Disruption in the London Waterloo area this morning.

[Monty]

Due to an earlier signalling fault in the London Waterloo area which has required the Reading/Windsor side to be blocked for a period of time there are delays of up to 20 minutes caused by congestion. The problem has been now rectified and all lines are now open, but disruption is to be expected to continue until 0900.

 

[pinguini]

Coming from somebody working outside the railway industry - when delays are blamed on 'signalling problems', how often is it actually a problem with the signals?

 

[Monty]

Coming from somebody working outside the railway industry - when delays are blamed on 'signalling problems', how often is it actually a problem with the signals?

The messages I had been getting seem to indicate a problem with the lineside telecommunications equipment. Not the signals per say, but an equally vital component of the signalling system that needs to be working properly.

And to answer your question, the term 'signal failure' can have a pretty broad meaning. It could mean anything from an actual failure of a signal, points failure, level crossing failure, track circuit failure or even a failure with in one of the signalling panel boxes the list can be endless.

 

[swt_passenger]

Coming from somebody working outside the railway industry - when delays are blamed on 'signalling problems', how often is it actually a problem with the signals?

I reckon you can safely treat 'signalling' as a shorthand word for everything maintained by what is known as the S&T department. So as well as physical line-side signals there's the controlling signalling systems, operational telecommunication systems, data feeds between signalling centres, train detection, points detection, route interlocking, and not least all the associated power supplies etc.

I've read that problems with the actual coloured lights are pretty unusual...

 

[TW7]

The delays were caused by a partial failure of the TEML41 system which is responsible for the indication and control systems for the signalling between Waterloo & Vauxhall.

If you are interested, this website has a good bit of info regarding it!

http://www.signalbox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3273