Major delays/cancellations, Paddington to Reading, 20 December 2012 and ongoing ...

[whole diary]

[johngreg]

If traveling to exeter from egham this morning, what is best - go via reading as planned and hope for the best in terms of booked train/seat, or consider trying SWT^▸ (South West Trains) trains via Woking or Clapham?

[Jason]

If traveling to exeter from egham this morning, what is best - go via reading as planned and hope for the best in terms of booked train/seat, or consider trying SWT^▸ (South West Trains) trains via Woking or Clapham?

As a data point, I incurred a 24 minute delay on the 08:08 from Reading which departed pretty much on time and called additionally at Twyford. This was considerably better than the services last night though it was absolutely packed.

[jane s]

Hi,

After not getting home until nearly 10pm last night (2 trains did not run, next one was nearly 1/2-hour late) I had to get the 7:23 from Tilehurst this morning (with extra stops Taplow/Iver/Hanwell/W Ealing) as it was the ONLY peak-time service running. Was standing room only & people being turned away from Slough onwards, yet people still wouldn't squish up to let people on, even though there were no later trains for them to get to work on. I got off at Hayes instead of Southall (I now work in Greenford) to get a bus to free up a space for someone. Couldn't believe there were actually BIKES on board! No wonder people couldn't get on! Surely they could have left bike at station of origin & got bus from destination just for one day? Unbelievable!

It seems ridiculous to cancel practically all the stoppers just so the HST^▸ (High Speed Train)'s can run. How are people meant to get to work? Would be MUCH better to terminate majority of HST's at Reading and run regular 6-car shuttle service all stations Reading-Paddington. Don't see any reason why stoppers Oxford-Reading were cancelled either - these should not have been affected at all, just turned around at Reading instead.

in short, can't say I am at all impressed with "Contingency Plan 3"! (Maybe plans 1 and 2 were better?)

BTW^▸ (by the way) what exactly is the "problem with lineside equipment"? If it was signal failure/points failure/cable theft, why not be more specific?

[eightf48544]

Hi,



It seems ridiculous to cancel practically all the stoppers just so the HST^▸ (High Speed Train)'s can run. How are people meant to get to work? Would be MUCH better to terminate majority of HST's at Reading and run regular 6-car shuttle service all stations Reading-Paddington. Don't see any reason why stoppers Oxford-Reading were cancelled either - these should not have been affected at all, just turned around at Reading instead.

in short, can't say I am at all impressed with "Contingency Plan 3"! (Maybe plans 1 and 2 were better?)

6 car shuttle all stations Padd Reading WAS the contingency plan from NSE^▸ (Network South East) daysup to 2 tph.

Heard on Radio 4 todays problem is a fire in an equipment room at Padd. Sounds bad!

[BBM]

It seems ridiculous to cancel practically all the stoppers just so the HST^▸ (High Speed Train)'s can run. How are people meant to get to work? Would be MUCH better to terminate majority of HST's at Reading and run regular 6-car shuttle service all stations Reading-Paddington. Don't see any reason why stoppers Oxford-Reading were cancelled either - these should not have been affected at all, just turned around at Reading instead.

in short, can't say I am at all impressed with "Contingency Plan 3"! (Maybe plans 1 and 2 were better?)

BTW^▸ (by the way) what exactly is the "problem with lineside equipment"? If it was signal failure/points failure/cable theft, why not be more specific?

I'm wondering if FGW^▸ (First Great Western) are giving priority to long distance services today seeing as it's a big 'getaway' day before Xmas and maybe fewer people are expected to go to work in London? I agree that there should have been much more information about the nature of the problem, the lack of that is probably why the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) this morning were briefly reporting a "London Paddington station fire" which is of course wrong and might have caused unnecessary anxiety for anyone planning to use FGW today. Incidentally I see on FGW's Twitter timeline that someone called 'DTFC1907' has tweeted: "down here all night having cancelled leave to help build a temporary equipment room & re terminate 1,800 circuits."

EDIT: Slightly OT but it looks like another lineside equipment fire has stopped all trains to and from Brighton today: http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/10122615.Chaos_on_the_trains/?ref=rss

[jane s]

Oh great - am meant to be going there tonight! GRRRRR!

[grahame]

Don't see any reason why stoppers Oxford-Reading were cancelled either - these should not have been affected at all, just turned around at Reading instead.

Two thoughts:

a) It take longer to turn a train around than have it call.   Would there have been sufficient capacity?

b) If a high proportion of the stopper traffic usually comes from the east of Reading (?) and is absent, is there any point in running trains as frequently as ususual if they're nearly empty?  Better save the cost of track access charges and the like 

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Paddington rail disruption to Christmas getaway


First Great Western were running about half of their normal services

Passengers travelling to and from London's Paddington station have been hit by delays and cancellations. Heathrow Connect and Heathrow Express services, from Paddington to Heathrow Airport, have been suspended. First Great Western trains in and out of Paddington experienced cancellations and delays of up to 60 minutes.

Friday is expected to be London's busiest day of the year for road, rail and air travel as thousands of people begin their festive getaway.

According to Network Rail, a fire in an equipment room next to the track in west London on Thursday morning meant only two of the four lines were open on Friday morning. Network Rail said the fire damage was so extensive it has had to rebuild the equipment room from the ground up but it hopes to have all lines back open "some time this morning".

No trains were running between Paddington and Heathrow Airport, putting extra pressure on the Tube network.

On the Tube, there were severe delays on the Bakerloo line and minor delays on the Jubilee line due to a signalling systems failure.

BBC News website reporter Jane Mower travelled to Paddington from Maidenhead. She said: "It took me almost two hours longer than normal to get home last night and train staff were telling us then that the problem would continue into today. When I arrived at Maidenhead this morning several trains had been cancelled in both directions and others were delayed and we only had to pay off-peak ticket prices. If this continues for the rest of the day it is going to cause mayhem as everyone tries to get away for the Christmas break."

Heathrow Airport said it was expecting 123,000 passengers to depart and 104,000 to arrive.

At Gatwick about 1.5 million people are expected to travel through the airport between 17 December and 2 January.

Volunteers from the London 2012 Olympic Games have been drafted in to help passengers at both airports. They will be handing out children's packs and giving safety advice.

On the roads, dozens of sets of roadworks have been lifted on major routes but the Highways Agency is urging drivers to check the weather forecast, with heavy rain in much of the country expected to cause more flooding.

[jane s]

b) If a high proportion of the stopper traffic usually comes from the east of Reading (?) and is absent, is there any point in running trains as frequently as ususual if they're nearly empty?  Better save the cost of track access charges and the like 

Most of the passenger traffic on stoppers Oxford-Reading is going to/from Reading, hence why turning around at Reading would make sense allowing shuttles to run regularly Reading-London. Alternatively could have let some run through.




Edit note: Quote marks fixed. CfN.

[grahame]

Ongoing updates from member CJB666 on "London to Reading" - at http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=11737.msg122412#msg122412 .   I have chosen not to merge the threads, as the flurry of posts on that other thread could drown discussions and ongoing data on this one.

[CJB666]

The CJB666 thread was locked - this is the reply I tried to post to it:

This site was originally set up in answer to ... frustrations ... at "things rail" in the area served by First Great Western, and indeed a noticeable increase in visitors to the site tells me that those frustrations are still there.   Heck - many of us feel them, and it's common that on long distance journeys its the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) area end that's the problem.

snip

The big issues - as with every disruption to the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) are:

1/ lack of management visibility at Paddington inc. BAA or Heathrow Ltd / FGW / Network Rail

2/ conflicting information from station staff who themselves aren't kept informed - this latest disruption was known about at 11.00 Thursday morning - yet no-one bothered to announce that it was a major fire or where - pax at, say Hayes (where I was) at 15.00, were given NO information whatsoever yet the FGW Duty Manager (Mr. Singh) was there on the platform chatting to a friend - he seemed totally unconcerned about anything

3/ complete abandonment by Heathrow Ltd (ex-BAA) of pax for Heathrow, no coaches, no cabs, no real alternatives to get to Heathrow other than the over-crowded Piccadilly Line

Yet this line and Paddington has severe disruptions almost every month from cable thefts, suicides, points failures, signalling failures, etc. YET FGW / HEATHROW (EX-BAA) / NETWORK RAIL ALL SEEM INCAPABLE OF HANDLING THE EMERGENCIES. PATHETIC.

[BBM]

Someone at the FlyerTalk BA^» (British Airways - about) Forum has very recently posted the following, if it's true it's not good news:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/19898718-post14.html

Anyways... I spoke to my friend who is a manager on the HEx, and don't be to hopeful of it being back in service tomorrow people. It would seem that the good old LFB went in a bit heavy handed, and have made a right mess of the main feed electricity supply to the sub station which serves the section of line that is effected, and it could be at least another 20-24 hours before they are able to start running trains again.

[paul7575]

Yet this line and Paddington has severe disruptions almost every month from cable thefts, suicides, points failures, signalling failures, etc. YET FGW^▸ (First Great Western) / HEATHROW (EX-BAA) / NETWORK RAIL ALL SEEM INCAPABLE OF HANDLING THE EMERGENCIES. PATHETIC.

And almost without fail, this results in automatic knee-jerk ranting from CJB, the full time FGW critic of the uk.railway and uk.transport.london usenet groups...

Paul

[thetrout]

I'm seriously considering whether to make the call not to travel this evening... On the one hand it would be the best day for me to travel... On the other. risking arriving at Ladyfriend Trouts house at gone 2:00AM would not be well received at all...!

no toilets.

I'm sorry to say... But your spot on... That is the very reason why a 315 would be unsuitable for thetrout

[Gordon the Blue Engine]

Although expressed in a way that is unlikley to endear himself to others, CJB666 has a point.  It is not unusual for 1 pair of lines to be blocked between Padd and Rdg, and it should not be too difficult to have a set of contingency plans available for various scenarios (eg whether RL or ML, and stretch of line affected - there aren't that many crossovers, so you're not talking about too many scenarios).  And I echo 8F's comment that NSE^▸ (Network South East) used to have a 2 tph all stations Padd-Rdg as a contingency plan (no doubt complete with traincrew and rolling stock diagrams) which I remember being trotted out on several occassions.

And with modern CIS^▸ (Customer Information System) and communications with CS staff there really is no excuse for not having useful and current information available for passengers.  Someone at Swindon does know what is going on, as he/she will have decided in advance what trains are going to run and any changes to stops, and this info should be passed on to station staff as well as the CIS. 

It is frustrating that everytime there's an incident which blocks a pair of lines out of Padd, passengers perceive that the railway reacts as if it's never seen that situation before.