Weather disruption caused in 2014, and how to prevent it happening again - ongoing discussion

[whole diary]

[johoare]

This morning at Maidenhead was not good.. platform swapping, mis-information.. delayed trains..people getting on and off on again trains as the information was wrong... It really isn't totally better yet

Plus tonight's events didn't help - signal failures at Acton and Twyford and a person taken ill on a train at Iver. I had yet another near two-hour journey home.

Yep me too yesterday evening.. I was on the 7.18pm which left Paddington bang on time and then spent 17 minutes stuck at Ladbroke grove, finally getting to Maidenhead nearly half an hour late. I think I'd have rather waited at Paddington rather than just outside as at least then we would have all had the option to get off of the train again

[Silver]

The Henley service broke completely last night.  I got the 18.05 from Paddington, having left work in the city at 17.15, eventually got home to Wargrave at 20.20 having been rescued from Twyford by my wife, picking my car up from Wargrave then driving stuck passengers from Wargrave to Twyford, then others from Twyford to Shiplake.  FGW^▸ (First Great Western) were mumbling about getting a bus but I'm sure that would have taken a good couple of hours to organise and then move everyone to where they needed to be.

The Henley service has been a complete shambles for the past three weeks.  We have set-up a car pool in the village with people taking it in turns to drive into London so we can avoid using the train and having 3+ hour journeys each way. We had hoped that we wouldn't need this anymore but so far this week things haven't been good.  Our season tickets are not looking good value at the moment given that we have paid for these but are now having to pay for petrol and parking in London on top.  I hear "compensation" letters have started to go out to season ticket holders but these do not say what the compensation will be.

I know nothing about the engineering infrastructure but to a layman the lack of resilience in the signalling on the Paddington to London line seems to be completely unacceptable.  I know the recent problems have been largely due to flooding but we do seem to get a random signal failure or similar about twice per week as a rule and it has got worse not better in the seven years I have been using the service.

[NickB]

The 19:05 Henley service took an hour to reach Maidenhead last night.   

[ChrisB]

Marlow/Maidenhead User Group's AGM^▸ (Annual General Meeting) coming up shortly - go & harrang FGW^▸ (First Great Western)....

[TaplowGreen]

Marlow/Maidenhead User Group's AGM^▸ (Annual General Meeting) coming up shortly - go & harrang FGW^▸ (First Great Western)....

.........you can't beat a good "harrang" now and again! 

....think I must have been lucky last night, got the 1818 from Reading which was a few minutes late but when I got back to Taplow the information boards had the dreaded "signal failure, don't know when it'll be fixed, you might as well go and have a pint" message and there were already a few cancellations.

[stebbo]

FGW^▸ (First Great Western) site still showing red on the Paddington to Reading fast train service yet the service updates show nothing and the Cotswold and other lines are green. After all this time I cannot understand why things can't be organised better.

"Party time" in brewery comes to mind. Perhaps Eric Pickles would like to turn his fire on FGW and Network Rail once he's finished with the Environment Agency.

[Lee]

....think I must have been lucky last night, got the 1818 from Reading which was a few minutes late but when I got back to Taplow the information boards had the dreaded "signal failure, don't know when it'll be fixed, you might as well go and have a pint" message and there were already a few cancellations.

...and if that's not a decent Photoshop opportunity, then I don't know what is 

[argg]

When all the flooding shenanigans began I took the decision to de-camp to SWT^▸ (South West Trains) from Wokingham to Waterloo.  Takes longer and costs more (but does have nice 8 coach trains  )

Been keeping an eye on this thread to see when things are back to normal and I can return to Twyford.

Think I'll stay away a while longer.

[RichardB]

Apologies if this is a repost, but FGW^▸ (First Great Western) have now put their emergency train timetables up on their website -

Paddington - Penzance    http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/~/media/PDF/contents/Timetables/1310891.ashx

Cardiff - Bristol - Weston - Taunton 
   
http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/~/media/PDF/contents/Timetables/Cardiff%20and%20Bristol%20to%20WestonsuperMare%20and%20Taunton%20timetable%20valid%20until%2028%20February.ashx

[SandTEngineer]

A very good set of photographs of the entire Dawlish sea wall damage can be seen down the page and on the following pages here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/81949-washout-at-dawlish/page-58

Crikey, you can now understand the full extent of the damage to the entire sea wall


.....and the NR^» (Network Rail - home page) plans for the future can be seen here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/26_02_14_dawlish_jmo.pdf


.....and it looks as though Penzance station will reopen sometime Saturday evening (01 March 2014).

[ChrisB]

Submerged Somerset railway line to remain closed for 'many weeks'

Trains on a mainline in Somerset could be at a standstill for "many weeks" because of continued flooding problems.

The track at Fordgate - between Taunton and Bridgwater - has been submerged since 7 February.

Network Rail said it could not assess the damage until the water cleared, but this could take several more weeks.

Currently, buses are taking passengers between Bristol and Taunton with a shuttle train service between Bridgwater and Bristol.

The line also links Somerset with Devon, where the line has been closed between Exeter and Plymouth because of damage to the sea walls at Dawlish.

Rail Minister Stephen Hammond said the government was "putting a huge amount of extra money in" to counter the problems from flooding.

"Our key priority is the government working with Network Rail to get this whole network back and running as it should be," he said.

"We've asked Network Rail to come up with a long term resilience plan for the South West so that lessons will be learnt.

"And that [Taunton and Bridgwater line] will be one of the lines that we'll need to look at in terms of the resilience lessons but we've got to build in the correct amount of resilience remembering that this is the wettest winter for 266 years."

That last para is significant - Government warning that they'll be taking the likelihood of repeat damage similar to this year's into account when assessing the NR^» (Network Rail - home page) feasibility studies

[chrisoates]

Signals working again in Penzance.

[grahame]

Signals working again in Penzance.

Is that fully working?   My understanding was that they were going to be able to run trains into Penzance with a pilot man, and full signalling would take longer.   But having been no nearer than zomerzet, I could be wrong.

[chrisoates]

Signals working again in Penzance.

Is that fully working?   My understanding was that they were going to be able to run trains into Penzance with a pilot man, and full signalling would take longer.   But having been no nearer than zomerzet, I could be wrong.

I have no technical knowledge - went past Eastern green by bus and saw all the signals displaying what appeared to be correct aspects including the shunting signals.
 

[bobm]

Journeycheck is suggesting service may resume this weekend between St Erth and Penzance, but I don't think it has yet.