Oh dear, god help those passengers.

[bobm]

Hmmm..I'm sure BTP^▸ (British Transport Police) were an asset rather than a hindrance.

There are posters up at Bath Spa this evening signed by both Network Rail and FGW^▸ (First Great Western) apologising for yesterday's problems.

Part of it says "However, despite best efforts of the teams on the ground, we know there weren't enough buses and taxis for everyone."   It goes on to say "There have been far too many track and signalling problems recently, and we appreciate your patience while Network Rail works to resolve the underlying issues."

[bobm]

More details from the Swindon Advertiser, including a report from "Our own correspondent" (my emphasis below)

A SINGLE cable caused chaos on the train lines on Tuesday night as a total signalling failure affected all routes through Swindon.
 
At 5.30pm, the defective cable between Swindon and Royal Wootton Bassett temporarily shut down all lines through the town.
 
Two trains in the area at the time were brought to a standstill for more than an hour and were forced to pull back to the closest available station.
 
While replacement bus services were scrambled, many passengers were forced to hire taxis to get them to their destinations, with one, Mike Catris, of Cardiff, even having to pay for a taxi from Bristol to Heathrow to ensure he did not miss his flight.
 
Delays of up to two hours were experienced on some journeys as diversions were put in place, and the 9.11pm service from London Paddington did not arrive in Swindon until 12.23am.
 
Passengers took to Twitter to vent their frustration at the delays.

@adamczuk wrote: ^It was horrific. It took me four and a half hours to get home and First Great Western couldn^t care less. Zero customer service at Swindon.^
 
@Deeley_s posted: ^Five and a half hours after leaving Bath I made it to Swindon.^
 
A passenger named John R, who was on the 3.30pm service from London Paddington, posted on the Great Western Passenger^s Forum: ^It left Swindon roughly on time, had to stop on its way to Wootton Bassett following the failure, and reversed back into Swindon.

A spokesman for First Great Western said: ^Services were running through Swindon again within an hour and a half of the problem occurring, and by 11.30pm, all services were running as normal.
 
^There were two services that could not pass through Swindon, and had to go back to the station.
 
^Between eight to 10 replacement buses were ordered immediately to transport passengers while Network Rail worked to fix the problem.
 
^The first arrived on site at 6pm, within half an hour of the problem.

^We would like to apologise to passengers for the inconvenience caused by this fault.^
 
A spokesman for Network Rail said: ^A faulty cable has been identified as the cause for the loss of signalling power, which meant that no trains were able to run between Swindon and Wootton Bassett until a temporary measure was put in place at 6.30pm.
 
^The fault was rectified at 11.30pm Tuesday to enable full services to resume.^

Network Rail^s route managing director for Western, Patrick Hallgate, said: ^It was a very difficult evening for everyone and I would like to apologise to passengers caught up in the delays.^
 
Investigations into the cause of the faulty cable are ongoing. The signalling system in Swindon, which has controlled railway traffic though a hub within the station since 1968, is due to be upgraded when it is centralised at Didcot next Easter.
 
Danny Scraggins, Network Rail operations manager, said: ^This system will close next May, when the signalling moves to Didcot. The new model will be computerised so will be superior.^
 

[lordgoata]

Danny Scraggins, Network Rail operations manager, said: ^This system will close next May, when the signalling moves to Didcot. The new model will be computerised so will be superior.^

Yeah, because computers never go wrong ... 

[bobm]

They also got his name wrong - it is Danny Scroggins....

[ChrisB]

Won't prevent the power failures recently experienced either...

[Electric train]

Danny Scraggins, Network Rail operations manager, said: ^This system will close next May, when the signalling moves to Didcot. The new model will be computerised so will be superior.^

Yeah, because computers never go wrong ... 

Won't prevent the power failures recently experienced either...

The problem with the old type electrical signalling from PSB^▸ (Power Signal Box) is the communications from it to the relay rooms is radial cables, the same with the power supplies they are radial feeds, the modern systems have two data lines which have divers routing (ie one data line goes east the other goes west) the power supply systems are dual end fed with an auto reconfig system (ie it will automatically switch out and the around a faulty cable)