Failed freight train, Reading West - 20 August 2014

[whole diary]

[Jason]

Major disruption at Reading.
Services to Newbury and Basingstoke are suspended.
Everything on the first two departure pages shows delayed.

[lbraine]

Relief lines at a standstill - and seen nothing up and down on the mains for 15 mins

[BBM]

Just looking at RealTime Trains, there's a Freightliner from Lawley Street (Birmingham) to Southampton with a last recorded time of 0630^ at Tilehurst East Junction. I wonder if this is the culprit? My usual train from TWY^▸ (Twyford station), the 0620 from DID^» (Didcot Parkway - next trains), appears to be still trapped behind it as I type this post at 0840 (I managed to get into work on the 0659 from RDG^‡(resolve)).

UPDATE: FGW^▸ (First Great Western) have just tweeted the following message:
"There are delays of up to 120 minutes as freight train couldn't be moved at Reading. Please make alternative travel arrangements."

However it looks like the 0620 from DID has now made it to RDG, some 130 minutes late.

[bobm]

It seems the initial problem was a freight failed on the west curve blocking both the up and down main lines.  Another freight was on the up relief waiting to get onto the curve.  So that left only the down relief open.

The failed freight then managed to limp on to Reading West where it sat down again.  The other freight was than talked over the four lines to couple up to the failure and push it onto the Basingstoke line to clear the station and the Berks & Hants route.  While this was happening all four lines west of Reading towards Didcot were blocked by the assisting freight train.

Didcot bound lines re-opened just before 9am.

[John R]

Do you know whether London bound lines are now open?  Don't want this to mess up our family day out in London.

[bobm]

All lines now open between Didcot and Reading but obviously it is going to be a while before the service gets back to normal.  Two trains TO Bristol have been cancelled so that may well have a knock on effect to services returning from there.

[TaplowGreen]

........well it makes a change from signal failures and FGW^▸ (First Great Western)'s own trains failing I guess? 

[Gordon the Blue Engine]

At Pangbourne, where they haven't seen an up train for quite a long time, they've just been told that taxis are coming to take them to Reading.  The 0937 from Oxford, 1017 at Pangbourne, which from RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) looks like they'd hope to run, was sitting at P1 at Oxford for 30 minutes or so (assuming RTT was reporting correctly) - maybe waiting a Driver? 

[John R]

Thanks bobm. So far so good so fingers crossed.

[TaplowGreen]

At Pangbourne, where they haven't seen an up train for quite a long time, they've just been told that taxis are coming to take them to Reading.  The 0937 from Oxford, 1017 at Pangbourne, which from RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) looks like they'd hope to run, was sitting at P1 at Oxford for 30 minutes or so (assuming RTT was reporting correctly) - maybe waiting a Driver? 

I'm sure some people somewhere are doing their best but to be honest the last month or two has just been a shower of s*** as far as FGW^▸ (First Great Western) goes - and yes I know it's not all 100% down to FGW themselves but if it hasn't been broken down trains it's been virtually daily broken down signals, short formations, staff "not available", no information for delayed customers, gross and unsafe overcrowding on the services which are running etc etc and yesterday fare rises were announced - perfect timing!......we are rapidly getting to a place where you have to question whether the line is fit for purpose......when is it feasible to assume that real and sustained improvement will be forthcoming on reliability, capacity, customer service etc?  I realise that this all sounds like rhetoric and now fully expect the FGW enthusiast/employee/those who know better brigade to fall on me like a pack of wolves but it's really just a plea for some positive news.....a lot of us pay a great deal of money for the privilege of using the "service" and are entitled to expect a great deal better.

[BBM]

Looks like FGW^▸ (First Great Western) are having problems recovering the service, I've just seen reports on Twitter of a recent hour-long gap in Up services from Twyford & Maidenhead and the first train through was a 2-car Turbo. Talk about adding insult to injury.

TaplowGreen's post reflects my own feelings exactly. I know that after I give up the train for the car in December when my job moves to Reading I'll face a new set of commuting problems - but I really can't go on like this with FGW.

[grahame]

With electrification and Reading remodelling and Crossrail, we were told it would get worse before it got better. So we shouldn't be totally surprised at engineering works, at ancient cables being disturbed and failing in the twighlight of their use when they're hard to maintain, at a lack of line capacity (temporary bottlenecks) while works are done which will amplify any failures, and at a shortage of stock as passenger numbers grow but new trains / extra capacity isn't with us in any significant amount.  And in a complex system that's stretched to its limit, there's a knock-on effect.  "Staff not available" isn't always someone taking a sickie - in fact it's far more likely to be the knockon from the other issues.  If a driver's travelling as a passenger to Reading and the train he's on is held up by a couple of hours, then he ain't going to be at Reading to drive the next train ...

Information systems never provide enough information for the more knowledgable of us, and indeed many remain rudimentary / embryonic in their algorithms and the well informed person can often predict what will happen ahead of them.  Facebook and Twitter people do an excellent job of getting much information out, but there are many more ways people want to be informed, and an expectation of information when it simply may not be [yet] available.   Informing takes time too - I recall one train manager who didn't announce what was going on during a 25 minutes stop at Swindon coming on the speakers as we headed out - "Sorry I couldn't keep you informed, but the only place I could announce from was 7 carriages from where I was resolving the issue, and to walk all the way up and down would have delayed us even more".

I may be sounding like that apologist; to a degree I am, but I'm also of the view that there are areas where more could be done to keep people informed.  I am frustrated to learn (as an intermediary) about replacement weekend timetables when they're published, at times contradicing what we've been told previous ... or to find that engineering arrangements / alternatives appear not to be tuned to suit the traveller.  But I have to say we're somewhat ahead of where we were on this a while back, and that if you think the train companies are difficult at times, the other public transport operators can be even more difficult.  From an intermediary viewpoint, we are all learning.

As an informed end user, there are / remain frustrations with the systems where I think FGW^▸ (First Great Western) could do better.   Current backlog to answer web site questions is around 12 working days.  Individual issues that come up for me outside of my CRP^▸ (Community Rail Partnership) / systemic tasks are just submitted through that system and sadly the last two questions asked have both resulted in very polite responses which, however, have answered different questions to the ones I have asked.  That's not unique to FGW - I had a very similar thing when asking about buses.  Again, I have sympathy for the companies for whom 95% of answers are probably the same old standard ones and "cut and paste" systems work well, but they could save themselves so much flack by reading what's asked and answering (even if "no, can't do that" or "that was an error on the day") ... and save time in having to follow up the resultant ongoing correspondence, thus cutting backlogs.

You talk about "fitness for purpose" and putting figures / percentages on that is difficult. Looking where I know best (TransWilts), a five or 10 minute delay is usually no big deal - except that if it's 10 minutes delay to the 11:45 from Paddington by Swindon, changes are that your Melksham connection has missed and your 13:13 arrival becomes a 15:52 arrival; even with a request for alternative transport, if granted, the delay will be around 40 minutes.  I've no answer to best measurement ... the current system measures for the train operator not for the passenger, but my criticism is rather unfair as I don't know how you would provide an alternative.

The paper this morning - the "i" - Dan Lewis of the institute of directors is quoted: "Passengers are angry because they feel that train operators are not listening to them.  And they're right; while the franchise system has been  success in driving a massive increase in passenger numbers , it has failed to create a proper relationship between train operators and their customers".

Perhaps there is scope to build on the seedlings of success of community rail - "Putting new life into local lines" and having the community do the same things for commuter lines, regional lines and intercity services too.

[JayMac]

Caught up in this today, I'll post more about the journey later. Bit tired now, so I'm gonna grab a siesta.

[Gordon the Blue Engine]

We've discussed FGW^▸ (First Great Western)'s response to major incidents many times before.  The fact is, that while FGW controllers, train crew supervisors etc  will do their best to recover the service, many such posts have been taken out over the years and so the quality of response is reduced.  For commercial reasons FGW have decided that a sub-optimal response to major incidents is a price worth paying if they can reduce payroll costs.

If this incident had happened when I worked for Network Southeast Thames and Chiltern Division, I have no doubt whatever that we would have got the service back much more quickly and stations would not have been left with no service for an hour or more.  We will not get this quality of management again unless and until FGW invest in more posts that can manage incidents. 

So sending front line staff on courses on how to deal with frustrated passengers misses the point:  the effort should be focussed on tackling the causes of the frustration ie managing the incident.  Front line staff can't tell the passengers what trains are running etc until someone has decided what trains are running etc.

[Jason]

Sticking a screen up at main stations showing the @FGW^▸ (First Great Western) Twitter feed would get the latest information out there as soon as it's known rather than dozens off staff having to answer the same questions over and over and re-relay any new information each time there is an update.