Great Western Coffee Shop

BBC TV local news announced this morning that the Reading-Gatwick service would be suspended between Reading and Blackwater for ten days, due to cracking discovered in a points at Wokingham. And this is from GWR JourneyCheck:


Now, why is the usual backup route from Wokingham - via Clapham Junction - not on that list of reasonably routes?

National rail has the same, plus this helpful note (which may have been on GWR's version earlier):

The alternative route via Ascot was unavailable for the early departures this morning due to over-running engineering work.

Journeycheck:


Over a week?

Interesting one to find an alternative route for.  Perhaps run a Virginia Water to Gatwick Airport service rather than Reading to Gatwick Airport?

Can only think it’s a specific part to that set of points that needs replacing that would cause such a lengthy delay?

Things do take a time on the railways these days and aren't always done the quickest way ... 90 minutes to get the right taxi at a county town where a connection has failed when taxis are standing outside.   And I suspect that the local model shop only has the part in 1:72 and 1:148 scales.

If non-standard geometry something might have to be specially cast as a spare is not held.  Happens now and again at junctions that have been built to special dimensions. 

They've been tinkering with that junction off and on for months - well, years really. Some of that looked like piecemeal renewal, though recontrol may have involved too (but the points do still seem to be rod-operated). There's been a crossing (viz. a big casting) lying by the signal box most of that time (I think it's still here), though whether it's old or new it's hard to tell.

For a few weeks there has been a 5 mph TSR there, though only for the curve to Waterlloo so that must be something different. What isn't clear - I've seen a few trains even come to a stop briefly across the junction, even when lo lookout was visible.

Confusinger and confusinger. JourneyCheck now says the service is cancelled today due to bad weather:

No mention of cracked points, or a longer closure, and the advice doesn't seem to have changed - it still refers to connecting to trains from Blackwater to Gatwick! National Rail, however, are sticking with the track repair excuse.

What you see on RTT or OTT is as bad. Earlier, the day's service was showing in OTT as cancelled due to cause PG, which is "Planned cancellation by Train Operator including Bank Holiday schedules". Those show in RTT as running, if in the future or recent past, but once it's clear they didn't run they just vanish. However, the few trains between Reading and Shalford were showing in both as "cancelled throughout due to a rail defect (IR)."

Now RTT is showing some of the curtailed services to or from Blackwater as cancelled (IR), and so is OTT, though there's a lot of missing reports so it's hard to say whether 2V63 really did get stuck near Ash at 15:22. The rest of today's services a mixture of cancellations and "running" when you know they either didn't or won't.

SWR are running moderately well, at least so far.

GWR have just updated their disruptions notice:

That makes a bit more sense, anyway.

Oh, and I note that the Met Office has just expanded that amber warning zone so it does now cover Reading and Wokingham, until 8:00 tomorrow. Up to now they always carefully left us outside by a few miles.

I suppose trains wont be able to leave Reading depot to get beyond Wokingham and the rest of the line tomorrow.

I know OTT is Open Train Times; what does ITT stand for?

Inadvertently typed trash.

There did not seem to be any services on the North Downs Line yesterday. Looking at the Guildford to Redhill part of the line, nothing seems to be running today and  although it snowed yesterday afternoon in the area, there wouldn't appear to be any reason why trains cannot operate due to weather. Presumably there are a couple of units based at Redhill which should shuttle to/from Guildford? 

What's the fuel situation like for the units that can't make Reading, though?   It might not be weather on the line ....

The units doing the shuttle between Redhill and Blackwater on Thursday ended up (according to RTT) at Redhill, and nothing is shown since. I suspect someone took pity on them and let them go home to mummy by whatever route they could find. Any replacement trains would have to get there, and I can believe that noone has bothered to arrange that yet.

But what GWR are "promising" now is absurd. Form JourneyCheck:

That's not the weather I was expecting ... especially given that the thaw is well underway here.

Note that while the references to Blackwater have gone, they are still talking about routes to get you to Guildford or Dorking!

From National Rail Enquiries (http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service_disruptions/185391.aspx)

I posted in another thread that I was hoping to use the North Downs line from Deepdene to Gatwick on Monday. It is now time to consider the unthinkable. Take my suitcase on a packed morning peak train to Clapham Junction and change trains there.  :o

I really do not want to do that.

I suspect that there were to Reading to Redhill trains because of both a cracked point and because of the weather.

Now - I think we have noticed before that there's always just ONE reason for a change - it's never "shortage of drivers AND more train needing maintenance at the same time" even though it would be really logical to align the problems.  And I wonder if the weather is taking priority for as long it can be got away with as it's more acceptable, and cheaper too as it saves things like the rail industry taking the blame or having to provide road transport over sections where that would be safe.

They won't be able to rely on that for long. We had snow on the pavements, road and grass this morning. There is now very little evidence that we had any snow at all!

NRE has given me a better alternative from Leatherhead via Horsham that takes approximately the same journey time but most importantly I'm heading in the opposite direction to the morning peak flows.  :)

S'now longer possible to blame the weather ... so rail replacement buses start tomorrow.

Except on GWR JourneyCheck, which hasn't changed. As to work "taking place" - no sign so so far, unless you count three blokes in dayglo with one clipboard between them.

If you ask NR Journey Planner, for the next week it will only offer you an 'any permitted' ticket at £33.70 via Clapham, not the direct 'via Gomshall' one at £20.00 (anytime singles). That route takes the same time as a slow direct train, i.e. 30 minutes slower than a semi-fast, but is much quicker (and easier) than going round via Reading.

For travel today, you are offered in impressive choice of ways to occupy your time. One is via Reading, Paddington, Victoria, Redhill, and then one of those buses to Gatwick. The other is via Virginia Water, RR bus to Hounslow, Clapham Junction, Redhill and that bus again. Both take over three hours (vice 1:17 on a good day) and are priced at £33.70.

If there wasn't an existing (if stupidly priced) ticket via that open route, would it have to offer you the cheaper one with alternative routings?

That strikes me as very naughty indeed ... if the railway fails to provide a service because something that's part of their infrastructure has gone wrong, that's bad enough.  But to then only offer tickets at a £13.70 higher price.

Nice work if you can get it ... no need to rush the fix or put something temporary in ...  ;) laughing all the way to the bank?

This is what's on NRE under service disruptions for GWR:

Now, that almost makes sense! Apart from the bit about road conditions today, obviously.

I wonder what tickets the machines will sell you tomorrow - presumably the full range. Unless they are feeling unwell - I did notice on Friday when I looked in to see how they were doing (answer not well, though trains did run, slowly, most of the day) that all the S&B ones went blank and "out of service" for a while.

The disappointing aspect is that GWR has made NO attempt whatsoever to operate any trains on the North Downs Line this weekend. Dorking passengers haven't fared too well today with London bound trains being replaced by buses to either Sutton or Wimbledon due to engineering work. Many of those passengers would have travelled from Deepdene to Redhill, and then up to Victoria or London Bridge. When I visited Dorking station at lunchtime, there were 4 double deckers in the forecourt providing the Rail replacement service, although with very few users.

On a sad note, I saw that one of the shiny new ticket machines outside Deepdene station has had its touchscreen smashed.

According to BBC South local news this morning, GWR have been "letting it be known" that they think Network rail are not really trying to mend these points quickly. Their (and NR's) reported words were in terms of a part that was needed and having to be made, and the key element of the complaint was that there should have been a spare one. I've no idea what that might be ... whether rail or a bit of the mechanism.

Why would Network Rail not want to repair the points quickly? Surely they are losing out on revenue from trains running on the North Downs line?

There was no suggestion this was a coherent plan - just a lack of organisation, priority, forethought, and perhaps capacity.

I don't know the answer to those questions, but I can imagine a scenario in which a bespoke proper part takes a few days to make and install.  Perhaps a temporary part / lash-up could have been done to allow trains to pass over at walking pace, but the extra cost of doing this made the accountant's eye water and he said "no".

I assume there is no line problem between Redhill & Gatwick Airport, so there are operational reason(s) why the hourly stopping service is terminating at Redhill.

GWR can deploy the spare turbo(s)/staff elsewhere this week.

I assume that is because they are running an hourly shuttle, and that doesn't fit the paths available from Redhil to Gatwick. Why they are doing that rather than the trains stopping at Blackwater and pretending to go to Reading and back I'm not sure - I've not tried to plot the timings. It may well be that it doesn't really work, or needs an extra unit and makes the Blackwater turn-round awkward (even with no through trains).

They have an awfully long turnaround time at Blackwater, sticking to the timetable but missing out the to/from Reading part. I assume its partly to do with pathing through Guildford, though a re-written timetable could get you an hourly Blackwater to Gatwick using 3 units

I think they are using three units - it's roughly an hour each way before adding dwells. For once GWR's words are more accurate than mine:
(At least that bit is - the other words are still misleading; e.g. saying the buses run to Guidford.)

So they are using their usual paths for the stopping trains, fitting into their usual gaps at Ash-Guidford and Reigate-Redhill. After about 20:00 tonight they run to Gatwick, again in the usual paths - but that's roughly when the Redhill trains stop running normally. I'm not sure if they want the extra layover time at Blackwater, that being "home from home". While it may help to cover for travelling delays on crew changes, crews who are not changing over might not enjoy almost an hour of "time off" at Blackwater.

When I looked at lunchtime, the afternoon's schedule was showing alternate trains running semifast and extended to Gatwick. I'm not sure if that was ever going to work, but it's been removed anyway. Someone thing aloud on paper (or on TRUST) perhaps?

Having to change at Redhill is a disadvantage, but only for passengers from Guidford and the other stops on the semifasts from Blackwater. From minor stops you always needed to change, and from Reading-Wokingham you'd be better off using an alternative route by train than the (rather slow) buses. I found one of GWR's instant posters at Wokingham, complete with pretty coloured map showing all the options.

The words don't actually mention routes you can use a "via Gomshall" ticket on specifically, just "valid tickets can be used on alternative routes via Ascot or Basingstoke".  The route diagram shows alternative routes are available via Paddington-Victoria, Basingstoke-Farnborough Main, Ascot-Aldershot for Ash Vale and Ash/Wanborough, and "To London Waterloo Change and Clapham Junction for trains to Gatwick Airport".

That's "valid" in what sense, I wonder? Surely they don't just mean tickets normally valid for those routes? GWR JourneyCheck still says:

So that does explicitly say "GWR tickets" are being accepted via Basingstoke, but still refuses to say that for travel via Clapham.

Correction: there are direct Reading-Guildford buses too - not visibly at Wokingham or Blackwater, obvoiusly.

Apparently NR have enlisted the help of London Underground (!) to effect a temporary repair. Normal service hopefully to be operated from tomorrow albeit with a TSR at Wokingham.

Well, I believe LU have the odd point or two - though not, I thought, old mechanical ones like those at Wokingham.

But is this the result of GWR rattling NR's cage by going public about their dissatisfaction? They were even reported as "calling for an independent inquiry".

BBC South revised their item to say (with an NR spokesmouth to do it) that they would fit their borrowed bit tonight, but still needed to replace "track" at the weekend. SWR's last two trains into Reading will terminate at Ascot, with buses onwards, though what's showing on NRE is a bit last-minute - the trains are described as "delayed" and the service update is still as it was. Neither those  nor future normal running of the GWR trains is yet in schedule.

The BBC report still showed the TSR signs for 30 mph to the left towards Bracknell (really an extension of the PSR of 30 for the station and crossing) and claimed that it was due to this cracked whatsit. In reality it's been there for weeks, except for most of February it was only 5 mph.

The last train to run tonight has gone through, so I guess (I don't intend to go and look) work is now underway. If it's a really small widget that's involved, is there a special fate reserved for whoever drops it in the ballast in the dark? Ah - a Transit pickup (which was here last night too) has turned up. So The Part must be smaller than that, anyway ...

And the current situation is ... hard to tell. I think they are in the process of moving stock and staff tto restart the normal service, but have not yet told the system what's going to run when. Certainly there are more service updates needing revision that normal - this is JourneyCheck:

Now, would you know from that that there is a train shuttle from Reading to Blackwater (i.e. a rail replacement bus replacement train (though the buses are probably still running too)), and hourly stopping trains to Redhill? Until further notice, anyway.

It certainly doesn't look very clear. When I looked at the online departure boards, services were showing from Blackwater-Reading (not sure if that tied in with the Redhill-Blackwater ones, so effectively a through train).

Oh well, a slight improvement on yesterday.

As to what the job was - it needed two Transit pick-ups, a dozen people, and lots of metal things that go 'clunk' when unloaded. Then there was a big RRV crane, such as a Komatsu PW-160 (other big yellow toys are available). And my last look out of the window showed a road low-loader, which may (or may not) have brought the RRV - hardly necessary if they got one from Readypower, based within a mile by road (far less along the railway). Of course the key missing bit they 'borrowed' from LU could still have been very small.

I think the buses are still running (at the time of writing at least!) **25 from Guildford (straight to Reading) and **36 from North Camp (all stations to Wokingham, then Reading).

The ':04' Reading departures, which are the Redhill stoppers, have been shown as Reading-Blackwater but then have continued as the scheduled temporary shuttles. They are a few minutes late, perhaps due to the current TSR at Wokingham (I'll look at that later). They are now showing on the departures board as "Continues to Stations to Redhill. " No sign of the semifasts yet.

By "showing on the departures board" I meant those able to show the second, text, line - essentially platform displays. The main station displays can't do that.

As of now they have started showing the semifasts to Gatwick as running, though they have not yet had a chance to not do so. And through Redhill services are starting to take over from the split ones, at least in today's schedule, though I'm not sure how they are advertised.

At Wokingham station just now, there was no free-text notice (like an old blackboard) and yesterday's posters were still up inside and out. I think there were buses too. The TSR now says 5 mph on the Up Main and Up Guildford, and 5 mph on the Down Main too. I think that means the track at that point has been lifted and messed around and needs to be tamped and checked.

Now JourneyCheck roughly confirms what I observed:

The 13:34 did run to Gatwick (just arrived now), but the next one at 14:34 didn't. So still work in progress.

GWR are still bleating about disruption due to those points, and running only a limited number of Gatwick semifasts. Journeycheck ha:
(plus what was posted yesterday.)

NRE says it's a 15-minute delay. In fact it's only a minute or two on the Up, nothing on the Down, even with the TSR reduced to 20 mph for today. RTT shows some buses still running, though I'm not sure they were as the trains they'd connect with didn't. The absence of any signs saying "to the buses" proves little, as there never were any local signs.

So what are these "additional resources"? The trains allocated to this service, which someone had stolen to use elsewhere when the suspension started and refuses to give back?

Today was another day with the same fictitious 15 minute delays (repeated on the TV news this morning) and missing "resources". The other part of those misexplanations was that it would all end by tomorrow - more specifically by 02:00 tomorrow (a very odd choice of time, even if it was a weekday). So at least we'll see if that bit's true (though maybe not at 2 am prompt).

I imagined the track needs tamping and levelling, and  I did see a bunch of the lads out looking at that area today. I also say a stone blower come through, though at just after 11 it was a bit early. Its passage is not reported in RTT or OTT, for some reason.

But while last time the possession started just after midnight, with SWR's last two trains cancelled at about two hours' notice, this time they are still in the schedule.

I wonder what they did last night - if anything. Whatever it was had to be between the last train at 1:00 and either the promised time of 2:00 and today's first at 4:50. But at least it has worked - with trains running "normally" (dixit NRE).

But why (I hear you cry) are they still not running to Gatwick? Because the slow lies as closed, that's why, with buses from Reigate. In a case like this, the hermetic nature of "service updates" and "future engineering" as  labels for information sources about whole routes looks odd - neither linking to (or even hinting at) the other's existence.