Long term consequences of present/recent railway problems.

[whole diary]

[broadgage]

As has been discussed elsewhere on these forums, there have been a number of significant and prolonged issues with TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) failing to provide a proper service.

Examples include southern with a series of strikes over a couple of years, and FGW^▸ (First Great Western)/GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) who have been short of staff and rolling stock for a couple of years.

Infrastructure reliability seems to be worsening, an example being the failed re-signalling scheme in the Reading area, and subjectively less resilience to only moderately adverse weather.

New and expensive rolling stock has often failed to meet passengers expectations. My views on the IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train) are well known, but suffice to say that it is not just me who thinks that they are a backwards step.
Elsewhere, In south London we have new trains without toilets, progress I know, but toilets ARE needed not so much for the planned journey times but for the breakdowns.
Crossrail though providing valuable extra capacity is going to be a backward step in passenger facilities with limited seating, no toilets, and no catering for passengers making lengthy journeys, and would otherwise have used proper trains.

There is a general view that the railway copes very poorly with incidents such as the recent stranding at Lewisham and other similar incidents.

I fear that all this is damaging the future prospects of rail travel, and will result in less investment in public transport and more spending on roads.

I recently met a local political figure who is demanding that the proposed Bristol Arena be re-sited from near the railway station to Filton. He stated that putting it near a major station is "pointless" because you cant plan an event without knowing if "the trains will be running on the day" He also wondered how the trains will cope with large crowds when they cant cope on a holiday weekend.
Better to build it at Filton were there is space for thousands of parking spaces.

At an unrelated social event I met another political figure who is calling, with some vigour, for various road widening schemes in the Minehead and Taunton district, in order to encourage tourism and employment.
I suggested that encouraging rail travel might be better, for environmental and other reasons. He was incredulous at my suggestion that trains could help, having attempted holiday travel by train with his own family and vowed "never again" after "paying hundreds of pounds to stand for hours" He has travelled once on what I suspect was an IET and commented on it being shorter, full and standing, and reservations not being honoured. Presuming that it WAS an IET, they did not realise that it was one of the splendid new trains but believed that it was "a local train sent by mistake instead of a main line train"

Both these conversations were before the various well reported failings over the early May bank holiday weekend.

(edited only to clarify date)

[Trowres]

I am frankly puzzled that the opening post has, until today, generated zero replies and a rather low view-rate.

Yesterday, services around Leeds and York came to a standstill for several hours; reports suggest that this was due to a lightning strike affecting York IECC^▸ (Integrated Electronic Control Centre). As an example, the 07:00 Edinburgh-Plymouth spent four hours stationary a couple of signal sections outside York station; it was eventually terminated at York.

The scale of disruption was huge. Of services Edinburgh-Kings Cross, around 13 were cancelled or terminated somewhere en-route (e.g. Newcastle and Darlington). Of the services that made the whole journey, lateness on arrival at London was recorded as: 22, 60, 300, 141, 88, 83, 72, 72, 82, 63, 5 (in order of service). More infrastructure problems at Doncaster didn't help.

Sheffield-York as another example: after the 08:40 arrival the next (after 16 cancellations) was the 16:30 (actual arrival 16:52).

Similar pictures for Skipton, Ilkley, Harrogate and so on...services to Manchester Airport affected.

A thread appeared about the events on Railforums.
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/weather-related-disruption-leeds-york-doncaster-27-07.167611/
Apart from a couple of posts questioning the lack of resilience and wisdom of putting all eggs in one IECC/ROC^▸ (Rail Operating Centre - a centralised location for railway signalling and train control operations for a specific route or region) basket, the general tone seemed very complacent; most of the argument being over the availability (or not) of information and rail-replacement buses. One comment stuck out:

The industry coped pretty well with the snow in March too as I recall.

If cancelling all TransWilts services the larger part of a day before snow actually fell is "coping well", plus problems at Lewisham and in Dorset with passengers stuck on trains, then I wonder about the excess tint on the poster's spectacles.

Yes, we can't expect the railway to plan for rare events like lightning strikes... like hot days... snow... football... lineside fires... OK, I'm being a bit harsh on the professionals out there who really are trying to do that planning.

But (and I'm an old git who can remember different times) the railway seems to have become victim to a creeping disease of fragility and cascading failure, on top of all the other problems plaguing the system at the moment that are well-covered on this forum.

What is the railway for, if it cannot provide a reliable service?

[JayMac]

Acts of God are generally tolerated by the travelling public far more readily than week in, week out incompetence, poor management, poor industrial relations, promises not kept...

[grahame]

The rail industry seems to be in meltdown, and the meltdown seem attributable to those in the rail industry and those who regulate and govern it.   People understand and are so understanding of occasional things, or acts of god - especially if they're told what's happened.

But

What is the railway for, if it cannot provide a reliable service?

What indeed. And, yet again, today it failed to provide that reliable service.  It then failed to provide am adequate alternative.   See reports here.

[SandTEngineer]

The major disruption at York and Leeds was caused by a direct lightning strike on the IECC^▸ (Integrated Electronic Control Centre) (Integrated Electronic Control Centre) at York.  Not too much you can do to protect against a major strike like that.  Internally it 'fried' two of the Leeds workstations and externally destroyed up to 20 trackside signalling modules.  Moving trains at York meant having to manually operate and Clip and Padlock (C&P) 30 sets of points, which is a significant task.

Things like that are relatively rare.  Most signalling lightning protection does its job quite well and its nothing new.  Mechanical installations were just as prone.  Been in many a mechanical signalbox during a storm like that and to hear the block bells ringing away and the block instrument needles swinging away like they are at sea, is a sight and sound to behold

[4064ReadingAbbey]

The major disruption at York and Leeds was caused by a direct lightning strike on the IECC^▸ (Integrated Electronic Control Centre) (Integrated Electronic Control Centre) at York.  Not too much you can do to protect against a major strike like that.  Internally it 'fried' two of the Leeds workstations and externally destroyed up to 20 trackside signalling modules.  Moving trains at York meant having to manually operate and Clip and Padlock (C&P) 30 sets of points, which is a significant task.

Things like that are relatively rare.  Most signalling lightning protection does its job quite well and its nothing new.  Mechanical installations were just as prone.  Been in many a mechanical signalbox during a storm like that and to hear the block bells ringing away and the block instrument needles swinging away like they are at sea, is a sight and sound to behold

I'm sure it was very dramatic - and possibly quite frightening.

But, when all's said and done, were the block instruments still working after the storm? How quickly could services be resumed or was it necessary to change the instruments and/or other components?

[broadgage]

The recent thunderstorms do seem to have produced disruption much worse than that experienced back in the day.

However my original post, following meeting two unrelated political figures, was about the general downgrading of services, not about an individual breakdown.
The example of the proposed Bristol Arena is most apt, Large events are planned a year or more in advance. With todays railway, how does one know that a decent train service will run for the long planned event ?
What if it coincides with engineering work, or a thunderstorm, or staff shortage.

Whilst some problems may get better, Eventually GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) will HAVE to recruit enough staff, or lose the franchise. Eventually the new DMUs^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) will hopefully perform reliably and run full length, for example. Even the failed re signalling scheme in the Reading are MIGHT one day work properly.

However some recent and planned downgrades are permanent.
West country passengers will be stuck with no buffet DMUs for nearly 30 years.
South London suburban passengers will be stuck without toilets for a similar time.
Crossrail passengers who previously used main line trains will be confined to "metro style" trains optimised for standing, for the foreseeable future.

And looking at more local issues for the Minehead and Taunton area, there is growing support for road widening and new roads rather than encouraging public transport.
The point was made that a car, and enough road space to use it freely is in effect a requirement of almost any job in this area.
Various plans to run an all day/all year round service on the West Somerset Railway have come to precisely nothing. It looks as though each time there is a chance that it might happen, that a new barrier is erected by "them".
Local buses are getting worse, and of very limited use for work travel since they are cancelled at the merest hint of bad weather, when cars and trucks use the same road without any problems.
And of course no one can use the bus on a "Butlin's day" but employers still expect people to get to work on such days.

[Adelante_CCT]

Even the failed re signalling scheme in the Reading are MIGHT one day work properly

What re-signalling scheme?

[broadgage]

Even the failed re signalling scheme in the Reading area MIGHT one day work properly

What re-signalling scheme?

The one featured in the "building a greater west" publicity posters, that promised a more reliable and more frequent service.

[IndustryInsider]

Even the failed re signalling scheme in the Reading are MIGHT one day work properly

What re-signalling scheme?

The immediate Reading area has been reliable since it was resignalled.  What hasn't been reliable is the section from Maidenhead to Paddington.

[Adelante_CCT]

That's what I thought, everything seems smooth in the Reading area since the layout change, some dodgy ARS^▸ (Automatic Route Setting)/Human input decisions at times, similar to what SandTEngineer was discussing here, other than that I've not come across any problems

[SandTEngineer]

The major disruption at York and Leeds was caused by a direct lightning strike on the IECC^▸ (Integrated Electronic Control Centre) (Integrated Electronic Control Centre) at York.  Not too much you can do to protect against a major strike like that.  Internally it 'fried' two of the Leeds workstations and externally destroyed up to 20 trackside signalling modules.  Moving trains at York meant having to manually operate and Clip and Padlock (C&P) 30 sets of points, which is a significant task.

Things like that are relatively rare.  Most signalling lightning protection does its job quite well and its nothing new.  Mechanical installations were just as prone.  Been in many a mechanical signalbox during a storm like that and to hear the block bells ringing away and the block instrument needles swinging away like they are at sea, is a sight and sound to behold

I'm sure it was very dramatic - and possibly quite frightening.

But, when all's said and done, were the block instruments still working after the storm? How quickly could services be resumed or was it necessary to change the instruments and/or other components?

Yes.  I understand what you are driving at.  The protection systems on modern electronic signalling systems have improved considerably since their inception by BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) some 33 years ago now.  A lot of the data transmission is now by fibre optic cable rather than copper cable (which of course is prone to propogate any electrical interference). Its usually the earlier schemes that have the extensive copper networks and thus the ones that will suffer.  York is an example of that.

[SandTEngineer]

Even the failed re signalling scheme in the Reading are MIGHT one day work properly

What re-signalling scheme?

The immediate Reading area has been reliable since it was resignalled.  What hasn't been reliable is the section from Maidenhead to Paddington.

And the reason for that is, its one of the earlier schemes that was engineered (downwards) to a budget.  Also the modern data transmission technology wasn't available at the time the schemes were designed (see post above).

To the best of my knowledge there have only been a few minor 'meltdowns' since the Reading area was resignalled?  Its certainly been one of the more reliable signalling schemes of recent years.  Lets see how the most recent scheme (Oxford) performs!

[Bmblbzzz]

I am frankly puzzled that the opening post has, until today, generated zero replies and a rather low view-rate.

Partly a function of the way the forum software works. The "Show unread posts since last visit" button doesn't actually show everything you haven't read – after a time things seem to slip off the list.

[IndustryInsider]

Lets see how the most recent scheme (Oxford) performs!

It got off to a good start, as I'm not aware of any signalling issues in the first week of operation.