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Author Topic: Thames Valley signalling problems - big delays - July 2014  (Read 87517 times)
bobm
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« Reply #15 on: July 14, 2014, 22:09:50 »

Of course it works both ways.  I arrived at Paddington to 20:22 expecting to get the 20:45 and ended up on a late running 20:00 to Swindon.
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johoare
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« Reply #16 on: July 14, 2014, 22:39:57 »

I've learned (a while ago) to check the trains before leaving work (or the area around there) for Paddington.. It saves on needless time spent there when I can be in the office/pub with friends near work whilst I wait for the delays to sort themselves out  Smiley
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a-driver
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« Reply #17 on: July 14, 2014, 22:57:17 »

I've seen track gangs laying new cabling and installing cable troughing as well as replacing track mounted equipment such as AWS (Automatic Warning System) magnets and TPWS (Train Protection and Warning System) grids all along the Thames Valley routes so there is work going on.  I think large sections of the route have already moved over to axle counters as well which are supposedly more reliable than Track Circuits.   CrossRail will be using the same infrastructure though, track and signalling, as we have now to Reading so there's not really argument that's it been abandoned.  If the infrastructure isn't sorted soon and we have failures like today then with the number of trains planned the outcome will be far worse.  A failure in 5 or 10 years and the backlog of trains will be massive before control even realise there's a problem.

As for the lack of information, to be honest, that's never going to change regardless of the operator.  When you've got nearly a combined total of 60 trains arriving and departing Paddington every hour at the height of the rush that's a heck of a lot of trains and staff to reorganise and as a result provision of information will suffer as the emphasis is on getting the service recovered.  There's a lot of things that need to be considered, it's not a case of simply picking a train and then running it.  Passengers don't realise that a signal failure like at Twyford this morning will affect the entire FGW (First Great Western) network, as far afield as Penzance and it will last most of the day. 
Platform staff will not get information other than what is on the screens or being announced over the PA (Public Address) because there's simply not a effective way of doing so when there's so many trains and changes involved.  Plans change within minutes.  By the time staff receive information by whatever means, it'll be incorrect, and they can't be expected to remember the status of every single train that is affected.  There's certainly no point in abusing staff which we've seen plenty of today.   A controller hasn't got time to inform every single member of staff.

The cost to FGW is big though.  Overtime, taxis (our taxi bill is staggering, the furthest I've been sent in a taxi is from Swansea back to Paddington just to work one train). increased fuel usage, right down to contractors that come into the depot to carry out specialist work like UATs or air con work to find there trains aren't there. 
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« Reply #18 on: July 15, 2014, 00:57:00 »

Staff have been issued with Company Blackberry(s). On these phones there are several staff/internal apps. TyrellCheck, Customer Assistance and Rail Replacement are the apps.

I have also heard that it is quicker and more accurate information via the apps, CCLDB and tyrell rather then relying on the CSL2 manager to distribute info.
Info has to come from Swindon to the next level manager which then takes time to distribute it to local Duty Manager who in turn takes time to radio it over to the staff that have radios. Quicker to get it yourself off tyrell.

There is indeed an agreement that there is to be no slagging off other TOCs (Train Operating Company)/NeR in public.
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« Reply #19 on: July 15, 2014, 02:14:48 »

fyi, customer facing staff have mostly been issued with company BlackBerrys - so if that's what you see, they ain't personal....

Nope, it is normally the Train Times ap on iPhone/Android or similar that I see them using and several have told me is far more accurate/timely than the information they receive from their employers.


All the public facing apps are fed from the staff based systems (Tyrell / Trust / Genius / Train Describers), so if staff are not using them, this is a training issue...however public facing apps are simpler, so they may just prefer them??

But the fact is that the staff based systems, especially Tyrell will hold more information...for example if a train from Paddington is started from Reading, live departures will just show cancelled at first glance....however correct info may be to travel to Reading on a different service to join that service.

Ditto, I was told exactly the same thing by two FGW (First Great Western) employees.
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BBM
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« Reply #20 on: July 15, 2014, 09:33:49 »

One tool I've found useful recently is the FGW (First Great Western) Twitter account @JourneyCheckFGW. It's been going for a few months but it appears to be somewhat unannounced and experimental, as the account page says: "This is a test of an RSS (Regional Spatial Strategy) to Twitter feed of the First Great Western JourneyCheck service." Last night on my way to PAD» (Paddington (London) - next trains), after having seen that the 1706 was cancelled, I received the very welcome and timely message that the 1703 would stop additionally at TWY (Twyford station). I hope this service can be developed and made more public, at the moment the account only has 311 followers compared to 104,000 on the main FGW one!
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ChrisB
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« Reply #21 on: July 15, 2014, 09:58:44 »

Yes, I found that a while ago - SWT (South West Trains) has a similar feed.
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TaplowGreen
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« Reply #22 on: July 15, 2014, 10:16:40 »

..........judging by the content on the FGW (First Great Western) twitter feed after yesterday's dual fiascos I would imagine those who maintain it are feeling pretty battered and bruised today - well done to them for maintaining the service in the face of a lot of angry/upset customers, they were far more informative and up to date than anything at stations yesterday! 
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a-driver
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« Reply #23 on: July 15, 2014, 11:01:21 »

fyi, customer facing staff have mostly been issued with company BlackBerrys - so if that's what you see, they ain't personal....

Nope, it is normally the Train Times ap on iPhone/Android or similar that I see them using and several have told me is far more accurate/timely than the information they receive from their employers.


All the public facing apps are fed from the staff based systems (Tyrell / Trust / Genius / Train Describers), so if staff are not using them, this is a training issue...however public facing apps are simpler, so they may just prefer them??

But the fact is that the staff based systems, especially Tyrell will hold more information...for example if a train from Paddington is started from Reading, live departures will just show cancelled at first glance....however correct info may be to travel to Reading on a different service to join that service.

Ditto, I was told exactly the same thing by two FGW (First Great Western) employees.

The problem with those Blackberries is they have quite a small screen which isn't much use for navigating internet sites like Genius.  I haven't seen the other staff apps so I can't really comment on how easy they are to find information & navigate.
What they need though, and there is talk of it, is something like an Pad mini with a much bigger screen.
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« Reply #24 on: July 15, 2014, 11:48:18 »


Let's hope the focus is on fixing the underlying issue rather than simply managing the fallout from this by giving staff iPads!  That said better information flows to employees would help a lot.

The point that is often missed is that the promised improvements to signalling etc. have been in the works for many years.  Passengers, who pay a large proportion of our salaried to use this service, need some convincing that the service will improve given that we have been promised these fixes and they are yet to materialise and our experience is that things are getting worse not better.  Crossrail is still a few years away, are we to expect that the service will continue at the current level or deteriorate until that comes on-line?

I said yesterday that in my experience we have, on average, a major incident every week.  Well yesterday we had two separate incidences one in the morning and the other in the evening which rather proves that point.  Whilst I would never support passengers abusing staff etc. I understand the many years of pent-up frustration can result in this happening.  It is never acceptable but FGW (First Great Western) need to understand why this happens and take some accountability by both ensuring the underlying issue is addressed and staff receive information and training to be able to deal with problems. 

I was late for both morning and evening appointments yesterday as is frequently the case, I get no compensation as a season ticket holder as thresholds for discounts seem to magically just be achieved no matter how bad the service is on the ground.  I now arrange my diary based on the expecting to be late e.g. the first direct train from Henley should get me to my desk for 8.30, but if I know I need to be at my desk for 8.30 I get an earlier train and normally drive to Twyford and pay to park as the connection can be a bit flaky.  If I have an evening appointment that I need to be at I arrange to work from home or leave mid-afternoon, yesterday I didn't do either and I was late - fortunately this was only a social catch-up.
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TaplowGreen
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« Reply #25 on: July 15, 2014, 12:15:48 »

......more than anything yesterday highlights the lack of resilience in the system all around.....generally (very generally) speaking in my experience the overall service is acceptable in terms of reliability, however recently there have been a lot more signal/train failures & it seems that it only takes one thing to happen to totally throw everything into chaos, and every time it's the same story, a virtually non existent service for hours, staff who don't know what is going on and/or disappear at the first sign of any disruption.

It was pointed out that a recent problem was caused near Slough by a cable dating back to 1969 being "disturbed" - with all this engineering work that is going on, why is 45 year old kit still being relied upon? Surely that should be prioritised for renewal?

Suicides are different, there's nothing that can be done to prevent someone who is that determined..............but leaves falling off trees? Weather being too hot/cold?

You would perhaps have thought that there would be some sort of high profile apology and/or explanation today from fgw together with instructions on how to get compensation but there is nothing - at least not on their website or at Reading this morning.

Here's a radical suggestion - link FGW (First Great Western)/NR» (Network Rail - home page) pay rises and bonuses to customer satisfaction figures - you'd be surprised how quickly resources would be found and attitudes would change!


« Last Edit: July 15, 2014, 12:23:28 by TaplowGreen » Logged
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« Reply #26 on: July 15, 2014, 14:11:26 »


Here's a radical suggestion - link FGW (First Great Western)/NR» (Network Rail - home page) pay rises and bonuses to customer satisfaction figures - you'd be surprised how quickly resources would be found and attitudes would change!


And watch the employees get even worse as they wont care. Why would an employee bust their backside if they know that the customers will always remember the single bad incident and not the normal okay days. The NPS (National Passenger Survey) figures are not as reliable as they used to be.

Remember customers always moan about something, if its about air conditioning not working on trains that are c.1970s, or the train being 2 mins late or the fact they cant use their network railcard at 0726 on a Tuesday.

Now of course if executive grade staff started loosing pay including NeR based on performance, PPM(resolve) and RTR.............

I do believe that the "enabling work" for crossrail and OHLE is what is causing these constant signalling problems.


In regards to 1969 kit still being used, if it works, is working then why fix it? Stuff that was purchased back in those days was built to last more then 15 years. These days NeR buy the cheapest crap they can find which lasts around 10 years and then its in a different CP so don't care.
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ChrisB
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« Reply #27 on: July 15, 2014, 14:34:26 »

I do believe that the "enabling work" for crossrail and OHLE is what is causing these constant signalling problems.

So do I....disturbing kit/cables that have lain (probably undisturbed since installation) after 40 years is bound to cause problems....

Quote
In regards to 1969 kit still being used, if it works, is working then why fix it?

To prevent the kind of disturbance that we're discussing? Called Preventative Maintenance....NR» (Network Rail - home page) don't believe in it. At all. That's what caused the fire in the Marylebone tunnel too.
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TaplowGreen
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« Reply #28 on: July 15, 2014, 15:01:28 »

Quote
In regards to 1969 kit still being used, if it works, is working then why fix it?

To prevent the kind of disturbance that we're discussing? Called Preventative Maintenance....NR» (Network Rail - home page) don't believe in it. At all. That's what caused the fire in the Marylebone tunnel too.
[/quote]

......absolutely right - "let's wait until it goes wrong and then try to fix it" summarises one of the major problems...........prevention is always better, safer (and normally cheaper) than cure.

and "customers always moan about something" succinctly sums up the general attitude of the the organisations involved to their customers.

As far as customers always remembering the "single" bad incident (well there was two yesterday!!!), customer satisfaction figures would be smoothed over a year to account for particularly bad periods..........incentives can be provided for good performance, and if the employees genuinely "won't care" - firstly re-train them, then discipline them, then sack them if necessary, and employ those who understand what it is to work in a public service industry, where the customers pay their wages.

That's how the real world works.
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SandTEngineer
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« Reply #29 on: July 15, 2014, 19:09:05 »

It doesn't  help that a lot of the 1960s resignalling cables on the ex BR (British Rail(ways))-WR are buried.  I'm sure we will suffer quite a few more cable strikes whilst the electrification mast piling work is underway Tongue
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