Cable / copper / metal theft - ongoing problems on the railways and elsewhere

[whole diary]

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Thieves who stole railway signalling cables overnight caused long delays on train services through Oxfordshire.
Rail companies say cables were vandalised between Banbury and Leamington Spa disrupting morning services for several hours.
Glenn Hellam, from British Transport Police, warned the thieves that stealing cable can be dangerous.
"We have had instances when they've cut through live cable, causing serious injury to themselves," he added.

[readytostart]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Thieves who stole railway signalling cables overnight caused long delays on train services through Oxfordshire.
Rail companies say cables were vandalised between Banbury and Leamington Spa disrupting morning services for several hours.
Glenn Hellam, from British Transport Police, warned the thieves that stealing cable can be dangerous.
"We have had instances when they've cut through live cable, causing serious injury to themselves," he added.

XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) NCL-RDGs^‡(resolve) cancelled South of Birmingham for a couple of hours due to capacity issues, Bomo Manchesters running as booked, generators in place mid morning restoring power and NCL/RDG services, permanent repairs still to be made, presumably overnight.

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the Coventry Telegraph:

Rail chaos after signal cable theft near Leamington Station

Thieves caused rush hour chaos for commuters yesterday after they stole cables near Leamington rail station.
The theft, which happened between Leamington and Banbury stations, led to signal failure at stations in the region.
It affected trains which run through Warwick Parkway, Birmingham Snow Hill and London Marylebone stations with delays of more than two hours.
Rail bosses were able to resume services to one train per hour from 6am following the incident, which happened just after midnight.
Engineers have since installed a temporary generator and repaired the signals.
A British Transport Police spokesman said: ^Officers are investigating the theft of cable from a line side location just outside Leamington railway station. The incident caused significant disruption to the rail network in the area. Approximately 110 metres of cable was stolen from the station, which led to serious problems with signalling. A temporary generator has now been installed, and signalling was returned back to normal order from 7.30am. The cable theft from the railway is an extremely dangerous crime which is costly to the rail industry and causes hours of delays to the thousands of passengers who rely on the rail network. The disruption caused really is an attack on the community.^
Chris Rowley, Network Rail^s area general manager said: ^Our people have been working since around midnight to get trains on the move again as quickly as possible. We introduced a special method of signalling at 6am so that trains could start running, albeit with delays, and temporarily restored the power to the signalling system from 7.30am. Theft of railway cable is a major problem for the rail industry. Last year we had 85 cable theft incidents in the West Midlands area, resulting in 462 trains being cancelled and other services being delayed by a total of 74,000 minutes. Those incidents cost Network Rail approximately ^4million ^ effectively lost money that could be better spent on improvements.^

[Timmer]

From FGW^▸ (First Great Western) website:
Train services on all routes both to and from London Paddington are being disrupted due to vandalism at Tilehurst.

Short notice alterations, cancellations and delays of up to 60 minutes can be expected.

A significantly reduced train service is in operation.

Network Rail's latest information indicates that services will remain disrupted until the remainder of the day.

A further update will be available at 10:30

Please see the http://firstgreatwestern.co.uk/LiveUpdateList.aspx section for individual train alterations.

[ChrisB]

Yup - the signalling system appears to be down at Tilehurst - but I'm sure someone will be along with the details soon...

[BBM]

http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/s/2075975_trains_delayed_by_signal_cable_theft

Trains delayed by signal cable theft

August 06, 2010

Commuters faced rush hour chaos this morning after thieves stole signal cables on a stretch of track in West Reading.

Trains have been cancelled and others delayed up to an hour while engineers work to restore services.

British Transport Police confirmed cables were stolen from near Scours Lane sometime after midnight.

Anyone with information is urged to call Sgt Mike Conroy on 0800 405 040 quoting reference NSPIS14/06/08/2010.

[Timmer]

This is happening all to often at the moment but what can Network Rail do to stop it from happening? These culprits need to be caught as well as those who are buying this stolen cable. There must be a way of tracking down this trade in scrap metal?

[RailCornwall]

Time to bite the bullet and use commercial telecomms for these service critical purposes, rather than relying on lineside cabling.

[jane s]

There was a cable theft in the same area this Tuesday evening which also caused disruption - surprised not to see any comments on the board about it.

This is really getting beyond a joke! (if it ever was one....)

[matth1j]

It meant the Paddington-Bristol Temple Meads which I joined at 0726 in Reading took the scenic route, going through Trowbridge etc. and not stopping at Didcot, Swindon, or Chippenham.

Unfortunately they didn't announce the change of route at Reading station - I know it caught some of the passengers in my coach by surprise.

EDIT: I mean it caught me by surprise as well, but I was going to Bath so was able to just relax and enjoy the scenery.

[Chris from Nailsea]

From FGW^▸ (First Great Western) live updates:

A significantly reduced train service is in operation on all routes into London Paddington. The current estimate from Network Rail is that services will be affected for the remainder of the day. Between 12:30 and 15:00 train services will need to be reduced further, to allow Network Rail to make repairs to the signalling equipment. From 15:00, whilst we will still be operating a reduced train service, we will be able to operate more services than at present. South West Trains are accepting First Great Western tickets on services between Reading, Basingstoke, Guildford and London Waterloo. Chiltern Railways are accepting First Great Western tickets on all reasonable routes. London Underground are accepting First Great Western tickets on all reasonable routes.

[JayMac]

Looks like a truly awful day out there. I feel for anyone who is caught up in it.

I note from National Rail Enquiries that CrossCountry services between Reading and the north are also affected with them starting and terminating at Didcot. The ones from the south coast are also incurring delays through the Reading area.

Unlike FGW^▸ (First Great Western) though, CrossCountry deem it unnecessary to put up a prominent message on their website's homepage - you have to go looking for service updates.

[Electric train]

Time to bite the bullet and use commercial telecomms for these service critical purposes, rather than relying on lineside cabling.

This would only reduce the amount of track side cabling by a very small amount, data between panel boxes and remote signaling interlocking equipment is multiplexed anyway, if you take a large junction area like west Reading / Tilhurst there is a lot of very local cabling for the signaling in that vicinity.  There is also a matter of data / system security where signaling and other railway control systems are sent via a BT (or other) line it has to have HMRI^▸ (Her Majesty's Railway Inspectorate) approval.

My suspicions with the Reading area is at the resiganalling of the Reading area quite possibly means that the cables for the existing signaling have been lifted out of the concrete trough routes by NR^» (Network Rail - home page)'s contractors to lay the new signaling system cables in, this make the old cables very vulnerable, there were a lot of cable theft and hence disruption in the Newport area when that was resignalled recently, while it would be easy to say put in new routes this is not always possible due to a lack of space.

[JayMac]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) (06/08/2010):

Train delays around Reading after copper wire theft

Train delays caused by thieves who stole copper wire from a signal point have hit "thousands of passengers".

A reduced service is running between Reading, Oxford, Swindon and London after damage was caused near Tilehurst. Trains that are running are facing 60-minute delays with a "significantly reduced" number of services in operation, especially around Reading. Passengers have been warned that the disruption is likely to last for most of Friday.

In a separate incident, a signalling issue means there is a replacement bus service between Aldershot and Ascot.
Vital investment

Network Rail appealed to anyone with information about the theft to contact police. A spokesperson said: "Many thousands of passengers are being unnecessarily delayed today thanks to an act of mindless vandalism. Not only does cable theft cause massive disruption and delays nationwide, it also deprives passengers of vital investment in their railway. Last year we paid out almost ^8m in compensation to train operators for disruption caused by thieves - money that otherwise would have been spent improving services."

[James Vertigan]

The screens by the information desks at Paddington this morning were giving an estimated service resumption time of 20:00 - and that was at 08:00 this morning - that's some disruption!