Massive Disruption at Paddington - ALL day Thurs / Fri

[whole diary]

[CJB666]

Does anyone know why ALL trains to / from Heathrow have been cancelled without notice for TWO days?

Some reports say signal failure, others say cable theft, others say points failure at Airport Junction, others say IT was a fire at Paddington.

What IS certain is that the severe disruptionS into / out of Paddington have been going on since 11.00 Thursday morning, and are likely to persist until 15.00 Friday afternoon.

As is typical for FGW^▸ (First Great Western) / Heathrow NO MANAGEMENT WERE IN SIGHT on the concourse at Paddington during the day nor during the evening rush-hour on Thursday.

NO CONTINGENCY PLANS WERE IN PLACE to get airline pax to Heathrow to make their flights. HEX staff at Paddington were telling pax to get the Piccadilly Line to Heathrow - actually not that easy to do esp. with luggage. And T4L were not accepting HEX or HConn tickets.

And the thousands who missed their flights from Heathrow likely also found that they missed their onward flight connections, missed meeting accommodation bookings, and are likely to miss spending Christmas with their relatives / friends. And with the Christmas getaway now in full swing thousands will find that rebooking flights is not an option before the New Year.

Also most (all?) Intercity trains from Paddington to the West were cancelled. Again rebooking is likely to be an issue since all subsequent trains are likely to be fully booked. And trains are not likely to be running again until later Friday afternoon.

What few trains that were running - mainly Intercitys - were not stopping at local stations due to over-crowding or more likely not having stop orders issued. So pax at local stations had to wait and wait and wait until a train condescended to stop for them.

On the CIS^▸ (Customer Information System) indicators trains appeared, then were shown as delayed in ever increasing minutes, then disappeared.

NO ANNOUNCEMENTS WERE MADE AT LOCAL STATIONS.

NO APOLOGIES NOR ANNOUNCEMENTS WERE MADE ON WHAT TRAINS WERE RUNNING.

Wonderful chaos as usual. And FGW / HeathrOw  / Network Rail management with their collective no-shows obviously DIDN'T AND DON'T give a damn.

[CJB666]

Paddington rail disruption to Christmas getaway

First Great Western were running about half of their normal services

Passengers travelling to and from London's Paddington station have been hit by delays and cancellations.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20808182

Heathrow Connect and Heathrow Express services, from Paddington to Heathrow Airport, have [ALL] been suspended.

[CJB666]

Friday 11.45 uk.railway

At 11:45, almost all of Paddington was down and out. Everything from the Greenford locals to the Bristol/Cardiff/Taunton intercities and everything in between was displayed as CANCELLED.

So glad I don't have to commute, especially at this time of year, double especially not on the Greatly W&nkered Main Line...

[CJB666]

Heathrow website has this at Friday 12:20 :

http://www.heathrowairport.com/

Due to Network Rail multiple track circuit failures, Heathrow Express and Heathrow Connect services are currently suspended and passengers are advised to use alternative transport. For more information visit their websites or follow @heathrowexpress on Twitter for updates.

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STILL NO HEATHROW MANAGEMENT STAFF AT PADDINGTON.

STILL NO CONTINGENCY PLANS LIKE COACHES OR SHARED CABS FROM PADDINGTON TO HEATHROW.

PATHETIC.

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[grahame]

Hi, wow, welcome ... what a first posting flurry 

This site was originally set up in answer to ... frustrations ... at "things rail" in the area served by First Great Western, and indeed a noticeable increase in visitors to the site tells me that those frustrations are still there.   Heck - many of us feel them, and it's common that on long distance journeys its the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) area end that's the problem.   Only this morning, I've been advising a customer of ours on travel from where he lives in Lancashire to visit our business and the issue he has isn't a lack of services at the right time of day in his area - it's a lack in ours.

But, having said that, I've learned over the years that things happen and crop up which are beyond the control of the management of Network Rail and FGW, where there are some very good people.   You need to look at years of underinvestment, with (I think I read) 30 types of point control equipment between London and Reading (out of 60 types on the whole network), many nearly life expired, with problems with spares and finding people who know how to fix them.  That's the sort of thing that the public doesn't necessarily hear about.  And then I have to ask you if you would prefer the bossman to be on the concourse in Paddington, speaking with individual customers, or in a control centre sorting out things for hundreds and thousands of customers.

By the nature of problems, you don't know what's going to happen, nor when. And as the problem first occurs, there's going to be a lack of knowledge as to what it is and how it can be fixed, so information is bound to be sketchy.

Now - there's only an element of defence of the system there - I have questioned some of the elements of the "contingency plan 3" you'll see elsewhere on this site, and indeed there's always a chance to learn from that.     It's becoming clear to me now that the route cause is probably a fire that burned down / through a substantial signalling setup.   The system is "fail safe" so as this has happened, trains have stopped ... but it does not feature ultimate redundancy, which means that the system can carry on running even after such a fire; the cost would be very high indeed, and I expect you would see a lot of complaints at the higher fares that would be needed for such a system [[ but - radio control in the future may make a significant and positive difference ]]

I was personally lucky - VERY lucky - to get home with only a 40 minute delay.  But I have to make one slight correction; on our train at least, the train manager did an excellent job of keeping us informed,  telling us how other trains were doing but refraining from speculating how we would do - he gave us the facts as he had them, so that we could judge for ourselves.

[CJB666]

Significant disruption affecting First Great Western Services - Update at 12:30hrs on Friday 21st December 2012

A major failure of line side equipment in the Hayes area has resulted in the signalling failing in a number of locations between Slough and London Paddington.

This means that only two of the four railway lines in and out of London Paddington being available for use.

Therefore First Great Western are operating a significantly reduced service between Reading and London Paddington.

Network Rail have been working to fix the problem since yesterday morning and we expect to be able to resume a normal service as soon as they confirm that it is safe to operate trains over all tracks in the area.

Full details of the alterations can be found at

http://www.journeycheck.com/firstgreatwestern

Customers are advised to expect significantly increased journey times and our services both to and from London Paddington to be particularly busy.

First Great Western Tickets will also be valid with the following alternative transport providers:

-   South West Trains Services between Reading and London Waterloo
-   Transport For London Buses in the Outer London Area
-   London Underground Services from Ealing Broadway
-   Virgin Trains/Cross Country Services to London Euston
-   Chiltern Services via Banbury to Marylebone

It is now anticipated that this disruption will continue until at least 16:00hrs on Friday 21st December.

Further updates will be provided on this website when they are known.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Heathrow Express / Connect Services

An additional signalling problem in the Heathrow Area has resulted in services between London Paddington and Heathrow being suspended.

Customers travelling to Heathrow are advised of the following alternative journey options:

- If travelling from the West, Heathrow Airport Bus Link from Reading Station
- Customers at London Paddington can use London Underground Services on the Piccadilly Line (take
the West Bound District Line from Paddington and change at Earls Court)
- Customers from Southall can use TfL^» (Transport for London - about)'s Bus number 150 <==== WRONG IT IS 105
- Customers from Hayes and Harlington can use TfL's Bus number 150 <==== WRONG IT IS 140

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Line problem: between Slough and Paddington

Owing to signalling problems between Slough and Southall some lines are blocked.

Impact:

Train services running through these stations may be cancelled, delayed by up to 60 mins or revised at short notice. Disruption is expected until 16:00 21/12.

Customer Advice:

Chiltern Railways, Cross Country, South West Trains, Virgin Trains and London Underground services are conveying passengers via any reasonable route until further notice. Arrangements have been made for First Great Western rail tickets to be accepted for these journeys.

Transport for London services are conveying passengers via any reasonable route until further notice.

Only 2 out of the 4 running lines are available for use between Paddington and Slough. As a result train services are losing considerable time in running between those points. Services have been reduced. Please allow more time to complete your journey.

The following service alterations are in place:

Please note there maybe a few exceptions:

Paddington to Greenford / Greenford to Paddington services are Cancelled

Heathrow Connect and Heathrow Express services in both directions are Cancelled

Paddington to Reading / Reading to Paddington local services are Cancelled

Paddington to Bedwyn and Bedwyn to Paddington services will start and terminate at Reading.

Paddington to Oxford / Oxford to Paddington services will run

Paddington to Cardiff Central / Cardiff Central to Paddington services are Cancelled

Paddington to Swansea / Swansea to Paddington services will run and call additionally at Didcot Parkway.

Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads XX:30 will be Cancelled.

Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads XX:00 will run.

Bristol Temple Meads to Paddington XX:00 will be Cancelled.

Bristol Temple Meads to Paddington XX:30 will run.

Services not mentioned above will be subject to delay, alteration or cancellation

First Great Western Ticket Restrictions have been lifted for today.

National Rail Enquiries - 0845 7 484950 (24 hours)

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[grahame]

This thread .. to a very great extent ... risks duplicating the thread that's running on the same subject at

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=11731

so I'm going to encourage general responses on the other thread - follow ups VERY welcome there.   I'll also remind people to be careful of their language - this is a public forum that your daughter may be reading 

This thread remains open specifically for replies to the original poster - if we stray too far here, then I'll relock the topic and force follow ups elsewhere!!

[Electric train]

NO CONTINGENCY PLANS WERE IN PLACE to get airline pax to Heathrow to make their flights. HEX staff at Paddington were telling pax to get the Piccadilly Line to Heathrow - actually not that easy to do esp. with luggage. And T4L were not accepting HEX or HConn tickets.

The above sounds like a contingency plan to me given that there is little other alternative

Wonderful chaos as usual. And FGW^▸ (First Great Western) / HeathrOw  / Network Rail management with their collective no-shows obviously DIDN'T AND DON'T give a damn.

That is a little disingenuous the Network Rail managers would have been doing what they should be not doing planning the contingencies but delivering the alternative to the normal reacting to an ever evolving situation one which they would not have a clear indication to the full resolution working their damnedest to get as many trains running as they can.

The senior managers would be in a "war room" talking to route control, monitoring the station they have to be mindful of over crowding the station, talking to the fault team leader, interacting with the TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) 

[HexDriver]

As for your point of lack of contingency the harsh reality is that due to the crossrail works taking place which resulted in the closure of the old taxi road where replacement buses used to operate from. The new taxi rank frankly struggles with taxis most of the time and there's no other locations in the paddington area for buses to operate from. It's for this reason that there's no bus replacement service Christmas Day and Boxing Day. The tube is therefore the most appropriate alternative although granted its far from ideal.

Also the point about lack of management presence, to be honest they probably wouldn't offer anything the current staff presence would offer and to be frank there's probably more productive things they could be doing.