Great Western Coffee Shop

Bobm reports this morning ...


... and I just roll my eyes and think "not AGAIN" ... TransWilts seems to be running on signalling that might have been fit for purpose in the days when the only passenger trains were on summer saturdays - seaside trains via Oxford to Weymouth, and there was just a handful of freight trains each week.  It needs to be made much more robust.

But then ... is the TransWilts alone in having signalling that keeps breaking down under the pressure of modern traffic?   On no fewer than 4 occasions during my last week travelling around the North East, we have come to a halt at a red signal and then after a few minutes proceeded - passing it at danger.  Not only do I notice that this happened so often (4 occasions during journeys on 44 trains), but also how quickly we moved on - suggesting that it's a pretty darned common occurrence.

For the record -
Two separate places on my Retford to Barnetby journey
On my York to Hull journey
On my Darlington to Bishop Auckland journey

Network Rail have, I think, suggested that much of their work in the next five years will be in catching up on a backlog of maintenance to make things more robust.  Having seen 4 sets of signals passed at danger in a week, I can't help feeling much more sympathic to that need now.

In combination with issues that GWR are tackling and are getting on top of (but not there yet), I really look forward to better reliability of service ... yesterday, 3 cancelled at Melksham (4, but one was re-instated) ... today so far, 2 cancelled and it's not yet 10 a.m.

Have their been any thunderstorms in the area over the past few days?.........

There hadn't been to my knowledge ... and think it unlikey in some of the cases.

I think I've mentioned before that modern signalling equipment is very prone to effects of lightning.  Despite many attempts at a permanent cure, there is no such thing as total protection.  So, I'm afraid we will have 'live' with a certain amount of such disruption.

Silly question. If line telephone is also solid-state electronics connected to long lengths of wire, why don't they fail as often?

Because the electronics in a signalling system have to 'Fail Safe' and shut down in the event of interference, when in a telephone system it doesn't matter if there is the odd spike or rumble on the line.  Easier to protect the latter.