Thames Valley infrastructure problems causing disruption elsewhere - 2022

[whole diary]

[ChrisB]

End of today.

Lines opened at 0930, with 2 electric & 2 diesel only.

Final fix overnight tonight with full service again tomorrow morning

[Clan Line]

For non-rail forum members...........I found this to be most informative:

https://www.railengineer.co.uk/back-to-portals/

[IndustryInsider]

An excellent article.  Very well written and worth a read.  Thanks for the link.

[Marlburian]

Reporter's first-hand account of journey to funeral: Berkshire Live

[broadgage]

Reporter's first-hand account of journey to funeral: Berkshire Live

ANOTHER group of people who have been put off rail travel, and whom are most unlikely to use rail in future.
For reasons given elsewhere, I am opposed to flying and to driving, but under present circumstances it is hard to recommend rail.

[grahame]

Reporter's first-hand account of journey to funeral: Berkshire Live

ANOTHER group of people who have been put off rail travel, and whom are most unlikely to use rail in future.
For reasons given elsewhere, I am opposed to flying and to driving, but under present circumstances it is hard to recommend rail.

A golden opportunity for the railways to show their worth to lots or people who don't use trains very often.

[ChrisB]

Which presumably means that it hasn't yet been cleaned from last night?

Correct. Train needs cleaning, fuelling and possibly servicing.

If the up Sleeper was to run I suspect it’ll be extremely difficult to return a set to Penzance and have it ready again for tomorrow night.

It's going tonight - starting from Reading @ 0049. Customers booked have been contacted & asked to catch the WAterloo trains to Reading in order to connect, or offered a full refund. Not sure about the UP sleeper but suspect the mirror result - terminates Reading with onward to Waterloo, unless works complete.

[Ollie]

Think it'd be good if the sleeper were to be allowed to run through to Paddington with delay so long as block is lifted on time, but I guess it depends on how work progresses during the night.

[TaplowGreen]

Latest advice..... Disruption is expected until 08:00 21/09.

Network Rail engineers will undertake further repair work tonight.
-
This means GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) will not be able to run services into or out of London Paddington from 2200 this evening until 0600 tomorrow (Wednesday 21 September). Services will start and finish at Reading instead.

[grahame]

From JourneyCheck as I write:

On Monday 19 September, a train caused significant damage to the overhead lines (power cables) between Slough & London Paddington. Network Rail have been carrying out extensive repair work and have successfully reopened the line.

Interesting that it assigns cause (fault / blame?) to the train rather than an alternative such it being an infrastructure fault.

[TaplowGreen]

I've just spent 45 fruitless minutes at Taplow station with trains being promised & then changing from delayed to cancelled.

The usually excellent TfL^» (Transport for London - about) staff seemed to have learned the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) magical staff service disruption disappearing trick but then one appeared to tell us that there were no trains booked to call for the foreseeable as the OHL^▸ (Over-Head Line) problem has reoccurred...hopefully he's mistaken?

[ChrisB]

Texr alert at 0752 to say it has….how mamny lines involved though?

[TaplowGreen]

Cancellations to services between London Paddington and Reading

Due to damage to the overhead electric wires between London Paddington and Reading some lines towards Reading are blocked.

Train services running to and from these stations may be cancelled, delayed or revised.

 D
isruption expected until 12:00

[grahame]

I've just spent 45 fruitless minutes at Taplow station with trains being promised & then changing from delayed to cancelled.

The usually excellent TfL^» (Transport for London - about) staff seemed to have learned the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) magical staff service disruption disappearing trick but then one appeared to tell us that there were no trains booked to call for the foreseeable as the OHL^▸ (Over-Head Line) problem has reoccurred...hopefully he's mistaken?

Let's hope he IS mistaken.  [STOP PRESS - oops - looks like he might be correct!]

Network Rail have spoken with ITV ...

https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2022-09-20/network-rail-speak-out-after-travel-misery-on-day-of-the-queens-funeral

Long article

Effect on passengers

Some passengers missed the memorial service to Her Late Majesty altogether whilst others were forced to reflect on platforms by watching the procession on their phones, having been stuck miles away from events in the capital.

Operationally:

"It really couldn't have happened at a worse time or in the worst location" says Toby Elliott, Network Rail's communication manager on the Wessex route.

[snip]

Toby Elliott added, "Due to the absolute scale of the devastation that took place on the rail network to the actual structure, we couldn't get train services running again yesterday as soon as the incident happened.

[snip]

Once the damage has been repaired Network Rail says it will carry out a full in-depth investigation to establish the cause.

[JayMac]

New OLE^▸ (Overhead Line Equipment, more often "OHLE") incident occured around 0615 this morning in the Old Oak Common area. Another case seemingly of a train damaging the OLE, or maybe vice versa. 1W11 0550 Paddington to Gt Malvern had an ADD^▸ (Automatic Dropping Device) activation (Automatic Dropping Device) and had pantograph damage. Presuambly the pantograph was stowed and traction switched to diesel, as the service continued to Worcester where it was terminated due to late running. Network Rail informed GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) that the pantograph may be damaged so the return working, 1P22, is being terminated at Oxford.

Only the down main is affected at OOC^▸ (Old Oak Common (depot)) but there are periodic temporary closures of all running lines to allow access to the affected OLE.