Pretty bad day for anyone needing to (rather than choosing to) travel

Graphic on front page currently has
Cancelled 225
Part route 97

Rare to be over 300

 
Stayed in many Travelodge hotels over the years,so these are my comments.

I think televisions MIGHT be on a timer(not sure if they are and how long it is)so the telly switches its self off after a certain time that it has been on.

Plastic water cups,glad they don't have these any more or even glass tumblers,we can use the china cups to have a drink.

Always put the kettle on the floor to have a hot drink which reduces the noise  level during the early hours of the morning.
Always take our own coffee,and what benefit do guests  get from taking the milk tumblers and also the sleeves of coffee and tea?

When hotels are being built and fitted out,13 amp plug sockets should be fitted to an outside wall,which reduces the "smack" from those 13 amp plugs next door.
Don't like carpets in the rooms,it can stink of literally any thing

If you are staying for a long time,how often should you have the sheets changed? how often do you change your sheets at home.

Do you change your towels at home every day

Rubbish bins,always take our rubbish into the reception area for disposal.

What I don't like is they allows dogs in any of their hotels.

Smoking can be an issue

Finally, toothpaste we always remember to take our tooth brush but forget the paste.,
just wish they would supply those small toothpaste tubes,but without those small temporary tooth brushes 

 

If you look at the timeline the Signaller would not have had sufficient time to do anything once 1H46 was in the auto signal area, even if the Signaller had picked up a handset to call 1H46 the crash would have happened; the Signaller see a track circuit block showing occupied a train can be anywhere in that block so they do not know exactly where a train is.  I do not know if there is ARS (automatic route setting) in the Bedford area, I'm not a signalling engineer, but once the path has been accepted by the Signaller the Signaller moves onto another signalling task, they may even have been talking to the driver of 1B67 about the AWS fault

RIAB may ask why 1H46 was crossed over onto the UP Main behind a failed 1B67, but in normal circumstance that is a performance issue and not a safety of trains issue.

 
...and unsurprisingly "This journey has been cancelled because of more trains than usual needing repairs at the same time".

 

Here to help is the map from my journey planner.  From Catanzano to Sibari we did a clockwise semicircle crossing from south to north coast and then back, rather than following the bulge via Crotone in a counterclockwise loop.   These maps suffer from crow-flying syndrome - direct lines shown between calling points even when the actual route is far from direct.

 
The 05:11 Gloucester - Southampton Central is 'delayed', or over 35 mins late if it sets off as I'm writing this.

 

The train did get somewhat busier and dragged into Brindisi around 45 minutes late.  A bit like a Cross Country or Cardiff - Portsmouth train, with end to end traffic (and I got off one stop short of Lecce) rare. 

I had warned my guest house I would be about an hour late, and had also allowed 30 minutes to find the place from the station but it only took 15.   Result in my standing outside pressing a call button that went to a phone and it did not answer.   There's a whole non-rail story in that.

Many, many places along the way - all the way from Melksham to Brindisi - worth further exploration. I wake up this morning of the first time single leading home knowing I am staying inn the same place for a second night - that I am not packing my bags and moving on by 11 (or 10) a.m.

 

From past reading an understanding, there is a cutoff and different system for trains cancelled/changed well in advance (48 hours?) and those which change shortly before they were due to run.  We've seen what I believe to be the effect of this on things like the closed-for-too-long Looe line where the first days made it to Journey Check and the feed we use for our disruption map, but then it became planned-further-ahead and did not flag in the short term changes.

Having a cutoff makes sense in that it avoids flooding the system at times of planned engineering works

I suspect that for this week, many changes were put into the system at or near the cutoff.

 
Thanks for that detailed and illustrated local update, Mark. 

 
The road reopened by 8pm and buses back to 'Normal for Bath'. An electrical fault beneath the pavement outside Bath's Guildhall had dumped enough energy to lift paving stones. Staff were awaiting the arrival of a technician to assist with a fix - there being eight cables beneath the pavement there. The fault might be a product of Monday afternoon's unbelievable weather event.

Mark

 
I'd thought that too. I would hope the final report will make clear that the 810's driver acted totally correctly.

On a separate point, the RAIB appear careful to say that the train passed a red signal, rather more neutral wording than referring to the driver passing it.  Not just semantics; the latter could be interpreted as assigning blame already when that is far from certain.

 
When were those thunderstorms?

 

I don't know if they get an alarm in the signalling centre, but I've been in an area where another train passed a signal at danger and the signallers sent me an emergency stop message. I suspect the RAIB will look at the workload of the signallers covering Bedford. 

 

The SPAD should have been noted by the signalling system (and thence, the signaller). Is there a standard protocol to be followed by the signaller in such a case?

 
Ahh, all explained why it is not raining at all in Somerset..

 
Its a good thing that this is fallow year for Glastonbury

 

When I was still at work I had a number of visits to the West Ealing / Greenford trial, the GWR team were confident that the system could handle any of the TV branches, the Maidenhead / Marlow would only require the charge at Maidenhead, the unit on the Borne End / Marlow peak shuttles would not require charging.


Agreed a new train set, greener and quitter would be a good marketing, especially if the half hourly Maidenhead / Marlow through service was introduced at the same time.

 
Reading the RAIB report, seems they have the video, as it on a separate recorder to the data.

 

That is one slice of the Swiss cheese a-driver mentioned.

The RAIB interim report states they were unable to access the OTDR of 1H46 until it had been lifted, the OTDR should have the information of the AWS and video images from the forward facing camera

 
It still wouldn't have had any effect if it hadn't come to a stop (which is being investigated)

 
I'm surprised that little mention has been made that 1B67 was almost 20 late at the time, apologies if I've missed it, that in my view has to have some contribution to the incident.

 
Excellent: and market the service as the 'Electric donkey'. The sparks effect will have passenger numbers growing strongly, and people will be like 'Hi, Sparkydonks, how're you doing? Compared to the old train you're as regular as a quartz clock.'

Mark

 

AWS could have contributed but ultimately its down to the driver to observe the signals and for some reason, he wasn't able to.  RAIB will find out why.  There's so many things that could have contributed,  it could be a classic case of the Swiss Cheese Effect, everything lined up to conspire against Sean.

I really feel for the driver of the 810 though. They're always going to be left wondering if they could have done something differently.  That's a hard thought to shift.  

 
After an abrupt structural issue with the High Street outside the Guildhall, the roads have been closed - buses are unable to serve the Orange Grove and Abbey stops.

Mark

https://www.bathecho.co.uk/news/es/cordon-city-centre-minor-explosion-underground-118420/

 
TPWS is only fitted to about 42% of all signals, I understand & is being quoted by various S&T folk on X. To fit TPWS on all the others will cost £billions? It isn't fitted on signals 152 & 154 as they are automatic.

I'd like to understand where on the track (how far back from impact site) 9 seconds is at 49mph - 215 yards? Now is 215 yards before, at or after the red signal? In other words, was seeing the red signal the signal to the driver to apply the brakes or seeing the rear of the 810 more likely the trigger? Waiting for RAIB of course

 
This branch would be great for a class 398 if they can sort some wiring for the line and im sure a 398 will fit in both platforms at Bourne end

 

I think it is just sadly ironic that the express stopped on the fast lines due to an AWS failure. After all, it was just doing its job and failing safe - for the express.

 
Yesterday morning saw the first class 398 tram-train enter service on the 0655 Pontypridd to Cardiff Bay service.  389028 did the honours. Plan is now teh 398 will start the 0655 from.Pontypridd and work the diagram until 1300 then go's to depot and is replaced by a class 150 which sits in the bay at Pontypridd.

Had my.go this morning  found air con works better at either end of the unit not so great in the middle.
Acceleration is very good and door cycles is better than the 756s. Passengers like them especially the disabled and those with pushchairs. 

 
Yes, the whole sequence of events was apparently started by a fault on AWS on the 810, if the 810 hadn't stopped on the fast line then it would have been long gone and crash wouldn't have happened.   So potentially AWS contributed

But it's for RAIB to determine risks and recommend anything that might need to change.

 

Tied myself in knots trying to follow your route on maps. Not to worry, the satellite view does you're traversing an area with a lot of reconstruction at that point. Catanzano in particular is most tortuous as it seems to be a town where generations of rail (and road) engineers have left their marks.

Mark