Thames Valley infrastructure problems causing disruption elsewhere - 2023

[whole diary]

[grahame]

It's a bit of a shame, but the number of industry insiders posting on here has dwindled away over the years ...

Personal message sent, and I am noting this in a moderator's thread.  Your inputs and others from the industry ARE hugely appreciated and perhaps that's not said enough ... and we do still have a substantive number of none-member reads of public posts. I suspect you're read a lot more than you think but, yes, this all takes time.

[GBM]

It's a bit of a shame, but the number of industry insiders posting on here has dwindled away over the years.  Several reasons for that, but there seems to be only really 'Electric Train' and myself left now, plus the odd post from 'a-driver'.  After over 15 years of posting on here, my own enthusiasm for answering questions is dwinding, especially when I consider how many people are likely to read it against the time involved in researching the detail and writing a reply.

As a non railway person, I have always appreciated the more technical replies from 'the workers'!
Thank you so much to all the "insiders" for their time and effort - greatly appreciated.

[GBM]

As a non railway person, I have always appreciated the more technical replies from 'the workers'!
Thank you so much to all the "insiders" for their time and effort - greatly appreciated.

Not forgetting the occasional post from Ollie who changed hats within GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)/FGW^▸ (First Great Western).

[Mark A]

Paul Clifton via Twitter: he's prepared something on the broken rails issue for TV tonight, presumably on the local news.

Mark

[IndustryInsider]

Not forgetting the occasional post from Ollie who changed hats within GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)/FGW^▸ (First Great Western).

Yes, it’s a shame we don’t hear much from Ollie these days.  SandTengineer, Incider and several others appear to have been lost for good.

[TaplowGreen]

Not forgetting the occasional post from Ollie who changed hats within GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)/FGW^▸ (First Great Western).

Yes, it’s a shame we don’t hear much from Ollie these days.  SandTengineer, Incider and several others appear to have been lost for good.

Always appreciate your own objective input II.

[Electric train]

Bad news for tomorrow morning:

Disruption to Great Western Railway services between Reading and London Paddington expected until 10:00 on Monday 27 November

Urgent repairs to the track between Reading and London Paddington means some lines will be blocked. As a result of this, trains may be cancelled or delayed.

Disruption is expected until 10:00 on Monday 27 November.

Customer Advice:

A Track Circuit Failure means some lines between Reading and London Paddington will be blocked on Monday 27 November.

Ticket acceptance is in place with the following train operators:

Chiltern Railways from Oxford to London Marylebone. 

London Underground from London Marylebone and London Waterloo to London Paddington.

South Western Railway from Reading to London Waterloo.

Also, this photo. That presumably given the opportunity might be capable of causing a track circuit failure.

Mark

https://twitter.com/littl_eengine/status/1728793727118807397

The GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) no longer uses track circuits on plain line, track circuits have been replaced with axel counters.

The argument / risk assessment is the removal of rail joints such as IBJ^▸ (Insulated Block Joint) (insulated block joints) in CWR^▸ (Continuously Welded Rail) reduces greatly the likelihood of rail fractures that track circuits might have detected; reliance on regular runs of the NMT ('new' measurement train, sometimes referred to as the flying banana) and other track recording trains. 
There is a lot of real-time data processing and the information is sent direct to the track maintenance engineer (TME^▸ (Track Maintenance Engineer)) team for the section, they will then prioritise the teams to respond.  The defects are coded which dictate the priority of access the TME responds to and NR^» (Network Rail - home page) Route Control has to provide.
The response maybe an requesting the signaller to slow trains by signals until an ESR^▸ (Emergency Speed Restriction ) (emergency speed restriction) can be setup, until a team and equipment can be deployed.

Access to track by teams is now greatly reduced by the "Trackworker Safety Scheme" this has removed the use of "lookouts" certainly at full line speed, line blocks are now required to access and even  in most places walk across open lines, this process was imposed on NR by the ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) due to the number of fatalities of track workers and number of reported near misses by train drivers

[IndustryInsider]

Access to track by teams is now greatly reduced by the "Trackworker Safety Scheme" this has removed the use of "lookouts" certainly at full line speed, line blocks are now required to access and even  in most places walk across open lines, this process was imposed on NR^» (Network Rail - home page) by the ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) due to the number of fatalities of track workers and number of reported near misses by train drivers

A change just about to be enforced means if a mobile phone is dropped onto the track, instead of a PTS^▸ (Personal Track Safety) member of staff being able to retrieve it with litter pickers (whilst remaining on the platform), they will have to obtain a full line block first.

[ChrisB]

That really needs advertising to the public, with reasons for the change by ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about).

Basically, you can wave goodbye to your phone, as the earliest it might be retrieved is overnight, and then you would need to prove ownership in order to collect it. Do you know your phone's EMEI number?

[IndustryInsider]

I expect you won’t wave goodbye to it, it will just take longer to retrieve whilst a line block is put in place - which might persuade some owners to leap down and get their precious item themselves (as they do now at any unstaffed station of course).

[TaplowGreen]

Wow! Really doing it in style today! 



Alterations to services between London Paddington and Reading
Due to a broken rail between London Paddington and Reading some lines are closed.
Train services running to and from these stations will be delayed or revised. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.

Customer Advice
-
An inspection of the lines in the Hayes & Harlington area has revealed a defect in a rail of a set of points used to transfer trains from one track to another.
-
As a result we will have to reduce the number of train movements through the area. This will mean that local train services between London Paddington and Newbury will only operate between Reading and Newbury, in both directions. Customers travelling to / from Newbury, Thatcham & Theale from / to London Paddington will need (in most cases) to change trains at Reading.
-
In addition, local train services which would normally operate between London Paddington and Didcot Parkway, and return, will only operate between Reading and Didcot Parkway. Customers travelling to / from Didcot Parkway## / Cholsey / Goring & Streatley / Pangbourne / Tilehurst from / to London Paddington (and intermediate stations between London Paddington and Reading) will need to change trains at Reading. # = Didcot Parkway will continue to have Main Line services running to / from London Paddington.
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Twyford, Maidenhead and Slough stations will see a considerable reduction in the frequency of train services and GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) ticket holders should utilise Elizabeth Line services instead where no GWR services are available. Note that at London Paddington the Elizabeth Line services operate to and from platforms A & B which are accessed through the entrances alongside platform 1 of the main terminus.
-
Please accept our apologies for any delay to your journey as a result of this issue.
-

[grahame]

Wow! Really doing it in style today! 

Indeed - "here we go ... again". A subject that was greatly covered at yesterday evening's Stakeholder meeting (see separate thread).   There IS a contingency plan in place but "it should only be used very rarely and not several times a week" say GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway).

Graphics they presented show that the majority of reliability issues are down to Network Rail (but, really, what difference does it make to Joe Bloggs if his train is not running - rolling stock cracked, broken rail, no driver if he can't make his journey).  For Henley Branch passengers, Mark Hopwood agreed in public that passengers for London may double back via Reading at times of disruption (an easement of type MD - thank you Mark). 

Apperently, Network Rail are on a poor performance escalator from the ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) and must to better, or there will be further sanctions on them.  I do not understand (perhaps a specialist could?) how these sanctions will actually improve the situation rather than just make it harder to get the job done.

[Birdie100]

To be fair this morning the effect was limited. Instead of getting the 6.26am from Twyford I got the Elizabeth line at 6.21am and got to town by 7.20am. The proactive cancellation of the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) trains I suppose has improved reliability for the Lizzie line?

[Witham Bobby]

It's been fortunate that the broken rails that have caused so much disruption on the Paddington services of late have been detected and acted upon.  Safety should not depend on good fortune, however

[Henry]

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