Serious disruption at Wokingham - 26 Aug 18

[whole diary]

[martyjon]

I can't see any evidence on the photo of a side entry ramp on the down lines conductor rail for a unit exiting the siding on the left of the photo which appears to be electrified so a similar "tie up the pick-up shoes" should be necessary on electrics exiting that siding.

[Electric train]

There has been, a fairly, recent change to the placing of conductor rails in junction areas. The changes revolve around ensuring that no live conductor rails will extend into an area where the conrail has been discharged as part of worksite.  Part of the removal is to do with negative bonding straps placed on the conrail during an isolation, this will become even more acute as the negative bonding devices are installed a substations and TP Huts

The number of "live floaters", side ramps etc have been where gapping analysis allow to be removed.  As for extending the conrail down the Northdowns route I expect this will be a question in the enquiry, there will be a balance of the cost (install & maintenance)  and the risk of a train being incorrectly routed; given the number of trains per day against the number of incorrectly routed trains in the last 5, 10 years.

[eightf48544]

I remember the paddle form my BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) SR^‡(resolve) days.

The other formidable thing that used to be (still?) carried was the shorting bar which was a wooden pole with a bent steel hook which you put over the conrail and then levered to touch the running rail with. I was shown how to use one in theory but never used it in practice, I do remember we were told to turn your head away and not watch the spark!

[stuving]

I can't see any evidence on the photo of a side entry ramp on the down lines conductor rail for a unit exiting the siding on the left of the photo which appears to be electrified so a similar "tie up the pick-up shoes" should be necessary on electrics exiting that siding.

And you won't see an electric train in it, either. It was lengthened to 8-car a long time ago, like over ten years, with third rail only on half of that, but seems to have gone out of use. I last saw a turbo in it several years ago, so it may be entirely U/S. It's not shown as running line in the sectional appendix, but as non-NR^» (Network Rail - home page) sidings are; I'm not sure what that implies.

[bobm]

No ARS^▸ (Automatic Route Setting) at Wokingham.  Its a mechanical signalbox that works colourlight signals.  No flashing yellows.  Probably won't be any independent investigation.

This is what the driver should have seen before departing the platform at Wokingham.



Stuving, in your photo isn't the line to Bracknell/Waterloo the line to the right not left?

[martyjon]

No ARS^▸ (Automatic Route Setting) at Wokingham.  Its a mechanical signalbox that works colourlight signals.  No flashing yellows.  Probably won't be any independent investigation.

This is what the driver should have seen before departing the platform at Wokingham.

Stuving, in your photo isn't the line to Bracknell/Waterloo the line to the right not left?

So it looks like a driver error then if the white indicated route lights were not alight which is what it would be for the Guildford line unless there was a dodgy wire somewhere in the electrics which displayed the indicated route lights or as I said in a previous post on this thread, the train was a non-stopper and by the time the driver had sighted the signal with unlit route indicator lights braking distance was such that the train couldn't be stopped before traversing the junction pointwork.

[Electric train]

I can't see any evidence on the photo of a side entry ramp on the down lines conductor rail for a unit exiting the siding on the left of the photo which appears to be electrified so a similar "tie up the pick-up shoes" should be necessary on electrics exiting that siding.

And you won't see an electric train in it, either. It was lengthened to 8-car a long time ago, like over ten years, with third rail only on half of that, but seems to have gone out of use. I last saw a turbo in it several years ago, so it may be entirely U/S. It's not shown as running line in the sectional appendix, but as non-NR^» (Network Rail - home page) sidings are; I'm not sure what that implies.

I wonder if the siding was "upgraded" for the Reading blockades / remodelling to allow GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) to turn back / stable.   Non NR siding I think it means its not a network siding but a single TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) who pays for the maintenance and connection, it my by OOS and clipped out of use.

[Fourbee]

The SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) description on Journey Check said "due to an operational incident". The GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) version said "due to a broken down train".

I suppose a car that has run out of petrol could be described as broken down. There are various flavours of broken down of course.

[stuving]

Stuving, in your photo isn't the line to Bracknell/Waterloo the line to the right not left?

You are right - my imperfect adjustment of viewing direction; sorry.

[SandTEngineer]

No ARS^▸ (Automatic Route Setting) at Wokingham.  Its a mechanical signalbox that works colourlight signals.  No flashing yellows.  Probably won't be any independent investigation.

It was due for recontrol from Basingstoke last year, though that has been put off and I'm not sure if there is a definite date for it now. Before that initial due date, a lot of work was done there, I think by the mechanical signalling team, which I assumed would do all the local preparation for recontrol. As there's no sign of any point motors going in, is there any other way of automating points ready for such a changeover? Is there some kind of remote controlled multiple points activator that can be put into the base of the signal box, for example?

Sometimes, if there is money in the budget (not very often, then), mechanical points would be converted to power operation prior to a resignalling changeover.  This would be done to reduce the workload during the commissioning.  The power point mechanism would be temporarily operated by a 'circuit controller' box which itself is operated off an existing mechanical lever in the signalbox.

The yellow paint you can see in your photograph is purley there to highlight items of S&T^▸ (Signalling and Telegraph) and E&P equipment so that the S&C^▸ (Settle and Carlisle ) Tamping Machine doesn't strike them during maintenance (well, in my experience, not too often!).

[stuving]

I can't see any evidence on the photo of a side entry ramp on the down lines conductor rail for a unit exiting the siding on the left of the photo which appears to be electrified so a similar "tie up the pick-up shoes" should be necessary on electrics exiting that siding.

And you won't see an electric train in it, either. It was lengthened to 8-car a long time ago, like over ten years, with third rail only on half of that, but seems to have gone out of use. I last saw a turbo in it several years ago, so it may be entirely U/S. It's not shown as running line in the sectional appendix, but as non-NR^» (Network Rail - home page) sidings are; I'm not sure what that implies.

I wonder if the siding was "upgraded" for the Reading blockades / remodelling to allow GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) to turn back / stable.   Non NR siding I think it means its not a network siding but a single TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) who pays for the maintenance and connection, it my by OOS and clipped out of use.

In fact, having checked up, it was once the reception siding for the tramway to a brickworks - still there on the map in 1931. That was very long, at over 300m, and with a headshunt. In 1998 the OS^▸ (Ordnance Survey) map showed a loop, including part of the headshunt to make more like 500 m. Of course OS surveyors had stopped being punctilious about such details by then.

What I remember (from about that date) was a refurbishment, which may even have shortened the overall (but unusable) length, and I think may have been when it was electrified for a short distance. As I never saw anything electric in it I can believe the Main Line's third rail was never altered to make it usable. This was some time before the "Wokingham turnback" work, so unlikely to be related to RASR.

The only use I can recall of that siding was during an unplanned disruption (line to Reading blocked) five years ago. SWT^▸ (South West Trains) then turned their trains as quickly as they could, bearing in mind the allowed dwell in the timetable is minus two minutes, or swapped their trains from P2 to P1. But their trains don't need a new crew, while GWR ones do. On that occasion one train (at least) was parked in the siding so its crew could go off by taxi, without blocking P2, and a new one were sent out to pick up the train and load it at P2.

[stuving]

The SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) description on Journey Check said "due to an operational incident". The GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) version said "due to a broken down train".

I suppose a car that has run out of petrol could be described as broken down. There are various flavours of broken down of course.

If you look (or looked at the time) at the various online sources of information on yesterday's goings-on, you could get quite confused. SWR and National Rail referred to it as "an operational incident" - I can see that might mean "this is embarrassing, we'd rather not go into details". GWR JourneyCheck, however, said it was a broken down train; well it wasn't one of theirs, was it?

RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) (or rather its sources) can't cope with trains going in reverse, and struggles when several are so late it's hard to know which train is which; that much is well known. Also, the reason given that we see is only shown for cancellations, not delays, and is only an initial entered code which may be altered later in the more detailed version used internally. But even so, those codes were unconvincing.

The train that was singing "Oh! Mr signaller, what shall we do? I want to go to Bracknell and you've sent me on towards Sandhurst" was 2C46, shown as cancelled from Wokingham "due to an issue with the train crew (TG)". That's the usual code for no driver being available, though arguably it's not the right one (TA and TI overlap with it). There was also a round trip cancelled with this code not long before; that presumably was a staff shortage. The later SWR trains that were turned at Ascot show as cancelled between Ascot and Reading due to the train operator's request (TB).

However, TG also covers driver errors of several kinds.  As we saw the last time a train took a wrong turn, the driver is responsible for detecting (from signals) mis-routing and is expected to take action to prevent or mitigate it as soon as possible. At Wokingham, assuming the points were not moved after the train passed the signal (not possible, I hope), the feather lights are there to be seen by the driver before starting (as in bobm's picture). So there will be an internal "TG" incident, but there should be another one coded "OC", signaller error.

GWR trains continued to run, with interruptions, but only towards Reading, and only as many as had got out past Wokingham in time. Those unable to depart Reading were not defined as cancelled and given a reason until the end of the incident (which is normal). When they were, they showed up as OC, though there are also some shown as TG (of course that could be due to GWR's own staff shortages). 

Incidentally, the fact that there is still a mechanical signalbox by the station means the driver and signaller could be in direct communication at all times, simply by leaning out of their windows and rasing their voices a bit. So if they had any differences to settle, that could be done directly one-to-one, and if it came to "I'll see you outside" that wasn't far either (albeit against the rules).