Cable / copper / metal theft - ongoing problems on the railways and elsewhere

[whole diary]

[paul7575]

The signalling on the East London Line, and currently being installed in the Thameslink core (Blackfriars to St Pancras inclusive) includes the new feature of Proceed on Sight Authorisation (POSA) aspects.  This uses a pair of flashing whites below the main signal (same hardware as calling on lights) to allow drivers to proceed when there are problems with train detection only - but not when there are problems with points detection. 

TBH^▸ (to be honest) I can't see that POSA aspects would have helped in the recent problems. If someone damages signalling and/or power cables you lose control of the POSA aspects as well.

Certainly - I was simply pointing out that there is a solution for loss of train detection only - resulting in red signals - one of the reasons for a scenarios dviner had just mentioned.

Paul

[broadgage]

Unconfirmed reports suggest that this incident was NOT caused by the theft or attempted theft of cables as was initialy suggested.
I heard that it was due to the failure of a cable in a substation near Farnborough.
It was a return traction current cable, the failure of which led to excessive voltages between true earth and the nominaly earthed running rails, which caused widespread signalling problems.

I am not able to give a source for this.
Can anyone confirm or deny ?

P.S. if true, it shows the unwisdom of touching ANY rail on an electric railway. I suspect that running rails would have been at a dangerous voltage .

[IndustryInsider]

Maybe those regulations need looking at?

Otherwise you'll get people frying themselves.....

Was it not far worse back in day - not that long ago - when there were no locked doors preventing people from hopping down onto the tracks?

[ChrisB]

Yet no one did it - because communications to passengers wasa better & there were very very few 3+ hour delays. Health & Safety rules were minimal (comparted to today) too....

[Electric train]

Unconfirmed reports suggest that this incident was NOT caused by the theft or attempted theft of cables as was initialy suggested.
I heard that it was due to the failure of a cable in a substation near Farnborough.
It was a return traction current cable, the failure of which led to excessive voltages between true earth and the nominaly earthed running rails, which caused widespread signalling problems.

I am not able to give a source for this.
Can anyone confirm or deny ?

P.S. if true, it shows the unwisdom of touching ANY rail on an electric railway. I suspect that running rails would have been at a dangerous voltage .

I can assure that the information given to you is not wholly correct.  It was not a cable failure as such it was an attempted theft one of the cables attacked was a high voltage cable.  The damage caused a wide spread high voltage system failure, signaling power supplies are derived from the high voltage traction system.  This incident still subject to a Police investigation therefore only limited details.

[broadgage]

Thanks for the correction, it was an unsubstantiated report from someone working on the repairs, though perhaps not a technical person.

[Not from Brighton]

How much effort goes into making these systems resilient to these sorts of failures? They do seem to be quite vulnerable to the actions of a few individuals. There was a case in the west midlands a few years ago where somebody with a grudge and a bit of knowledge was able to inflict numerous crippling delays over a long campaign of sabotage and there was little the railway could do about it. Would it be very expensive to have backups, redundancy etc? Who would pay?

[Electric train]

How much effort goes into making these systems resilient to these sorts of failures? They do seem to be quite vulnerable to the actions of a few individuals. There was a case in the west midlands a few years ago where somebody with a grudge and a bit of knowledge was able to inflict numerous crippling delays over a long campaign of sabotage and there was little the railway could do about it. Would it be very expensive to have backups, redundancy etc? Who would pay?

There is redundancy built in, electrification works on a N - 1 that is we can lose one piece of equipment of supply without having an impact on normal operation, although one of the items attacked here is not N - 1 as it is over 50 years old and when installed the failure of it was view differently, this type of equipment is high on the list to be renewed to an N - 1 but does take time and money

A lot of effort goes into protecting modern equipment and systems by overt and covert methods, it is very difficult to protect a network as large as the railway system from deliberate attack

[Electric train]

Revisiting this thread as the case has come to Court.  Three men had broken into the remote track-side substation between Penge West and Sydenham to steal the copper strips at 5.30 one morning last December, but in the raid one of the three a 28 year old male was electrocuted and one was seriously burned; the 2 surviving men have admitted burglary and a charge of criminal damage, recklessly endangering life. 1 has also pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice.http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23972252-railway-cable-thieves-fled-as-accomplice-was-electrocuted.do

Hopefully they will get a long sentence and BTP^▸ (British Transport Police) make the most of this case to publicise the dangers of stealing copper from electrical substations

[tramway]

Do you only qualify for a 'Darwin' if you don't already have progeny?

I suspect that idiot already has several who will carry the 'metal theft' gene. 

[broadgage]

Very little sympathy for the victim or those that witnessed his death.

I also have no sympathy for the thief, got what he deserved.
As for those that witnessed it, if they were also engaged in the theft, then I have no sympathy for them either.

I would however have sympathy for any inocent persons who saw it, and for those clearing up.

[RichardB]

Self explanatory......I've already signed.


Morning All,

If you could find time to sign this petition it could help reduce the thousands of delay minutes a year, caused by people stealing our cable and putting signalling systems out of order. (most recently 518 delay minutes were caused and 8 trains cancelled by one theft on Monday).

To sign just follow this link  http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/406

Please feel free to pass it on.

Thanks for your help

Mike

Mike Franklin
Community Rail Executive
Network Rail.

[ChrisB]

signed - makes sense

[anthony215]

Signed this after hearing about it on WNXX^▸ (Stored Unserviceable, Mainline Locos HQ All Classes).

This is actually a good idea

[Electric train]

Signed it too, having dealt with an incident where a thief electrocuted himself and having to resolve almost on a daily bases the problems caused by metal thieves, I just hope the Cameroons have the nerve to pass the legislation