Flooding Train Plan Friday 10th January 2014

[whole diary]

[IndustryInsider]

If the flooding south of Oxford is going to be a regular event then FGW^▸ (First Great Western) should draw up a contingency plan involving the evacuation of Turbos from Oxford sidings to other locations - but didn't that happen once with Turbos moved out via Banbury, High Wycombe and Greenford? Why not this time?

EDIT - just seen II's posting about Oxford drivers, but again surely a proper contingency plan for a regular flooding occurrence could include transferring drivers by road.

Just a couple of points to raise, whilst wishing to reiterate that many areas of service provision this week could have been improved!

1)  There are hardly any units in the Oxford area (at least there weren't on Wed/Thu).  There are a couple that are specifically being used to run through the flood water and the others (five or so) are required to work the Banbury and Worcester service.  The line has stayed open, so at least fuelling issues are not so much of a problem as units can be swapped overnight if necessary.

2)  Transferring drivers (and indeed passengers) by road is very difficult when both of the routes out of the city for the south (Abingdon Road/Botley Road) are both shut due to flooding (they still are).  So going up the Woodstock/Banbury Road is the only option and those are heavily congested and take much longer at the best of times.  I think I remember seeing a tweet from the Oxford Bus Company saying that one of their buses took 1h 20m to get down the length of the Woodstock Road in rush hour on Wednesday evening - that's 80 minutes to cover 2 miles!

[Electric train]

Can't feel much for Maidenhead - Oxford have it *far* worse.

Whilst have a lot of empathy for Oxford passengers, but what FGW^▸ (First Great Western) have successfully expanded the misery when there is no need too; yesterday and this morning the 07:02 (6 car turbo) which is a Didcot start was cancelled it was shown as right time but was capped at Reading why?  The 07:08 (8 car HST^▸ (High Speed Train)) was also cancelled this is understandable as it has to travel over the flooded route then the 07:16 (a 5 car turbo) cancelled which left the 07:13 (a 5 car turbo) which also calls at Slough to pick up several hundred passengers.

FGW must have planned to fail because the usual number of platform staff to see off the departure the HSS^▸ (High Speed Services) from Maidenhead have been absent just leaving the poor old station manager to deal with a lot of irate people.

There has been a total lack of communication or apology to the Maidenhead passengers from FGW most of the accept the fact there may be some disruption but as far a Maidenhead early morning peak fast services abandonment is the word I would use. 

[johoare]

Can't feel much for Maidenhead - Oxford have it *far* worse.

Whilst have a lot of empathy for Oxford passengers, but what FGW^▸ (First Great Western) have successfully expanded the misery when there is no need too; yesterday and this morning the 07:02 (6 car turbo) which is a Didcot start was cancelled it was shown as right time but was capped at Reading why?  The 07:08 (8 car HST^▸ (High Speed Train)) was also cancelled this is understandable as it has to travel over the flooded route then the 07:16 (a 5 car turbo) cancelled which left the 07:13 (a 5 car turbo) which also calls at Slough to pick up several hundred passengers.

FGW must have planned to fail because the usual number of platform staff to see off the departure the HSS^▸ (High Speed Services) from Maidenhead have been absent just leaving the poor old station manager to deal with a lot of irate people.

There has been a total lack of communication or apology to the Maidenhead passengers from FGW most of the accept the fact there may be some disruption but as far a Maidenhead early morning peak fast services abandonment is the word I would use. 

Exactly.. Issues created where they weren't necessarily needed.. no info as usual 

[johoare]

Also this morning..  The info boards at Maidenhead showed 7.45, 7.46, 7.48 and 7.49 stopping trains to London.. Quite impressive and also impossible.. On NR^» (Network Rail - home page) departures board the 7.45 showed as cancelled.. It ran.. 7.46 and 7.48 were fictitious it seems.. Meanwhile the 7.59 and 8.02 passengers got the chance to play musical platforms.. All good fun