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Today 10/08/2018. 1Y35 (0827 Heathrow T5 to Paddington) sat down on the Up Main just west of Southall at 0838. Still there at 1040. At least they can run around it via the Down Main. Hope they don't leave it too long before they consider a controlled evacuation...

On up relief at Ealing Broadway @ 11:12

Now stalled there at 1133 with a line of seven trains behind it.... :P

Still there @ 11:42 with 5G29 - 2P31 - 2Y22 - 2P32 - 9P23 all lined up behind it on the relief line with approaching trains being switched to up main line at Southall West.

Off up relief into HEX Depot @ 12:00.

I'd like to see the delay minutes for that lot (at the end of the day of course) :P

Assuming that there was no mechanical reason why this train could not be moved (eg damage to running gear), it is pathetic that Network Rail, as the infrastructure manager, was unable to get this train moved for over 2 hours.

It was sitting on the Up Main approaching Paddington in the morning rush hour causing huge disruption.  It was within a few miles of its depot.  Potential rescue trains (ie another emu or a loco) were available.

We’ve had this before, eg there was an HST just outside Paddington a few months ago.  It is inevitable that trains sometimes fail, but the railway seems to lack the ability to clear them off the main line within a reasonable time. 

Whether this is a consequence of modern signalling systems, or a lack of knowledge of how to get a rescue train up to a failed train, or risk-averse managers I don’t know.  But NR and the TOCs need to get a plan together to ensure that failed trains are rescued in much less than 2 hours.

And what about all the intending airline pax. on Pad. to T5 HEX's who missed their flights with consequent missed connection, hotels, events, cruises, etc.?

And if the Central to / from T5 Shuttles failed to turn up what arrangements did Heathrow make to get pax. between Terminals? Likely nothing.

GWR / HEX / TfL seem collectively incapable of handling such frequent disruptions.   

Services to Heathrow were relatively unaffected. A handful of cancellations reducing the service to half hourly at worst. I very much doubt anyone missed a flight because HEx was briefly half hourly mid morning.

Bnm is correct, the gap between arrivals at T5 did not exceed 33 minutes. Those on XR wishing to catch the 11:54 from Hayes would have been delayed by 1 hour. Anyone arriving 2-3 hours before flight would not have been affected.

We don't know what caused the problem so cannot speculate.  I'll ask in the WNXX Forum if anybody knows (quite a few insiders on there).

The knock-on cancellations due to this were tagged in RTT with "This service was cancelled throughout due to a problem with the brakes (MN).". So that was, presumably, what was recorded when 1Y35 called in sick.