Signalling - centralised operations may lead to wider problems in the future?

[whole diary]

[bobm]

Significant problems for FGW^▸ (First Great Western) this morning following a power failure at Swindon Panel.  No signalling between Didcot Parkway and Bristol Parkway/Bath Spa.  Also affecting the line to Gloucester from Swindon and the line through Melksham.

It all went dark at 07:20. 

[ChrisB]

You'd think they'd have a back-up generator?....

[bobm]

They do - it failed to cut in.

[ChrisB]

<splutter>

[bobm]

Trains on the move again - just seen one making its way out of Swindon towards Chippenham.  Another just arriving from the west.

[IndustryInsider]

They do - it failed to cut in.

The number of times these back-up generators fail to work must be quite high!

[Brucey]

I saw the advice given on Twitter this morning was along the lines of "Virgin will accept tickets between Euston and Birmingham NS and CrossCountry will accept tickets between Birmingham NS and Bristol".  That would've been a rather long way round.

[ellendune]

I was just clearing the ice off my windscreen when the tweet came through. I was planning to catch the 08:11.

Well done FGW^▸ (First Great Western) for the tweet as this allowed me to re-plan as I was supposed to be in a meeting in London at 10:00. 

I drove to Didcot arriving at about 8:50 missed one train coming from the west, but got onto the platform in time to catch the 07:29 (07:11 ex Swindon) which arrived at Didcot at 08:53 after being stuck for some time between Swindon and Didcot.

Arrived at my meeting at 10:15 so not too bad.

Question: If it was Swindon Panel that failed it must have been pretty near the boundary with TVSC^» (Thames Valley Signalling Centre - about) (nr Challow) at 07:20 and the earlier train I saw was presumably the 07:01 - which must have been even nearer Challow at 07:20.  So were these the first trains through after the failure? Or did the failure cause problems at TVSC also?

[JayMac]

Were there any arrangements made to hand signal services at greatly reduced speed or was it a case of 'all stop' until someone had put 50p in the meter at Swindon Panel?

[Louis94]

Were there any arrangements made to hand signal services at greatly reduced speed or was it a case of 'all stop' until someone had put 50p in the meter at Swindon Panel?

Staff were sent out to clip points and switch in overrides to allow services to move - of course this was a slow process.

1L14 was trapped in section just west of Wootton Bassett Jun towards Bristol Parkway  (0527 Swansea-Paddington)
1A05 was trapped in section just west of Wootton Bassett Jun towards Chippenham (0640 Bristol TM^‡(resolve)-Paddington)
1A04 was trapped in section at South Marston (0630 Bristol TM-Paddington)

1A04 was allowed to continue once override switches has been switched in between Swindon and Didcot, this then formed the delayed 0729 from Didcot as the previous poster said, and it was the first train through the area. The 0701 ex Swindon made it through the area without a hitch, and I am not sure what was in the platform before 1A04 arrived, maybe an HST^▸ (High Speed Train) that had terminated at Didcot and was returning east. EDIT: The service the previous poster saw in platform 2 before the delayed 0729 arrived was an additional service 1Z24 which started at Didcot booked to depart at 0847 for Reading and Paddington Only.

1A05 had points clipped at Rushey Platt and Swindon station to allow it to get into the platforms at Swindon.

1L14 was returned to Bristol Parkway upon the operation of the override switches between Bristol Parkway and Swindon.

Furthermore,

1A06 between Bath and Chippenham changing ends and returning to Bath (0620 Weston-Paddington)
2M11 on Melksham single line changing ends and diverted via Bristol upon arriving and reversing at Bradford Junction (0704 Westbury-Gloucester)
1L16 between Stroud and Kemble moving in to Kemble Station (0631 Cheltenham-Paddington)

[Electric train]

They do - it failed to cut in.

The number of times these back-up generators fail to work must be quite high!

That's a little unfair, they are at the end of the day a mechanical device that sits dormant for 99% of its life and is expected to spring into life instantly which in my experience they usually do.  The Western standby set used to have a full "black" start test every 3 months (black start = mains fail) that is walk up to the mains switch and turn it off I used to earn a lot of overtime doing just that

[bobm]

From talking to a member of staff I saw today I was told it wasn't the actual generator which failed but rather the switchgear which tells the unit to fire up which did not operate as designed.

[SandTEngineer]

As ET states above.  My past experience of the standby generators and associated changeover switchgear in the signalboxes in the far South West is that they are extremely reliable (and as his says are tested from a 'black out' start every three months).  So the failure must have been quite an catastrophic event......

[ellendune]

They do - it failed to cut in.

The number of times these back-up generators fail to work must be quite high!

That's a little unfair, they are at the end of the day a mechanical device that sits dormant for 99% of its life and is expected to spring into life instantly which in my experience they usually do.  The Western standby set used to have a full "black" start test every 3 months (black start = mains fail) that is walk up to the mains switch and turn it off I used to earn a lot of overtime doing just that

This is a known problem with all back up generators.  I have worked with them in many places and even doing a test run once a week does not solve this problem. 

[inspector_blakey]

1A04 was allowed to continue once override switches has been switched in between Swindon and Didcot

I may know a little more about signalling than your average man in the street but I'm a bit mystified by these overrides of which you speak - can you elaborate? Are you talking about manually keying the automatic signals back to danger and allowing trains to pass using handsignallers, or of a method of operation that I've apparently never heard of?