London Waterloo - station, services, facilities, incidents - and some quirks / odd facts (merged posts)

[whole diary]

[rogerw]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-46258720

At least Filton bank opened on time

[Timmer]

Another day of shockingly poor service for SWR^» (South Western Railway - about)’s customers.

[JayMac]

Whilst blame doesn't lie with SWR^» (South Western Railway - about), they have to handle the fallout. And it looks like they're not doing a very good job communicating.

Sadly it appears to be another example of FirstGroup's Maxwell touch. Thats the polar opposite of the Midas touch. Named after Robert Maxwell - everything he touched turning to s***.

[stuving]

As of 10:16:

All lines have reopened between Surbiton and London Waterloo as the overrunning engineering work has now been completed. As trains and train crew are in the wrong locations for their next duty, services will remain severely disrupted for the rest of today.

Despite the way the news has been presented, most Windsor Lines services were running, though with a few gaps due to missing stock. Reading trains were worse than that, most delayed and some missing, but that was our old friend "signalling at Earley" having a bit of a strop.

And then, a little to the east:

Trains across the whole Southern and Thameslink network may be delayed, cancelled or revised this morning, this is due to earlier overrunning engineering work at various locations.
...
Following planned weekend engineering works over running, all lines have re-opened in the London Victoria area.

Additionally, a freight train is currently blocking the line in the Haydons Road area. This train was supposed to cross over onto the Wessex route earlier this morning but has been unable to due to overunning engineering works in the Surbiton area. Due to no alternative routes being available for the train to take the southbound line is currently blocked. Attempts are being made to move the train off the route as the engineering works have concluded, however as this took place a Track Circuit failed at Wimbledon and is now requiring further attention from Network Rail specialist signalling technicians.

[SandTEngineer]

I was never called a 'SPECIALIST' signal technician in my time in the S&T^▸ (Signalling and Telegraph).  Can't repeat here what I was called at times, though......

[ChrisB]

Whilst blame doesn't lie with SWR^» (South Western Railway - about), they have to handle the fallout. And it looks like they're not doing a very good job communicating.

Correspondents here too.....The subject line is incorrect, as noted by posts above.

[stuving]

I was never called a 'SPECIALIST' signal technician in my time in the S&T^▸ (Signalling and Telegraph).  Can't repeat here what I was called at times, though......

It's odd, isn't it? I guess they say that to make it sound as if these are a superior kind of technician, not the ordinary ones who know very little. But if it means anything in this kind of highly technical field, it means someone who has only been trained on a limited range of equipment, and can't be sent out to fix any fault anywhere. In other words, the equivalent of semi-skilled (but when did you last hear that used?) - after all the French equivalent of that is ouvrier specialisé (which you don't hear much these days either).

[JayMac]

Correspondents here too.....The subject line is incorrect, as noted by posts above.

Do you mean the thread title? What's incorrect about it?

[ChrisB]

Waterloo was severely disrupted, not 'closed'

[SandTEngineer]

Second report just published https://www.gov.uk/raib-reports/report-19-2018-collision-at-london-waterloo

If anybody here struggles to understand any of it then please ask away and I'll try to answer/clarify.

Quite damming of NRs^» (Network Rail - home page) competence management processes (after all the recent cases on the preserved railway network).

In particular I was really concerned about this statement:

The RAIB^▸ (Rail Accident Investigation Branch) has observed that there are certain similarities between the factors that caused the Waterloo accident and those which led to the serious accident at Clapham Junction in 1988. The RAIB has therefore expressed the concern that some of the lessons identified by the public inquiry, chaired by Anthony Hidden QC following Clapham, may be fading from the railway industry’s collective memory.

My involvement in Clapham was reasonably close and I always related this tale to anybody new that worked for me. At the time I was Project Engineer for the Waterloo Area Resignalling (WARS) at ML Engineering (Plymouth) Ltd. We had the contract for the Resignalling.  We were in the middle of installation in Clapham Relay Room (the new one for WARS located in Victoria Signalling Centre, yes, I know). New lineside cables had been installed terminating on racks, and the link terminals fitted with RED DOME NUTS (those in the S&T^▸ (Signalling and Telegraph) industry will know what they do). BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) had stagework wiring installed on the Righthand side of the terminations whilst we were installing the new interlocking wiring on the Lefthand side, with the connecting link obviously not fitted. BR then used the new cables to connect the new trackside equipment being installed in stages to the old Clapham signalbox interlocking. So, one fateful morning, siting in my office having my day starting cup of tea, the telephone rang and the person at the other end said "Hey, have you heard there's been a big accident at Clapham Junction, three trains involved and lots of people killed and injured?". You obviously can guess that my heart certainly sank to the floor and thoughts started flashing through my mind, crikey hope our staff haven't done anything. Started looking at the news reports on the TV^▸ (Thames Valley, or TeleVision, depending on context) and you can then imagine how my feelings progressed during the day.

Well, I suppose my point is, it becomes one of those defining moments in your career that you NEVER FORGET. I just hope we don't end up having a repeat of all that to make people understand and learn it all over again.

[Electric train]

Simple sequence of events ……….. as I understand it.

• Defective rail need to be replaced, just routine work that had been planned in.
  Defective rails had been removed.
  RRV^▸ (Road Rail Vehicle (for example, JCB-type diggers adapted for use also on rails)) runs through a set of points in the wrong direction thus damaging the points, something that should not happen but sadly does.
  Whole team stood down for 3 hours for a safety brief /investigation
  Re-rail team informs NR^» (Network Rail - home page) that they will not complete intime
  At this time SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) Shunters had gone off shift, mainline drives do not have route knowledge for depots.
  

Melt down!!!!

[Oxonhutch]

Notwithstanding finding 152, I am surprised that not securing the points wasn't higher up in the list of errors.  If this had happened, then none of the subsequent events with test wiring etc. would have had any effect. The report appears to lean most heavily on the testers themselves - perhaps echoing shades of Clapham - but with a simple scotch and clip, they would have got away with it.

[Oxonhutch]

Point 4 appears to be the major problem - was that really necessary? Then Point 6 - what happened to the real [multi-tasking] railway workers?

[JayMac]

Simple sequence of events ……….. as I understand it.

• Defective rail need to be replaced, just routine work that had been planned in.
  Defective rails had been removed.
  RRV^▸ (Road Rail Vehicle (for example, JCB-type diggers adapted for use also on rails)) runs through a set of points in the wrong direction thus damaging the points, something that should not happen but sadly does.
  Whole team stood down for 3 hours for a safety brief /investigation
  Re-rail team informs NR^» (Network Rail - home page) that they will not complete intime
  At this time SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) Shunters had gone off shift, mainline drives do not have route knowledge for depots.
  

Melt down!!!!

What was the issue with NR staff unwilling to tamp that I've heard of elsewhere?

[bradshaw]

Christian Wolmar on Twitter earlier today.

“Chaos at Waterloo today was caused by works to replace long sections of track which then proved to be faulty on testing and had to be relaid, along with tamper problems.”