Great Western Coffee Shop

Hearing it failed at Burnham tonight due to an issue with rear power car.

Read it left the rear coach and rear power car behind, and continued very late as a 1+7, terminating at Bristol Parkway 233 late.

My fault for speed-reading the previous post, obviously, but I found myself wondering for a moment what the heck it was doing at Highbridge.  :-[ :P ::)

I get confused every time, forgetting about the Burnham near London, only remembering Burnham-on-SeaMud  ::)

Yes and it caused chaos for hours - the stoppers (including the one I was on) had to run non-stop (not "fast" BTW, it was a crawl!) between Slough & Reading because the HST's had to be switched on to the relief lines to get around it.

Saw it there as we passed with the rear unit detached - then a few minutes later the truncated front section passed us going towards Reading. Don't know what they did with the back bit!

The back bit was recovered by a class 57. One of the sleeper locos I assume,

From what I understand the breaks of the rear power car had locked on due to a ruptured break pipe, and could not be released. In the end they moved the powercar using a skate. I didn't know what a skate was, but apparently its a piece of apparatus with its own set of wheels that can lift a failed vehicle slightly off the tracks so it can be towed away, albeit at a reduced speed of 35mph it nonetheless clears the obstruction.

I saw Tintagel Castle on the relief at about 18.00, about W.Drayton way, possibly acting as Thunderbird 5011 ?  ;D

Me too!

Still not clear why it took 3 hours to separate the rear power car form the rest of the train - would have thought that decision could have been made a lot sooner and the main front section delayed a lot less....!

Leaving vehicles on a main running line without a driver is not normally permitted by Network Rail.

I am surprised a 1+7 was allowed to run as far as Bristol Parkway.  I'd have thought there might be rules preventing it through the tunnels on the Badminton line while in passenger service.

Given the train could only go forward it could not terminate at Reading and then go to Old Oak Common, but at Swindon and then ECS to St Philips Marsh?

Must have been a reason for why they did it the way they did, just looks strange on the face of it.

If it had terminated at Swindon it'd still of had to go through to Bristol Parkway to get to SPM (So it could go straight in), so presume just made sense just to run it right through to there.

Not really familiar with that route.  The only restrictions I'm aware of is Ledbury and Colwall tunnel on the Cotswold line where there's not enough clearance in the tunnel to open a slam door. 

With a rear power car detached you're just limited to a maximum of 100mph.

What are the restrictions in these tunnels?

I think a-driver's post covered it. A HST set running on one power car wouldn't be allowed through the Ledbury or Colwall tunnels. Should there be an engine failure (or worse) you'd want to have the flexibility to get a set out of those tunnels in an emergency. If only one power car is working that wouldn't be possible.

I believe, but am open to correction, that similar emergency procedures are in place for the Severn Tunnel. A HST set, running in passenger service on one power car only, wouldn't be permitted to enter the Severn Tunnel.

The Only Restriction is Ledbury Tunnel, which are no powercars with sliding doors lock out can enter. As if evacuation required that's only way out and no clearance for normal doors.

There are no restrictions on Power Issues on FGW network except clear runs on certain gradients (Reading Viaduct and Devon Banks for example) Also generally not allowed West of Plymouth on one engine,

Thanks for those - I understand now.

Might in part be due to the gradients into and out of the tunnel? It's not unknown for heavy freight trains to stall on these gradients (reported on Wikipedia as 1:90 & 1:100 & presumable with relatively poor railhead conditions due to the location in deep, damp cuttings), so perhaps there is a concern that an HST could stall if only a single power car was operative?