Thames Valley infrastructure problems causing disruption elsewhere - 2022

[whole diary]

[Electric train]

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.

The damage may be related to the Monday OLE damage.  If the Monday damage was caused by a train or even if the initial incident was an OLE / track defect a train Pan could have been damaged in the initial incident which then caused the damage of today's incident.

There are a lot of dynamics involved between the track, train and OLE.  The track being out of its correct alinement or the Cant being out, the suspension of the train being incorrect, Pan head out of tolerance, the OLE hight and stager incorrect or a combination of any of these.

If you think of the hight between the track and the contact wire, somewhere around 6.5 meters a few tens of mm's out of tolerance of the track in relation to the contact wire this small distance at track level is multiplied at Pan

[stuving]

Here's something I said two years ago, about one of these failures due to train/OLE^▸ (Overhead Line Equipment, more often "OHLE") interaction in France:

SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) are saying (though this is subject to detailed investigation) that a catenary fault at Orthez damaged a pantograph, which in turn went on to damage 60 km of catenary (mainly at track switches). For that, it must have still been collecting current OK. After stopping at Morcenx, the train did restart and got 50 km further to Ychoux, before its complete failure. Apparently, two following trains also suffered some of this mutual damage effect. 

However, that train didn't go through Orthez, so there was more work to do then tracing the chain of events back. That was 1500V DC^▸ (Direct Current) OLE, which is chunkier, but still relies on the top of the pan sliding smoothly along the contact wire at all times.

[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

Now pushed out to 1500

[TonyK]

Thankfully, all was back to a semblance of normal by 1704, when I caught the Penzance train to TVP. Even the WiFi worked sporadically.

[nickswift99]

Seeing reports of wires down at Hanwell.

Good luck to anyone trying to get home this evening in what has been a miserable week.

[charles_uk]

As just mentioned but a bit more from JourneyCheck

Delays to services between London Paddington and Slough

Due to damage to the overhead electric wires between London Paddington and Slough all lines are blocked.

Train services running to and from these stations may be delayed. Disruption is expected until 18:00 23/09.

Additional Information
Overhead Wires
Electric trains get their power from electrical rails on the ground or overhead wires. The power supply to both of these can fail due to a number of factors.

Not much seems to be moving out at Paddington at the moment

[Trowres]

2P60 from Didcot appears to have reached Southall on up relief and been cancelled thereafter. Now (1753) running ECS^▸ (Empty Coaching Stock) "wrong line" (though a signalled move) to be dumped in P5 at Hayes & Harlington.

Not sure if this is the epicentre of the incident. Traffic seems to be moving on the main lines.

[Electric train]

Whether it was infrastructure or train caused the initial damage on Monday, the damaged pantograph involved looks like has cause damage elsewhere

[JayMac]

9P57 1631 Heathrow T5 - Paddington (Class 345 Liz Line service) had an ADD^▸ (Automatic Dropping Device) activation near Hanwell Station on the up relief. Driver reported OLE^▸ (Overhead Line Equipment, more often "OHLE") damage. Initially all lines were blocked after the OLE in the area tripped.

Up and down main reopened fairly quickly. Bit there is already significant disruption with delays and short notice cancellations due to having only the main lines available for the evening peak.

EDIT: Down relief reopened too.

[JayMac]

Whether it was infrastructure or train caused the initial damage on Monday, the damaged pantograph involved looks like has cause damage elsewhere

Have all three incidents occured on the up relief? Or is there a suggestion that one errant set has been out and about damaging OLE^▸ (Overhead Line Equipment, more often "OHLE") wherever it goes, but continuing in service because it's not been identified as the culprit?

[stuving]

Whether it was infrastructure or train caused the initial damage on Monday, the damaged pantograph involved looks like has cause damage elsewhere

Have all three incidents occured on the up relief? Or is there a suggestion that one errant set has been out and about damaging OLE^▸ (Overhead Line Equipment, more often "OHLE") wherever it goes, but continuing in service because it's not been identified as the culprit?

I imagine it's easy to say that might be true, but very hard to prove it and even harder to disprove it. There may well be a load of people in NR^» (Network Rail - home page) Towers staring at screens as hour after hour of pantograph monitor videos run through, mind-numbingly, trying to spot the earliest instance of pan damaging wire or vice versa.

[JayMac]

Monday's and today's incidents involved Class 345s. I wonder if that's just coincidence...

[TaplowGreen]

Depressingly,  but predictably......disruption until the end of the day.

Cancellations to services between London Paddington and Reading

Due to damage to the overhead electric wires between London Paddington and Reading some lines towards London Paddington are blocked.
Train services running to and from these stations may be cancelled, delayed by up to 90 minutes or revised.

Disruption is expected until the end of the day.

[Electric train]

Whether it was infrastructure or train caused the initial damage on Monday, the damaged pantograph involved looks like has cause damage elsewhere

Have all three incidents occured on the up relief? Or is there a suggestion that one errant set has been out and about damaging OLE^▸ (Overhead Line Equipment, more often "OHLE") wherever it goes, but continuing in service because it's not been identified as the culprit?

I don't know if all were on the same line.  Although I am not a contact systems engineer (I'm a power distribution engineer) I've been around the knitting long enough to understand a few of the problems encountered after an OLE head span de-wirement.   It is not unknown for there to be issues for several days in an area after the type of incident on Monday, a headspan can sometimes fail on a different road to the original in a different location because of forces applied to the wire by a damaged pan can find a weakness.

Headspan construction allowed British Rail to cost effectively electrify the WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line) north of Weaver Jcn to Scotland, the ECML^▸ (East Coast Main Line), BedPan, etc.  Pre privatisation BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) had the manpower, equipment and track access to maintain headspan

Its posible there is a rouge 345 that has a suspension or Pan problem, another could be something as daft as a software update on the 345 that has altered the suspension characteristics.

There will be senior NR^» (Network Rail - home page) Region and TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) engineers looking at all the posible causes ................... mean time the finance and contracts folks will be claiming and counter claiming

[onthecushions]

  Pre privatisation BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) had the manpower, equipment and track access to maintain headspan

I think that this may be the core of the problem. I remember reading an article by an OLE^▸ (Overhead Line Equipment, more often "OHLE") maintenance engineer about trying to maintain a main line OLE with a privatised Infrastructure Maintenance Unit, now stripped of its skilled staff, and the consequent frequent avoidable failures.

That's probably why our latest OLE designs are designed for low maintenance.

Headspans could work reasonably if in good hands.

OTC