Flooding between Tiverton Parkway and Exeter St Davids (30/04/2012)

[whole diary]

[JayMac]

From FGW^▸ (First Great Western) Journey Check:

Owing to flooding between Exeter St Davids and Tiverton Parkway fewer trains are able to run on all lines.

Impact:

Train services running through these stations may be cancelled, delayed or diverted between Exeter St Davids and Castle Cary at short notice. An estimate for the resumption of normal services will be provided as soon as the problem has been fully assessed.

Customer Advice:

Cross Country and South West Trains Ltd services are conveying passengers via any reasonable route until further notice. Arrangements have been made for First Great Western rail tickets to be accepted for these journeys.

Replacement road transport services are conveying passengers between Exeter St Davids and Taunton via Tiverton Parkway in both directions until further notice.

Message Received :30/04/2012 19:25

[SandTEngineer]

Its been a very bad two days in FGW^▸ (First Great Western) land what with winds bringing down trees yesterday and flooding today. Seems more may be on the way. Train performance must be well down

[StuartStIves]

Puzzled - According to Live Departure Boards, Cross Country services seem to be getting thorugh with only around 15 minutes delay (eg: 1059 Glasgow - Penzance reported Tiverton Parkway only 11 late at 1929) , yet FGW^▸ (First Great Western) are terminating services at Taunton and running buses to Exeter. Is this something to do with the relative weights of Voyagers v HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train (Inter City class 43 125 units)) on bridges over fast flowing rivers?

[bobm]

Think it may be that the water has subsided a little.  The 1603 from FGW^▸ (First Great Western) Paddington to Penzance made it through - albeit nearly an hour late.  That was just in front of the XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) service and may have been the first through.  It will be the first service to make it all the way through to Penzance for a while.  The 12:03 and the 14:03 didn't.  Not sure before that.

[signalandtelegraph]

Puzzled - According to Live Departure Boards, Cross Country services seem to be getting thorugh with only around 15 minutes delay (eg: 1059 Glasgow - Penzance reported Tiverton Parkway only 11 late at 1929) , yet FGW^▸ (First Great Western) are terminating services at Taunton and running buses to Exeter. Is this something to do with the relative weights of Voyagers v HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train (Inter City class 43 125 units)) on bridges over fast flowing rivers?

Apparently FGW policy is to stop once water is above rail level, Cross Country have different thresholds!

[bobm]

That's interesting.  I had always assumed Network Rail decided when a route was closed.

[IndustryInsider]

Same here!

[Chris from Nailsea]

Isn't the difference here that, while ultimately it is Network Rail's decision to close any route, it is up to individual Train Operating Companies to decide to stop running their trains before that, if they deem it appropriate?

[TonyK]

I drove from near South Molton to Bristol last night, and had a few crawl-through puddles in some of the smaller lanes to deal with. The Exe was angrier than I have ever seen it. There was a lot of flooding on the Somerset Levels, so I'm not surprised there was some disruption. It was, in any case, the wrong sort of water.
I don't blame FGW^▸ (First Great Western) for playing it cautious, given how much it would cost if things went wrong. Get a train stopped unplanned because of water in the motors, and you would have hundreds of angry passengers calling for heads to roll, days of bad national publicity, and a massive repair bill. Put on replacement coaches for a while, and you get a few grumbles.

[JayMac]

Isn't the difference here that, while ultimately it is Network Rail's decision to close any route, it is up to individual Train Operating Companies to decide to stop running their trains before that, if they deem it appropriate?

That would be my reading of the situation as well.

If true, it's interesting to note that Voyagers don't appear to mind a little paddle but do mind a full sea water shower. CrossCountry often curtail Voyager services at Exeter when there are high tides and spray along the sea wall at Dawlish.

[Chris from Nailsea]

... Voyagers don't appear to mind a little paddle ...

Maybe they surreptitiously flush out their retention tanks while they're doing it ... 

[LiskeardRich]

could it be to do with the position of electrical equipment on the various classes of trains, I.e. if a hst has mechanical/ electrical gear nearer to floor lever, flood waters could affect them worse than a train with electircal/ mechanical parts clearer of ground level?

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

Could it be the amount of padding on xc services or did they restart the service elsewhere to reduce the total delay on the journey... Seems strange that one that was 59 late from Bristol would be only 9 late at Glasgow :-/

[Southern Stag]

XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) usually restart services at Birmingham New Street using the spare Voyager set there when a delay gets too bad, with the late running service then becoming the spare Voyager set.

[inspector_blakey]

Isn't the difference here that, while ultimately it is Network Rail's decision to close any route, it is up to individual Train Operating Companies to decide to stop running their trains before that, if they deem it appropriate?

I think that is exactly right.

could it be to do with the position of electrical equipment on the various classes of trains, I.e. if a hst has mechanical/ electrical gear nearer to floor lever, flood waters could affect them worse than a train with electircal/ mechanical parts clearer of ground level?

I think this has a lot to do with it: both HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train (Inter City class 43 125 units)) and Voyagers (as far as I am aware - please correct me if I'm wrong somebody) have axle-mounted traction motors. Clearly, given that in simple terms these are the big electric motors that make the wheels go round, you don't want them dragging through floodwater as that could result in some loud bangs and showers of blue sparks. I don't know if HST/Voyager traction motors have different ground clearances or if FGW^▸ (First Great Western) stopping their services first simply reflects an abundance of caution on their part.

Once water has reached a certain depth above rail level, all services will be stopped: if the floodwater is flowing in any sort of current, it can easily wash away ballast or even the earthworks beneath, and this is more or less impossible to detect until the flood has receded, so in some circumstances it wouldn't be possible to be sure that the track was actually still there. For that reason, regardless of the technical capabilities of the rolling stock involved, all traffic will cease.