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Journey by Journey => London to the Cotswolds => Topic started by: Worcester_Passenger on April 15, 2014, 20:36:31



Title: 18:22 Paddington - Hereford, Tuesday April 15
Post by: Worcester_Passenger on April 15, 2014, 20:36:31
Journeycheck is reporting

18:22 London Paddington to Hereford due 21:34
This train has been delayed from London Paddington and is now 17 minutes late.
This train will be terminated at Colwall and restarted from Ledbury.
This is due to a train fault.

This seems very odd - can anyone shed any light?


Title: Re: 18:22 Paddington - Hereford, Tuesday April 15
Post by: johoare on April 15, 2014, 21:31:54
Realtime trains says (and I quote) "This service was cancelled between Colwall and Hereford due to a problem with a coach (MI)."


Title: Re: 18:22 Paddington - Hereford, Tuesday April 15
Post by: JayMac on April 15, 2014, 22:28:10
This seems very odd - can anyone shed any light?

Lights were the problem. No lighting in Coach C.

Although why that meant terminating and re-starting is anyone's guess. For safety reason I assume passengers had to be moved from Coach C. There are some special evacuation rules for trains that pass through Ledbury Tunnel due to the narrow bore. This may have had some influence on whatever decisions were made at Colwall.


Title: Re: 18:22 Paddington - Hereford, Tuesday April 15
Post by: Btline on April 15, 2014, 22:54:02
Welcome to soft touch nanny state Britain, where - once again - tired commuters are dumped in the middle of nowhere, just to make life easier for FGW towers.

The commuters should have mutinied as they have done before and demanded to be taken to Hereford. I hope all passengers are given at least their entire fair back.


Title: Re: 18:22 Paddington - Hereford, Tuesday April 15
Post by: Southern Stag on April 15, 2014, 23:09:20
If it is necessary to evacuate an HST in Ledbury tunnel is can only be done through the sliding power car doors because of the limited clearance in the tunnel. If for whatever reason evacuation was only possible through one end of the train or the other you'd have to move any passengers through the pitch black Coach C, which could be a serious impediment to a speedy evacuation. Would you want to be the person who authorised the train to proceed through the tunnel if something did go wrong? I doubt the train was particularly busy anyway and I'm sure alternative arrangements were made for any passengers who were left stranded, given that the train arrived at Colwall 10 minutes late but departed Ledbury 30 minutes late. That's plenty of time for the staff to make arrangements.


Title: Re: 18:22 Paddington - Hereford, Tuesday April 15
Post by: John R on April 15, 2014, 23:12:03
I hope all passengers are given at least their entire fair back.
And that they didn't have a roundabout journey to get home.


Title: Re: 18:22 Paddington - Hereford, Tuesday April 15
Post by: Chris from Nailsea on April 15, 2014, 23:52:42

 ;D


Title: Re: 18:22 Paddington - Hereford, Tuesday April 15
Post by: Btline on April 16, 2014, 08:54:30
If it is necessary to evacuate an HST in Ledbury tunnel is can only be done through the sliding power car doors because of the limited clearance in the tunnel. If for whatever reason evacuation was only possible through one end of the train or the other you'd have to move any passengers through the pitch black Coach C, which could be a serious impediment to a speedy evacuation. Would you want to be the person who authorised the train to proceed through the tunnel if something did go wrong? I doubt the train was particularly busy anyway and I'm sure alternative arrangements were made for any passengers who were left stranded, given that the train arrived at Colwall 10 minutes late but departed Ledbury 30 minutes late. That's plenty of time for the staff to make arrangements.

Oh for pity's sake. Not good enough! There are light sticks in the carriages are there not?
What are the chances of the train breaking down at this spot? 0.0001


Title: Re: 18:22 Paddington - Hereford, Tuesday April 15
Post by: a-driver on April 16, 2014, 10:16:15
.... and the day there is an incident in the tunnel where people are injured or even killed I suppose the media, the UK law system and yourself will dismiss the incident because there was just a 0.0001% chance of it happening.


Title: Re: 18:22 Paddington - Hereford, Tuesday April 15
Post by: Btline on April 16, 2014, 15:12:04
People need to take responsibility for their own actions. Not having lights in one carriage is not going to kill people.


Title: Re: 18:22 Paddington - Hereford, Tuesday April 15
Post by: ChrisB on April 16, 2014, 15:25:04
But they won't - and the courts agree.


Title: Re: 18:22 Paddington - Hereford, Tuesday April 15
Post by: Southern Stag on April 16, 2014, 16:13:39
So when you need to get out of the train quickly do you want to be going through a carriage in the pitch black? It's certainly something I'd rather avoid.


Title: Re: 18:22 Paddington - Hereford, Tuesday April 15
Post by: JayMac on April 16, 2014, 22:08:54
Serious incidents in tunnels, both rail and road, are well documented. Some where there have been major loss of life. Safety lessons are sadly often learned through loss of life. Ledbury Tunnel is a single bore, over a 3/4 mile long. So narrow that HST carriage doors can not be opened more than a few inches. I for one am glad that there is a defined evacuation plan should the worst happen. I'm also glad that should that evacuation plan not be possible in potentia due to a fault, then staff will decide that no risk, no matter how small, is taken.


Title: Re: 18:22 Paddington - Hereford, Tuesday April 15
Post by: Worcester_Passenger on April 20, 2014, 15:11:29
Fascinating - and I now know a lot more about this than when I posted the original question.

There's a couple of things that I don't understand. Are the lightsticks the only emergency lighting in an HST? What happens in other types of trains?

If it is necessary to evacuate an HST in Ledbury tunnel it can only be done through the sliding power car doors because of the limited clearance in the tunnel. If for whatever reason evacuation was only possible through one end of the train or the other you'd have to move any passengers through the pitch black Coach C, which could be a serious impediment to a speedy evacuation.

I can see that you'd have to evacuate the train via the sliding doors in the power car - but I really can't see that being "speedy". Splitting the train and driving part of it out of the tunnel feels easier. Unlike the Eurostars, you haven't got articulated coaches to complicate matters. I suddenly have a vision of the Train Manager having to sit in the rear cab (as on a Eurostar) just in case.

And a note to the moderators - perhaps this topic should be moved to the 'Frequent Posters' section, just in case the Health and Safety police decide to ban HSTs from operating west of Great Malvern.


Title: Re: 18:22 Paddington - Hereford, Tuesday April 15
Post by: JayMac on April 20, 2014, 15:27:47
Splitting a HST is no easy job in an unlit tunnel with very little room to move around. Jumpers to disconnect, break pipes to disconnect and then seal. Brake pressure to be raised again to enable release. Not something a driver and train manager would even contemplate, or I suspect, are even trained for. It's not a quick job in a depot for a maintenance team in daylight.

I'd be fairly confident that the current special protocols for evacuating HSTs in Ledbury Tunnel are the best there are given the environment.


Title: Re: 18:22 Paddington - Hereford, Tuesday April 15
Post by: TaplowGreen on April 21, 2014, 08:31:12
....other than lightsticks, what backup lighting is there in HSTs? Surely there should be some emergency facility if the main power fails?



Title: Re: 18:22 Paddington - Hereford, Tuesday April 15
Post by: a-driver on April 21, 2014, 09:36:00
There are emergency LED lighting in the vestibule areas.

The power to the carriages come directly from the power cars, each carriage is not capable of generating its own power although it does have batteries underneath the carriage which, in the event of a power failure, would keep lights illuminated and control functions live for at least 90 minutes possibly longer depending on the condition of the batteries.


Title: Re: 18:22 Paddington - Hereford, Tuesday April 15
Post by: bobm on April 21, 2014, 10:40:00
Interestingly I was on a stopping service from Exeter to Paignton over the weekend which was formed of two 143s.  The lights were not working in one of the four carriages.   The train was heavily loaded, so rather than not use the offending coach people were allowed sit there providing they moved to one of the others at Dawlish and back again at Teignmouth after the train had been through the seawall tunnels.

Not quite the same as the Ledbury situation as the tunnel clearances are greater - but a sensible use of resources in my opinion.


Title: Re: 18:22 Paddington - Hereford, Tuesday April 15
Post by: Worcester_Passenger on September 07, 2017, 20:17:07
I'm on the 18:22 again this evening. And this time it's only going as far as Colwall on account of "a problem with the rear power car".

Alas, according to JourneyCheck, this decision was taken at 18:51, just as we left Reading. Which neatly snookers any opportunity for any Hereford passengers to bale out and travel via Newport.

And having taken the decision at 18:51, it wasn't announced on the train until 19:30, after we'd left Oxford.

Passengers for Ledbury and Hereford are being advised to change at Worcester Foregate St for a "replacement train service". Which I fear will be an hours' wait for the Next London Midland train.



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