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Author Topic: Infrastructure problems in Thames Valley causing disruption elsewhere - ongoing, since Oct 2014  (Read 1243548 times)
stuving
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« Reply #3480 on: December 28, 2019, 14:16:42 »

Overall, I think TFL (Transport for London) is the wrong operator for these services and a national rail network operator would have been better suited. Like I mentioned, if TFL want to run trains on the national network, then they should follow the same rules as other operators, and the tried and tested methods used by the national network, rather than trying to apply their underground methods to a railway which is clearly interurban.

It's been a long-standing practice to extend tube lines by connecting inner suburban lines to them instead of their terminus. This was seen as relieving capacity constraints in the track leading to the terminus rather than in platforms, though of course it does that too. At the same time it prevented numbers on suburban lines dropping too far (which was a big issue in the 60s), by offering a direct link into the tube network.

Crossrail is just a tube on steroids, and the same principle applies. Its higher speed means that Maidenhead was easily as close (in time) as other lines' outer limits, end even Reading not much further. So you can see why it looked the obvious way of doing things. 

With SWR» (South Western Railway - about) now introducing toilets on their new inner suburban trains - I think for the first time - the question in my mind is for urban railways in general: "what took you so long?" I don't think the relevant bit of human anatomy (and physiology, and even pathology) has evolved a huge amount in even the last fifty years ... but our expectations have.
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Reading General
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« Reply #3481 on: December 28, 2019, 15:07:10 »

Overall, I think TFL (Transport for London) is the wrong operator for these services and a national rail network operator would have been better suited. Like I mentioned, if TFL want to run trains on the national network, then they should follow the same rules as other operators, and the tried and tested methods used by the national network, rather than trying to apply their underground methods to a railway which is clearly interurban.

It's been a long-standing practice to extend tube lines by connecting inner suburban lines to them instead of their terminus. This was seen as relieving capacity constraints in the track leading to the terminus rather than in platforms, though of course it does that too. At the same time it prevented numbers on suburban lines dropping too far (which was a big issue in the 60s), by offering a direct link into the tube network.


The Bakerloo line north of Queens Park is the only place on the tube network that would be comparable to the GW (Great Western) mainline and this is a corridor with six lines. Both services on this line are now TFL run I believe. The district line shares with network rail from Richmond to Gunnersbury. again both services are now run by TFL. All the other tube lines appear to be run as their own closed network, which is of course much easier to regulate and operate than a shared railway. Some may have been former national rail lines but since the conversion to a tube line do not interact with any other trains. Comparing Crossrail to a tube on steroids isn't the best way of describing what it is and what it's supposed to achieve. It will be used like a tube in central london but a better comparison is a local train on steroids and even the Marlow train has a toilet.
An equivalent could be imagined I suppose if Wimbledon District line services continued from there along the slow lines to Basingstoke.
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didcotdean
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« Reply #3482 on: December 28, 2019, 15:25:13 »

With the much more ambitious Superlink concept had been rejected which as a first stage would have linked Reading with Stansted Airport and Cambridge, and later on had branches to Northampton, Basingstoke and Guildford via Heathrow etc, Crossrail reverted to the older concepts of it being in effect a large-size London Underground line with the outer former main lines feeding into it, with a very inefficient number of trains terminating at Paddington as a western terminal.

I guess though since even this has proved more difficult than envisaged, Superlink easily could have cost £30B or more just for the early phases as well as being years later.
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NickB
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« Reply #3483 on: December 28, 2019, 16:10:58 »

The wisdom of stripping toilets from the tfl services, and then only running tfl services over weekends, and then running them with 45min delays, is soon to be tested.

I’m on the 10.16 from maidenhead. Stuck at Hayes ad infinitum.

The National Rail website suggests it was delayed by 19 minutes,  with all other Maidenhead-Hayes services also late or cancelled.


Sadly that wasn’t the case and it was a 35min wait at Hayes and overall a 55min delay.  So that was 1hr and 40mins from maidenhead to Paddington.  Parents were taking children off to urinate on the platform.
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FremlinsMan
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« Reply #3484 on: December 28, 2019, 16:12:24 »

I think that the average time people spend on a crossrail train is going to be higher than that, and I would have thought that TFL (Transport for London) and the department for transport were hoping so if they want people from Maidenhead to be travelling direct to east London, Canary Wharf, etc.

I think it probably will be about that - vast numbers of people will just use it to station hop within London which will bring the average journey time down - but that's not to say that there won't be a lot of people on board (in terms of numbers if not percentage) for an hour or more.  Toilets should have been provided.
Harumph. Add a 'toilet carriage'.
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BBM
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« Reply #3485 on: December 28, 2019, 20:46:18 »

From GWR (Great Western Railway) Twitter in the past 30 minutes:

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A tree has fallen over the railway between #BathSpa and #BristolTempleMeads - causing damage to one train, and blocking both rail lines.

Services running through these stations may be delayed by up to 60 minutes. Disruption is expected until 21:45.

Some services may be diverted, and Bristol-London trains will run non-stop between Bristol & Swindon - not calling at Bath Spa and Chippenham.

@FirstBSA is accepting GWR tickets on Routes 39 & X39 between Bath, Keynsham, and Bristol.

We will run some addiitonal train services between Bath and Swindon, but this is only where possible. Please check your journey at http://gwr.com  & http://journeycheck.com/gwr

Update: Network Rail is on-site assessing the tree. It is balacing 12ft above the track on fencing. This will require some time to remove.

We are looking into alternative travel options for you and will update you as soon as these are confirmed.

EDIT: Line reported as reopened at 21:15.
« Last Edit: December 28, 2019, 21:31:15 by BBM » Logged
Marlburian
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« Reply #3486 on: December 31, 2019, 14:47:16 »

I suspect that this explanation/justification has been posted before, and more than once, but Written Answer received by the London Assembly on 21 December 2011:

"Crossrail will be a high-frequency metro-style service for London and the south east. It is estimated that the average time a passenger will travel on Crossrail will be 20 minutes. It is not intended that toilets will be provided on board Crossrail trains.Thirty out of the thirty-seven Crossrail stations will have toilets (81 per cent).  This is an improvement on what was previously envisaged and has been accommodated through further design work. Furthermore, twenty three Crossrail stations will have at least one fully accessible toilet (62 per cent).  With only ten of the existing stations on the Crossrail route currently having at least one fully accessible toilet, this represents a significant improvement."

Which prompts some speculation as to why children were urinating on the platform at Hayes at 1030? Couldn't wait? Queues at the station loos (I can't recall where they are at Hayes)? Afraid the train would go off without them?

Let me stress I'm not criticising them; I would probably have had to do the same - I'm at the age where I have to plan these things.

Marlburian

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Surrey 455
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« Reply #3487 on: December 31, 2019, 17:33:32 »


Which prompts some speculation as to why children were urinating on the platform at Hayes at 1030? Couldn't wait? Queues at the station loos (I can't recall where they are at Hayes)? Afraid the train would go off without them?

Let me stress I'm not criticising them; I would probably have had to do the same - I'm at the age where I have to plan these things.

Marlburian



The toilets used to be on platform 4. Everything on that platform was demolished a few years ago for Crossrail. I did see a temporary toilet behind the ticket office a few months ago amongst all the construction huts which was locked and possibly needs a Radar key on the station approach.
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« Reply #3488 on: January 01, 2020, 11:08:56 »

My feeling is that it was due to lack of accurate information from the driver. We were told from the outset that there were delays ahead, and those of us with access to the right internet sites could see that the train ahead ran more or less on time to West Drayton but then incurred a 45min delay.
However the news from the driver was of the ‘I don’t know what the cause of the delay is’ variety, accompanied by ‘we should be on the move shortly/in less than 5mins’.  That approach keeps the passengers optimistic but when fed continually over a 40min wait in the platform doesn’t encourage anyone to venture far from the train - and certainly not to go and seek a radar key!

I find it utterly astonishing that only a couple of years ago FGW (First Great Western) (as was) we’re ripping seats out of overcrowded turbos to create their big red disabled toilets, and now tfl can run services on the same route with no toilets at all!!
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« Reply #3489 on: January 08, 2020, 15:30:23 »

Due to the electricity being switched off for safety reasons between Slough and Hayes & Harlington some lines are blocked.
Impact:
Train services running through these stations may be delayed. Disruption is expected until 17:15 08/01.
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Thatcham Crossing
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« Reply #3490 on: January 08, 2020, 16:04:25 »

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Due to the electricity being switched off for safety reasons between Slough and Hayes & Harlington some lines are blocked.

Just watching on the Slough Railcam and it appears all up traffic is on the Relief, and crawling through the area.
Looks like 1K55 (a Newbury-Paddington 387) is stuck on the Up Main between Slough and Langley?
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TaplowGreen
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« Reply #3491 on: January 08, 2020, 17:47:44 »

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Due to the electricity being switched off for safety reasons between Slough and Hayes & Harlington some lines are blocked.

Just watching on the Slough Railcam and it appears all up traffic is on the Relief, and crawling through the area.
Looks like 1K55 (a Newbury-Paddington 387) is stuck on the Up Main between Slough and Langley?

I was at Slough and saw it happen......387 came barrelling through, there was a huge bang, flash of orange and down came some of the wires...…...there were some spotters on Platform 3 whose levels of excitement at what had happened seemed to know no bounds...….2 of them were seen to be offering advice to the GWR (Great Western Railway) chap who was trying to make an initial assessment which given the look on his face he could have done without!

According to said GWR chap, all lines were very briefly closed but then they started routing most down the slow lines, still quite a few delays though, now pushed out until 1915.

I was very lucky and jumped on the TFL (Transport for London) stopper which was approaching Slough when it happened and crawled onwards after a 5 minute wait (the train, not me!)
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IndustryInsider
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« Reply #3492 on: January 08, 2020, 18:08:32 »

Damaged dropper, which that train's pantograph hit causing pan to drop and section to trip.  All fine with minimal damage after that dropper was removed with normal working resumed at 17:42, but heavy traffic delayed repair staff so trains routed through the up relief platform whilst waiting for them.  I would imagine proper repairs will take place overnight?

https://66.media.tumblr.com/ee8ba40fda563d662d31c48e65d4e288/tumblr_inline_pfvxb1EaGt1srob4n_1280.png 

I imagine that sort of thing have required a full isolation on the older style 'headspan' OHLE and trains would have been stopped for ages, instead of regaining 75% of capacity within a few minutes?
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« Reply #3493 on: January 08, 2020, 18:29:25 »

GWR (Great Western Railway) Journeycheck (un)helpfully suggesting that passengers should just hop on a TFL (Transport for London) service to Reading instead.
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« Reply #3494 on: January 08, 2020, 19:36:30 »

I think this has been the first significant incident since the timetable change. I’d be interested in how people think it went given the increase in services and what appears to have been a limited number of cancellations.
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