Derailment of empty passenger train at Paddington causes major disruption - 16 June 2016

[whole diary]

[SandTEngineer]

More up to date photograph here:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClGStI5WMAAWHu3.jpg:large

[Timmer]

I thank you for your thoughts.....I am sure they are genuine rather than sarcastic....

Totally genuine, as they always are when the travelling public, staff and at times of tragedy family are having to deal with a situation when things go wrong on our rail network.

[TaplowGreen]

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) Twitter feed seems to have given up responding to stranded passengers.....what are they going to do about all those stranded people? Thoughts on prospects for tomorrow morning service?

[brizzlechris]

It's a very quiet Twitter feed indeed.

Customers travelling beyond Reading today should not attempt to travel from London with us. Your ticket will be valid tomorrow.

One reply to an affected customer...

Hi Craig, you should travel tomorrow your ticket will be valid -Andy

No comments on what you're meant to do through the night... no mention if GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) will reimburse unplanned hotel bills.

[TaplowGreen]

It's a very quiet Twitter feed indeed.

Customers travelling beyond Reading today should not attempt to travel from London with us. Your ticket will be valid tomorrow.

One reply to an affected customer...

Hi Craig, you should travel tomorrow your ticket will be valid -Andy

No comments on what you're meant to do through the night... no mention if GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) will reimburse unplanned hotel bills.

........surely they're not brass necked enough to start trawling out the usual "we're not responsible for consequential losses" line? Of course this incident would appear to be totally down to GWR, so they'll have more of an eye on cost as they won't have a fat cheque from Network Rail to cover their costs.......down sleeper also cancelled....so what happens to those passengers?

[SandTEngineer]

It's a very quiet Twitter feed indeed.

Customers travelling beyond Reading today should not attempt to travel from London with us. Your ticket will be valid tomorrow.

One reply to an affected customer...

Hi Craig, you should travel tomorrow your ticket will be valid -Andy

No comments on what you're meant to do through the night... no mention if GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) will reimburse unplanned hotel bills.

........surely they're not brass necked enough to start trawling out the usual "we're not responsible for consequential losses" line? Of course this incident would appear to be totally down to GWR, so they'll have more of an eye on cost as they won't have a fat cheque from Network Rail to cover their costs.......down sleeper also cancelled....so what happens to those passengers?

Hang on a minute.  Speculation there. We don't know yet if the protecting signal was falsely in the clear to proceed postion.  This is called a 'Wrong Side Failure' and I can reassure you that all such incident investigations are held with an open mind.  In my (perhaps too long) S&T^▸ (Signalling and Telegraph) career I have investigated many incidents like this and you would be very supprised as to the outcome of some of them.

[NickB]

Gwr Twitter are advising that travel to Paddington will be affected tomorrow too. Would anyone here like to speculate on the level of impact? As a related question whereabouts was the incident and how did it affect all lines? Thanks.

[LiskeardRich]

Network rail have confirmed it was a SPAD^▸ (Signal Passed At Danger - very bad!) on their Twitter feed,

Elsewhere online reporting it was a class A SPAD whatever that is.

Also is it a design issue having a catch point diverting a train head on into a gantry?
Most of the cancellations were attributed to the fallen gantry and not the derailment which isn't obstructing running lines.

I notice I can have a lie in and probably be close to late for work. Down sleeper cancelled, I need to be in My office in Truro for 0745. XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) service doesn't give me time to do the 25 min walk.

[SandTEngineer]

The incident site is the link line between the Down Sidings and just on the immediate approach to Platform No.1.  The empty stock train was approaching Paddington.  There are a set of trap points sited to protect the sidings from the main line and the train was derailed on these.

As I stated in a post above I don't think we should speculate as to the reasons why the derailment occurred as there could be several explanations that I can visualise at present.

[LiskeardRich]

Gwr Twitter are advising that travel to Paddington will be affected tomorrow too. Would anyone here like to speculate on the level of impact? As a related question whereabouts was the incident and how did it affect all lines? Thanks.

Probably due to out of place stock. The journey update says all lines closed until 0200.

[brizzlechris]

It's a very quiet Twitter feed indeed.

Customers travelling beyond Reading today should not attempt to travel from London with us. Your ticket will be valid tomorrow.

One reply to an affected customer...

Hi Craig, you should travel tomorrow your ticket will be valid -Andy

No comments on what you're meant to do through the night... no mention if GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) will reimburse unplanned hotel bills.

........surely they're not brass necked enough to start trawling out the usual "we're not responsible for consequential losses" line? Of course this incident would appear to be totally down to GWR, so they'll have more of an eye on cost as they won't have a fat cheque from Network Rail to cover their costs.......down sleeper also cancelled....so what happens to those passengers?

Hang on a minute.  Speculation there. We don't know yet if the protecting signal was falsely in the clear to proceed postion.  This is called a 'Wrong Side Failure' and I can reassure you that all such incident investigations are held with an open mind.  In my (perhaps too long) S&T^▸ (Signalling and Telegraph) career I have investigated many incidents like this and you would be very supprised as to the outcome of some of them.

I won't pretend to understand the fine details but Network Rail have described it as "Empty train travelled past red signal". Maybe they've spoken too soon but that sounds pretty clear cut?

https://twitter.com/networkrailPR/status/743514804606894082

[SandTEngineer]

It's a very quiet Twitter feed indeed.

Customers travelling beyond Reading today should not attempt to travel from London with us. Your ticket will be valid tomorrow.

One reply to an affected customer...

Hi Craig, you should travel tomorrow your ticket will be valid -Andy

No comments on what you're meant to do through the night... no mention if GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) will reimburse unplanned hotel bills.

........surely they're not brass necked enough to start trawling out the usual "we're not responsible for consequential losses" line? Of course this incident would appear to be totally down to GWR, so they'll have more of an eye on cost as they won't have a fat cheque from Network Rail to cover their costs.......down sleeper also cancelled....so what happens to those passengers?

Hang on a minute.  Speculation there. We don't know yet if the protecting signal was falsely in the clear to proceed postion.  This is called a 'Wrong Side Failure' and I can reassure you that all such incident investigations are held with an open mind.  In my (perhaps too long) S&T^▸ (Signalling and Telegraph) career I have investigated many incidents like this and you would be very supprised as to the outcome of some of them.

I won't pretend to understand the fine details but Network Rail have described it as "Empty train travelled past red signal". Maybe they've spoken too soon but that sounds pretty clear cut?

https://twitter.com/networkrailPR/status/743514804606894082

I don't have access to Twitter (nor want to) but personally I think they have gone a bit too far there as I think its a bit early to be publishing things like that.  Lets wait and see the RAIB^▸ (Rail Accident Investigation Branch) press release first.

[SandTEngineer]

Network rail have confirmed it was a SPAD^▸ (Signal Passed At Danger - very bad!) on their Twitter feed,

Elsewhere online reporting it was a class A SPAD whatever that is.

A Catergory 'A' SPAD (Signal Passed At Danger) is one caused by driver error or rolling stock defect.
A Catergory 'B' SPAD is caused by a signalling equipment failure where a cleared signal reverts to danger in an uncontrolled manner and a train passes it at danger in consequence.

[LiskeardRich]

Network rail have confirmed it was a SPAD^▸ (Signal Passed At Danger - very bad!) on their Twitter feed,

Elsewhere online reporting it was a class A SPAD whatever that is.

A Catergory 'A' SPAD (Signal Passed At Danger) is one caused by driver error.
A Catergory 'B' SPAD is caused by a signalling equipment failure where a signal reverts to danger in an uncontrolled manner and a train passes it at danger in consequence.

In that case no further discussion should be had around that element as potentially someone's lively hood at stake, it's mentioned on the above linked Twitter feed about it being a class A. 

[CJB666]

All services cancelled and no bus / coach / taxi alternatives.

https://twitter.com/networkrailPR/status/743514804606894082

And the reason why the train went through a red light at Paddington was .... ?? At least it didn't catch fire. Hmm - shades of Thames Trains maybe.

So instead of the brakes being applied the damn thing was derailed bringing down all of the power lines and closing all services for the rest of the day - right in the middle of the rush-hour, and the disruption will likely extend to all of tomorrow morning.

Apparently even the Circle Line and H&C were stopped from running between Paddington and Hammersmith.
 
GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) staff on the Concourse did a fine job at Paddington dealing with thousands of pi$$ed off commuters etc. Many were told to go to Ealing Broadway where - they were informed - trains would be running to / from the West. BUT ... at Ealing Broadway there were NO trains and pax were told to go to Waterloo instead. Er - right hand and left hand etc.?

No alternative buses or taxis appear to have been arranged - even for those needing to catch flights at Heathrow. The HConn and Hex of course couldn't run since the power lines were down.

And as we all know the Bakerloo Line wasn't stopping at Paddington; and the road works in Praed Street ensure that buses are not stopping at Paddington either. Indeed the bus drivers (23, 27, 205, etc.) appear to be all refusing to stop anywhere near Paddington Station and are running non-stop between the Edgware Road end of Sussex Gardens and the far end of Eastbourne Terrace - a distance of over a mile.

So all in all one huge chaos from right hands and left hands not knowing what the h*ll was going on - Network Rail, GWR, Heathrow - Hex, T4L - buses, all clearly demonstrating utter incompetence at dealing with the situation. All par for the course.

And all due to a SPAD^▸ (Signal Passed At Danger - very bad!) and a weird arrangement to derail a train directly into the overhead line gantries rather than simply apply the brakes.

More and pics here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3645496/Rush-hour-chaos-London-s-Paddington-station-train-derailment-stops-thousands-going-home.html

CJB

P.S. The last major outage at Paddington was when a steam special left platform 1 and headed off for a day out West. Meanwhile Network Rail - more likely their incompetent contractors - were digging around and laying new track and ballast underneath one of the major road bridges across the entrance to Paddington Station. In so doing they raised the profile of the track. So when said steam train returned the chimney and boiler of the engine hit the underside of the bridge nearly causing a catastrophic boiler explosion. Luckily the driver brought the whole shebang to a halt, but all services into and out of Paddington were cancelled just in case.