Thames Valley infrastructure problems causing disruption elsewhere - 2014

[whole diary]

[thetrout]

I intended to catch the 23:35 from BRI^» (Bristol Temple Meads - next trains) to EXD^» (Exeter St Davids - next trains)...

I am still waiting..............

[grahame]

Visited Reading earlier (not been there since the rebuild completed), and I was waiting for the 19:18 service to Paddington (from Newbury) on platform 10 when there was an automated tanoy announcement to say that there was a platform alteration and that this train would depart from Platform 1!

And why not    ... there are even precedents where reversal upon departure is required, such as trains from Limerick Junction to Waterford. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerick_Junction

[thetrout]

Many services reverse direction during a diagram at Bristol Temple Meads every day. Including Local Class 15x stock and InterCity High Speed Train (HST^▸ (High Speed Train))/Voyager Stock

Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronym

[thetrout]

Up Sleeper has a massive delay also. Meant to depart Exeter St Davids at 01:06 and is now expected 05:08 and counting... Flooding on the line apparently. Staff at Exeter St Davids have been fantastic in making everyone comfortable however

[thetrout]

Driver for 1C99 (Down Sleeper) from Exeter St Davids has not arrived to work the train... He has since been located inside 1A40 (Up Sleeper) which at the time of writing has just passed Saltash 286 minutes late...

bobm are you in one of the births by chance?

[bobm]

No I didn't jinx it for once.

Up sleeper currently 4 hours 45 minutes late approaching Totnes and the Down 23 late leaving Newton Abbot.

[bobm]

Meanwhile back at Slough repairs were completed at 3am. Hopefully a normal service this morning barring rolling stock being in the wrong place.

[eightf48544]

Visited Reading earlier (not been there since the rebuild completed), and I was waiting for the 19:18 service to Paddington (from Newbury) on platform 10 when there was an automated tanoy announcement to say that there was a platform alteration and that this train would depart from Platform 1!

And why not    ... there are even precedents where reversal upon departure is required, such as trains from Limerick Junction to Waterford. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerick_Junction

However to get to Padd from Platform 1 at Reading would require a reversal on the running line not in teh platform.

[TaplowGreen]

Driver for 1C99 (Down Sleeper) from Exeter St Davids has not arrived to work the train... He has since been located inside 1A40 (Up Sleeper) which at the time of writing has just passed Saltash 286 minutes late...

bobm are you in one of the births by chance?

Hold on a minute..........are you saying that on a day of colossal disruption, when people were being advised not to travel on FGW^▸ (First Great Western) services, FGW were relying on drivers getting to their starting points..........by FGW trains?

You really couldn't make that one up - why on Earth didn't they put him in a taxi? It would have been a great deal cheaper than the compensation bill which will come out of this delay!!!  

[grahame]

However to get to Padd from Platform 1 at Reading would require a reversal on the running line not in teh platform.

And so it does at Limerick Junction, to this day.   The train leaves towards Limerick, then changes direction on the running line towards Tipperaray and Waterford.  And it used to be even more complex there!

[BBM]

However to get to Padd from Platform 1 at Reading would require a reversal on the running line not in teh platform.

And so it does at Limerick Junction, to this day.   The train leaves towards Limerick, then changes direction on the running line towards Tipperaray and Waterford.  And it used to be even more complex there!

One other running line reversal happens regularly at Inverness - the 1714 Kyle of Lochalsh to Elgin has to take the avoiding line at Inverness and then reverse at Welsh's Bridge Jct into Platform 2 in order to get access on departure to the Elgin route.

[ChrisB]

Just had a tweet from FGW^▸ (First Great Western) saying that they're holding a 'Meet the Manager' session at Reading tomorrow (Tuesday) between 16:30 and 18:30.

Brave...

Poster was already up on Saturday, so pre-planned. Brave not to cancel it, I agree. They wouldn't dare....

In case tomorrow reflects today's situation...

When FGW says Chiltern will accept FGW tickets between Banbury and Marylebone does that mean Chiltern will accept a CHO-PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains) season ticket from Princes Risborough to MYB^▸ (London (Marylebone))?  Notwithstanding a longer car journey at the start (and finish), it will be significantly quicker than crawling with SWT^▸ (South West Trains) via Staines to Waterloo.

It would need to honoured on the way home too, as my transport home would be in PRR^▸ (Princes Risborough)!

By any reasonable route...so if that suited you, it is likely to be reasonable, I'd say. They were accepting almost anything Thames Valley-wise to HWY for example....

[grahame]

Hold on a minute..........are you saying that on a day of colossal disruption, when people were being advised not to travel on FGW^▸ (First Great Western) services, FGW were relying on drivers getting to their starting points..........by FGW trains?

You really couldn't make that one up - why on Earth didn't they put him in a taxi? It would have been a great deal cheaper than the compensation bill which will come out of this delay!!!  

As I understand it, yes, the driver was on the train going the other way.    And in "sound bites" it might sound like a poor decision.   However, this was the train from Penzance - a long long way from the Thames Valley, and already in place there for the journey up to Exeter and beyond - no reason at all to suspect that it wouldn't be reliable until the other issues hit.

A train operating company is between a rock and a hard place when it comes to decisions like these.   They should move their own staff around by train ("patriotic" to the railway) and indeed I observe that they do when it's practical.   However, especially where they're looking at first / last services, sometimes there is no practical train, and they'll fall back to road.

In my personal view, they normally come up with a sensible compromise in this area, and in my own volunteer work I follow much the same philosophy;  I'll take an hour or two longer to go by public transport, but if it's much more than that / means missing a vital meeting then it's car / taxi - either to a suitable railhead, or all the way.   In times of disruption it's harder to judge, and I'm sure that the folks in Penzance would have loved to have had a crystal ball to see that the up sleeper would be delayed.

[TaplowGreen]

There was (widely predicted) severe weather in Cornwall earlier in the day yesterday causing flooding and structural damage and which also affected the railways notwithstanding the signal failures - the local media were advising people not to attempt to travel by rail towards London due to the weather AND the signalling problems in Slough.......I wouldn't have thought a crystal ball would have been necessary to at least manage the risk? (Unless of course that's the method FGW^▸ (First Great Western) employ these days?)

Under these circumstances do you really think it was a good call to rely on a train to get the single most important person involved to the place he needed to be to move the last service of the day, risking delay and inconveniencing hundreds of customers?

[IndustryInsider]

There was (widely predicted) severe weather in Cornwall earlier in the day yesterday causing flooding and structural damage and which also affected the railways notwithstanding the signal failures - the local media were advising people not to attempt to travel by rail towards London due to the weather AND the signalling problems in Slough.......I wouldn't have thought a crystal ball would have been necessary to at least manage the risk? (Unless of course that's the method FGW^▸ (First Great Western) employ these days?)

Under these circumstances do you really think it was a good call to rely on a train to get the single most important person involved to the place he needed to be to move the last service of the day, risking delay and inconveniencing hundreds of customers?

Firstly, 'hundreds of customers' on the night sleeper after Exeter?  A couple of dozen more like.  Secondly, the train was only delayed at Exeter by 19 minutes, and was back on time by departure from Plymouth, so only the handful travelling to Newton Abbot/Plymouth would have suffered minor inconvenience.  Thirdly, the driver for the train may well have been utilised to work another train down towards Plymouth due to the disruption -  looking at the diagram that it books on at 23:25 and does one shunt before 'working as required' until departing with the sleeper at 04:11.  He/she would therefore have been a prime candidate to be used to work another train in the meantime, perhaps to Plymouth, so a taxi may not have been viable or necessary.