Waterloo closed by engineering over run

[whole diary]

[Surrey 455]

Luckily, I had the day off yesterday so didn't have to cope with the SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) morning problems. Unfortunately I had already decided to go to Brighton from Dorking Deepdene. Multiple delays and cancellations on GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) North Downs line due to a broken down train. 

[stuving]

Sunday's main possession was all four lines from Waterloo to Hampton Court Junction, including a wide range of planned work. Whether the rail renewal that is reported to have gone wrong was part of that, or a short-notice addition, I don't know. It included some work inside Wimbledon Park Depot, though there were some movements in and out via the District Line. On paper, it ran 01:10 Sunday to 04:30 Monday.

On Sunday there was, as is now customary, a limited service with long-distance trains diverting at Weybridge via Virginia Water. The Weybridge service was removed to make room, with the long-distance trains calling instead at Addlestone and Chertsey, and Byfleet and New Haw standing in for Weybridge.

Clearly that service could be run without using any lines inside the possession. So why was no attempt made to do something similar on Monday? Well, one possible answer is a lack of drivers for those diverted routes - as many as possible being used on Sunday. Another issue is how to recover to a normal service once the possession does eventually end. An alternative of splitting the routes, probably at Woking, might be better. But "flexibility" seems to have vanished from corporate objectives across the whole rail industry, doesn't it?

The passengers with the biggest beef are those using (or who would have used) the Weybridge service - even with the line free of interlopers, that didn't run; at least, nothing (from Addlestone) between the 5:39 and the 10:02.

[Adelante_CCT]

but that was our old friend "signalling at Earley" having a bit of a strop.

More strops last night and again today

Due to a fault with the signalling system between Reading and Wokingham fewer trains are able to run on the line towards Wokingham

Last Updated:20/11/2018 15:00

[eightonedee]

Pleased to report signalling problem at Earley fixed in time for 18:26 ex Guildford (following two cancelled trains in the same direction) to gallop through from Wokingham to Reading without slowing, catching up from two minutes late from Guildford to 3 minutes 30 early at Reading - hopefully a sign of an end to recent travails on the North Downs Line.

[Western Pathfinder]

Meanwhile over on Twitter
https://mobile.twitter.com/PaulCliftonBBC/status/1067078401842954241