Thames Valley infrastructure problems causing disruption elsewhere - 2017

[whole diary]

[TaplowGreen]

Surprisingly good performance today from NR^» (Network Rail - home page) and GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway).  A few delays/cancellations/short forms, but overall not too bad given it was the hottest day of the four day heatwave (hottest June days in over 40 years), the disruption of the previous three days (especially Monday) and sets being nicked for Glastonbury.

.......which goes to show that whilst you can't polish a turd, it's always possible to scatter a little glitter over it! ;-)

[Electric train]

Perhaps ElectricTrain can elaborate on whether the new electrification equipment provides any extra resilience against this rare but potentially very disruptive bird risk?  I believe Monday's incident occurred near West Ealing so that's obviously an older section done in the mid 90s.

Bird strikes on OLE^▸ (Overhead Line Equipment, more often "OHLE") used to be very common on the older Mk1 (what was on most of the WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line)) Anglia suffer from swan and goose bird strikes.............. now they do make a mess, however bird strikes are not so common Mk3 and UK^▸ (United Kingdom) series 1

If it was in the Ealing area it could have been a couple of pigeons getting a bit frisky on perhaps one of the bridge arms under the "tunnels"

Birds (pigeon size) make a mess of insulators.


The OLE engineers have designed out places where birds can roost and nest on OLE and generally birds don't like pan wells because the trains move

The other thing that can happen is birds nesting or roosting in the Pan wells on traction units.

[TaplowGreen]

Perhaps ElectricTrain can elaborate on whether the new electrification equipment provides any extra resilience against this rare but potentially very disruptive bird risk?  I believe Monday's incident occurred near West Ealing so that's obviously an older section done in the mid 90s.

Bird strikes on OLE^▸ (Overhead Line Equipment, more often "OHLE") used to be very common on the older Mk1 (what was on most of the WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line)) Anglia suffer from swan and goose bird strikes.............. now they do make a mess, however bird strikes are not so common Mk3 and UK^▸ (United Kingdom) series 1

If it was in the Ealing area it could have been a couple of pigeons getting a bit frisky on perhaps one of the bridge arms under the "tunnels"

Birds (pigeon size) make a mess of insulators.


The OLE engineers have designed out places where birds can roost and nest on OLE and generally birds don't like pan wells because the trains move

The other thing that can happen is birds nesting or roosting in the Pan wells on traction units.

Swan and Goose strikes? 

If the infrastructure is so feeble that a small, humble pigeon can turn the service to rats**t for the best part of a day and evening, God knows what a swan could do? No service for a week?

Maybe scarecrows in GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) uniforms could be strategically positioned trackside to frighten them off?

[IndustryInsider]

A word of warning for those who may be relying on it for information, OTT^▸ (Open Train Times website) appears to be suffering from the heat as well as it seems to be lagging by over 5 minutes on the actual position of trains.

Just for interest there is a detailed explanation of the problems which affected OTT on Monday here - https://blog.opentraintimes.com/2017/06/19/post-incident-review/

Lagging by 10 minutes or so tonight as well, but I think that's a problem with the NR^» (Network Rail - home page) feed rather than OTT as the railcam maps are also lagging by the same amount.

[Electric train]

Perhaps ElectricTrain can elaborate on whether the new electrification equipment provides any extra resilience against this rare but potentially very disruptive bird risk?  I believe Monday's incident occurred near West Ealing so that's obviously an older section done in the mid 90s.

Bird strikes on OLE^▸ (Overhead Line Equipment, more often "OHLE") used to be very common on the older Mk1 (what was on most of the WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line)) Anglia suffer from swan and goose bird strikes.............. now they do make a mess, however bird strikes are not so common Mk3 and UK^▸ (United Kingdom) series 1

If it was in the Ealing area it could have been a couple of pigeons getting a bit frisky on perhaps one of the bridge arms under the "tunnels"

Birds (pigeon size) make a mess of insulators.


The OLE engineers have designed out places where birds can roost and nest on OLE and generally birds don't like pan wells because the trains move

The other thing that can happen is birds nesting or roosting in the Pan wells on traction units.

Swan and Goose strikes? 

If the infrastructure is so feeble that a small, humble pigeon can turn the service to rats**t for the best part of a day and evening, God knows what a swan could do? No service for a week?

Maybe scarecrows in GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) uniforms could be strategically positioned trackside to frighten them off?

Usually pigeons just go phut in a big cloud of feathers often not even tripping the circuit breakers feeding a section.

I don't know what happened Monday, if the mortal remains of a bird stayed put which meant the ECR keep getting circuit breaker trips and if the MOMs^▸ (Mobile Operations Manager) cannot clear it with the live working tools they have then the OLE team is called out to site to inspect the suspect area, the protection relays used on OLE circuit breakers give a reasonably accurate location of where the fault is and usually the MOMs can deal with things quite quickly.

[ChrisB]

I heard there was more concern with the debris on the track than usual, and that took an unduakly long time to get clearance / cleared

[stuving]

I heard there was more concern with the debris on the track than usual, and that took an unduakly long time to get clearance / cleared

I assumed, from the time it took, that the condition of the bridge was the issue. Such as: peering into the hole left by the flashover, and waggling the potentially loose bits round the edge, it looked as if a lot more might be ready to fall on the track.

[rower40]

I assumed, from the time it took, that the condition of the bridge was the issue. Such as: peering into the hole left by the flashover, and waggling the potentially loose bits round the edge, it looked as if a lot more might be ready to fall on the track.

Also https://www.gov.uk/raib-reports/partial-collapse-of-a-bridge-onto-open-railway-lines-at-barrow-upon-soar has just been published, so maybe a touch of extra caution regarding possible damage to overbridges was appropriate.

[Electric train]

I heard there was more concern with the debris on the track than usual, and that took an unduakly long time to get clearance / cleared

Ok, Barrow-upon-Soar incident is perhaps not quite the same as the Ealing one. 

If the Ealing incident was caused by a bird and this lead to a flashover from the OLE^▸ (Overhead Line Equipment, more often "OHLE") to a masonry over bridge the discharge of electrical energy as an earth fault into a relatively high impedance, this can result in the masonry fracturing (exploding), indeed its has been know for the fault current to travel tens of metres through the masonry before the protection clears the fault, its should noted that we are talking a max of 200mS.

The mitigate / control OLE to masonry over bridges earthed metal strips are now run on the underside of the bridge in flash over strike zone, normally 2 parallel strips.  In some locations insulating shrouds are fitted on the top of the catenary, this is generally not likes by the OLE engineer as they require a lot of maintenance, another measure can be to paint the underside of the bridge with insulating paint this is expensive and again can be high maintenance.

The use of earthed strips has only been a requirement for about 5 or 6 years.   Anyone travelling through Slough at a relatively low speed look at the underside of Stoke Rd Bridge (this is the at the West end of the station) and you will see the strips on the underside of the bridge above the OLE

[Sixty3Closure]

2 coaches again for the 17.36. not a chance of getting on.

From what people said above this is planned changes around Glastonbury so why not give passengers a chance and advertise it? I got a text just before 17.00 by which time I was already committed to my commute across London but it sounds like this had been planned some time in advance but there was nothing on the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) website about formation changes when I left work. To me it doesn't seem a difficult thing to communicate around planned work.

On a different topic is customer service/communication part of the infrastructure thread as it doesn't quite sit with the conversations about OLE^▸ (Overhead Line Equipment, more often "OHLE") or even 125 air con (I never knew that!)? Happy to start a separate thread although I worry it might just be me and Taplow Green comparing journeys home.

[John R]

2 coaches again for the 17.36. not a chance of getting on.

I wonder how many years before we are seeing such a post/complaint on the Trans Wilts board. 

[grahame]

2 coaches again for the 17.36. not a chance of getting on.

I wonder how many years before we are seeing such a post/complaint on the Trans Wilts board. 

I was thinking of offering a swap of their 17:36 for our 17:36.   I will glady accept that turbo and they can borrow Casper  .

[TaplowGreen]

2 coaches again for the 17.36. not a chance of getting on.

From what people said above this is planned changes around Glastonbury so why not give passengers a chance and advertise it? I got a text just before 17.00 by which time I was already committed to my commute across London but it sounds like this had been planned some time in advance but there was nothing on the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) website about formation changes when I left work. To me it doesn't seem a difficult thing to communicate around planned work.

On a different topic is customer service/communication part of the infrastructure thread as it doesn't quite sit with the conversations about OLE^▸ (Overhead Line Equipment, more often "OHLE") or even 125 air con (I never knew that!)? Happy to start a separate thread although I worry it might just be me and Taplow Green comparing journeys home.

1742 Electric was noticeably busier last night, I think a lot of Maidenhead passengers took that option rather than the 1736 matchbox!

[grahame]

All the Stations ... "Maidenhaed to Marylebone"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL2PQ0zteps&feature=youtu.be

[TaplowGreen]

.....welcome to the new week!

Alterations to services at Oxford
Due to a fault with the signalling system at Oxford the line towards Didcot Parkway is closed.
Train services running through this station may be delayed or revised. Disruption is expected until 07:45 26/06.
Further Information
Owing to some signalling issues we are currently only able to operate a very limited train service from Oxford towards Didcot Parkway or Reading.