Thames Valley infrastructure problems causing disruption elsewhere - 2014

[whole diary]

[lbraine]

I am on said 180 - crawling through Twyford. Signalling issues in the Maidenhead area.

[Jason]

Indeed,  I'm just passing Twyford some 25mins after leaving Reading on the 8:09 service.

[tomL]

Here we go again...

Fun fact: Passing through the station on the way to work the 0929 from Swindon to Paddington was showing as now stopping on platform 'UML' ...mind the gap 

[BBM]

Looking at some recent replies on their Twitter account, FGW^▸ (First Great Western) are currently blaming the fault on Network Rail (NR^» (Network Rail - home page)) cutting through a cable AGAIN... 


Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronym

[TaplowGreen]

And so today we have a signalling failure between TWY^▸ (Twyford station) and MAI^▸ (Maidenhead station) affecting all lines... 

......for the second time this week, total chaos, RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) listing over 30 trains cancelled - lucky I came in early today and missed it - this affects peoples jobs and lives and is simply unacceptable.......and yes I know Network Rail look after the signals before all the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) devotees start going all Railway enthusiast fundamentalist on me, but it's FGW that take a chunk of my salary in return for providing a service of sorts, so I expect them to sort their infrastructure providers out, rather than their Directors bleating about learning lessons year after year......first lesson to learn, use cable scanners, if my blokes don't, they get sacked.

[broadgage]

Reliability certainly seems to be getting worse, and subjectively seems to be much worse than back in the "good old days"
Breakdowns certainly occurred back in the old days, but I don't recall major failures resulting in DOZENS of cancellations, occurring on a near weekly basis.
Thirty trains are cancelled at present, and many other services are running for only part of the scheduled journey.

This weeks two major failures appear to be network rail incompetence, and might not be repeated for some weeks, but the rainy season has just started and will probably result in a third consecutive autumn of disruption caused by "once in a century extreme weather"

Looking further ahead we have electrification to look forward to with the inevitable weather related disruption.

[grahame]

this affects peoples jobs and lives and is simply unacceptable.......and yes I know Network Rail look after the signals ... [snip] ...
 so I expect them to sort their infrastructure providers out, rather than their Directors bleating about learning lessons year after year......first lesson to learn, use cable scanners, if my blokes don't, they get sacked.

Your [original] comparison was over the top, and could have been read very much in the wrong way. Thank you for going back and amending it.

I have to agree with you that the current rate of failure has moved well beyond what should be provided - as I read it, there has been one morning out of four so far this week that has run smoothly, with two lots of engineering problems and a person under a train.   And I have to agree that when you buy a service from someone, it's really up to them to get what they need from their suppliers in turn.

But we have a problem ... it's tightly regulated and there IS only one supplier ... you can write "unacceptable" and the answer has to be "then don't accept it" - and that might mean some sort of campaigning, or a switch to an alternative means of travel, or to another home or to another job.  Frankly, the passenger / travelling public is pretty powerless against what is a monopoly of service, and to take the work "unacceptable" at face value means some pretty tough decisions.   And even if there were an open access operator on the line, it's still Network Rail behind it ...

[Worcester_Passenger]

To paraphrase Lady Bracknell,

    "To cut one cable may be regarded as a misfortune. To cut two in one week looks like carelessness."

I agree with TaplowGreen about cable scanners.

[Jason]

Why are there so many single points of failure ? Is that simply the way signalling infrastructure works ?

[a-driver]

To paraphrase Lady Bracknell,

    "To cut one cable may be regarded as a misfortune. To cut two in one week looks like carelessness."

I agree with TaplowGreen about cable scanners.

The whole area is CAT scanned, quite often see them trackside during the day undertaking this.  Still doesn't stop some idiot damaging the cable.  Monday they managed to crush a cable I believe.
Today's signalling failure is currently logged as a track circuit failure between Twyford and Maidenhead. Cause not reported as yet although it was logged that the first train up in the morning operated track circuits correctly which suggests some work was carried out overnight??

[grahame]

A bit of an aside ... I'm noticing that Bristol and South West trains appear to be running as combined services ... South West services are running via Bristol anyway this week, due to works between Castle Cary and Taunton.  Looks to be a sensible way to make maximum use of reduced capacity in the Thames Valley.  Good call by whoever came up with that approach!

[IndustryInsider]

Reliability certainly seems to be getting worse, and subjectively seems to be much worse than back in the "good old days"
Breakdowns certainly occurred back in the old days, but I don't recall major failures resulting in DOZENS of cancellations, occurring on a near weekly basis.

Quite agree that it's been another very disappointing week, but there was never the sheer amount of infrastructure work going on, or anywhere near the number of trains/passengers, in these alleged 'good old days'.  The amount of work going on is phenomenal - Reading, electrification, resignalling, Crossrail and so on with hundreds of staff on the trackside both day and night.

[insider]

Todays chaos is still very much ongoing.....

Sources inform me that techs on the ground are still trying to work out the cause of the failures. There were multiple sites last night where digging & piling were taking place but as yet can not find a damaged cable.

They have located a location cabinet in the area which has no power, but don't know why!!

Could take until 1400 to test cables to locate the fault, then the solution needs to be found, and implemented.

The fault in itself is quite an unusual one and has the potential to cause an accident, which is why the service is being reduced. Short version is that on ALL 4 lines, the signaller at TVSC^» (Thames Valley Signalling Centre - about) is loosing trains. in that the track circuit are wrong side failures, train in section but computer says nothing there!!! This has the potential to allow another train into the same section.

As a result a method of work called long block is in operation. Only one train from Maidenhead to Ruscombe per line at any time. Basically like Absolute Block in the old days. Luckily all the signals on the ground seem to be working correctly from what I understand (but this not confirmed), so once trains get a green, should be a clear run. But there were some reports of an actual track circuit failure as well....

Another day to stay away from trains....

[TaplowGreen]

The whole thing reeks of carelessness, shoddiness and incompetence.........there can be no other explanation for one of the busiest rail thoroughfares in Europe being brought to a grinding halt for the second time in 4 days..............the noise you can hear is not trains moving to and fro, it's Brunel spinning in his grave.

FGW^▸ (First Great Western) should grow a pair and insist that all digging/piling work should cease until they are satisifed that those undertaking it are competent enough to undertake this work without this happening.

I note the message on the FGW website is  "There is currently no estimate for a normal train service to resume"..........how apt!

[Thatcham Crossing]

I was on the 0903 THA-PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains) this morning, which left about 17 late (due to being late on its down journey to Bedwyn).

We left RDG^‡(resolve) at about 0940 and breezed through Twyford and Maidenhead at pretty-much max turbo speed, to my surprise....only to amble on an amber all the way from Slough to about Acton West (driver did come up on the PA^▸ (Public Address) to make us aware of reason for slow running).

Arrived at PAD about 25 late but could have been worse.

Would also like to praise the guy in the ticket office at THA who came out and walked up and down the platform telling us all what was going on.