Weather related disruption - Christmas 2013 and New Year 2014

[Segedunum]

It looks like the 1505 arrival from Liverpool will form it as that is the previous service that arrives on platform 15.

 

[hwl]

With these 2 big storms in the last few weeks (and NR claiming this one is worse than St Jude) it should show if NR's extensive tree clearance experiments are worthwhile relatively quickly and if so taking the decision to extend the clearance programme to all routes.

 

[Kristofferson]

Does anyone know where/what the issues are on the Southeastern mainline services? Their Twitter/website doesn't provide any info apart from "no trains running currently". :roll:

 

[ModernRailways]

Just saw this on the BBC - it's also got a video.

UK storm: Train passenger describes hitting a tree

20 minutes ago

Many travellers have had their travel plans disrupted for a second day after storms hit the south of the UK on Monday night.

Rail passengers spent the night on a train in Somerset after it hit a tree that had fallen onto the tracks.

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Does anyone know where/what the issues are on the Southeastern mainline services? Their Twitter/website doesn't provide any info apart from "no trains running currently". :roll:

There are Tonbridge to London Mainline services now. They've only just commenced in the past 20 minutes or so. The rest I imagine will just be fallen trees and localised flooding.

 

[thelem]

If this becomes much more common, will train companies and network rail need to adapt to cope with it or is it a case that our weather is just too extrem to be able to cope full stop, no matter how more frequent these events are?

I'd imagine common problems will be fixed if they are regularly causing delays, e.g. by improving drainage in spots prone to flooding and cutting back vegetation.

I'm not sure there's much Network Rail can do about trampolines on the line though, short of installing really tall fences everywhere, and places that only have problems in really extreme weather will still be uneconomical to improve.

 

[Kristofferson]

Thank you Mr Modern Railways... Gives me hope I won't have to take the car to Kent. At least if you're delayed on a train you're kept informed and get your money back.

 

[Optimo]

Depends who you ask I guess

@magicpatch 24/12/2013 11:42
are reservations being held or are trains being understandably declassified due to this lovely storm last night?

@Virgintrains 24/12/2013 11:48 @magicpatch Reservations are being honoured.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

Just thought folk might want to know that East Coast seem to be running up and down the land okay today - exceptionally lightly loaded but most arriving on time.

Oh yes, and blue skies and sunshine on Scotland too!

 

[edwin_m]

If they were anything like the amphibious pleasure crafts in London and Liverpool, then they'd probably go up in smoke, and there would be more delays!

Won't the fire go out when they fail to float?

 

[thelem]

(read from the last quote, it's twitter)

Victoria to Gatwick service is now starting up again, but will be slightly irregular until we can get back tot he pattern we had #UKStorm

Lines have reopened through East Croydon although West Croydon still remains without power #UKStorm

LINES AT EAST CROYDON NOW OPEN - however we're still unable to run Selhurst & Sutton #UKStorm

A train service to Gatwick from London is not possible for the foreseeable future. #UKStorm

I guess I should be grateful that Southern attempted to offer some forward guidance, but I would have assumed 'the foreseeable future' meant more than 7 minutes.

At least there are updates. I can't find anything about what is happening between Barnham and Southampton, or if it is likely to open today. It's frustrating when the operators list the routes that are operating, but make no mention of their other routes. Even a message saying 'no information at this time' would at least reassure you that you were looking in the right place.

When I checked my journey (Brighton - Bristol) earlier this morning National Rail Enquiries was showing it all running with relatively minor delays. Now it seems the rail companies can't get me west of Barnham or north of Haywards Heath. Are there any rail replacement buses out? I've not seen any mentioned.

Luckily I've managed to get myself a seat with National Express.

 

[bicbasher]

Southern are now putting Rail Replacement buses on between Victoria and Gatwick Airport.

The earlier cable fire at East Croydon has knocked Metro out after an earlier attempt of some services within London this morning.

 

[sarahj]

Looking forward to the big block on the Brighton Mainline from Tonight. The East Grinstead line was out last night, and the 'tents' they have put up at Three Bridges to shelterpassengers waiting for the buses was trying to fly away last night.
Fun night last night. My 23.17 Vic to Worthing seemed to be about one of the only trains running. It was busy, and what was it full off, Arsnal fans. Yes, on the day it said, we will get major issues, they came up to london to watch a football match.

About to go in, in the next few hours. Will be interesting to see what going to happen tonight.

 

[thelem]

Southern are now putting Rail Replacement buses on between Victoria and Gatwick Airport.

The earlier cable fire at East Croydon has knocked Metro out after an earlier attempt of some services within London this morning.

Twitter says they are running trains Victoria - Gatwick, and buses Three Bridges - Haywards Heath (presumably you walk from Gatwick - Three Bridges )

 

[Goatboy]

XC are turning everything round at Bristol and running a shuttle Exeter to Plymouth, rather than turning around at Taunton. How do you get between Bristol and Taunton for the replacement bus, are all FGW's London services diverted via Bristol?

Thinking ahead to the 27th, by which I doubt it'll be clear, when they say 'ticket restrictions' are lifted does that mean you can use one of the XC shuttles with an FGW Advance?

 

[tsr]

Twitter says they are running trains Victoria - Gatwick, and buses Three Bridges - Haywards Heath (presumably you walk from Gatwick - Three Bridges )

There are some trains running from Three Bridges to Redhill & vice versa, mostly calling at all stations except Horley (storm flooding/damage) and probably only calling at Earlswood Northbound (due to subway flooding).

 

[Hellfire]

My favourite tactic to get a seat from Euston is to use RTT to check the platform (it shows it as soon as the inbound service comes in) and therefore I can wait on the ramp and the second it is announced I am first on. No bun fighting required

.

I've found RTT not always correct. Last week showed my train as departing from platform 8 when in fact it went from 2

 

[Zoe]

are all FGW's London services diverted via Bristol?

The FGW website earlier said that the xx06 departures from Paddington and xx10 departures from Tiverton Parkway were running via Bristol but it seems that down trains at least can now run via the Berks and Hants with FGW showing the 1406 as calling at Pewsey and Castle Cary.

 

[plymothian]

The news has just had 'trapped' passengers berating TOCs for 'not preparing contingencies in advance as they obviously knew the forecast'.

 

[louis97]

I've found RTT not always correct. Last week showed my train as departing from platform 8 when in fact it went from 2

Did the platform number turn bold and the train say 'At Platform'. If not then thats not a confirmed platform, just the booked one. Its all down to when the new headcode is put into the train describers.

 

[dcd]

Seems as though the SWT Journey check website is not sure what is happening
see Salisbury to Southampton Central suggests there are no cancellations on the left but if you expand the right hand items you see all are cancelled.

 

[bicbasher]

Twitter says they are running trains Victoria - Gatwick, and buses Three Bridges - Haywards Heath (presumably you walk from Gatwick - Three Bridges )

Had a quick look at NRE's departure board for East Croydon. One service to East Grinstead, a delayed service to Three Bridges and a Metro stopper to Victoria.

 

[VauxhallandI]

Depends who you ask I guess

I tried to post earlier but it seemed to have failed.

We got down to Euston early, avoiding GA by cabing it to Tottenham Hale.

Spent forty mins in the lounge and got the 12:30 to GLC.

First class not declassified and reservations upheld.

The only problem and I have experienced this before is the loading of reservations.

We found two seats (I have seats booked on the 14:30) but the reservations didn't load until the doors were about to close.

If our seats had been taken we would not have had time to get off the train.

Why does this take so long?

 

[user15681]

SE reporting crowd control measures at St Pancras as it's very busy at the moment. Not surprised, most Mainline lines are suspended/part suspended.

 

[infobleep]

I went to Haywards Heath station earlier. Never seen so many people outside and instead the booking hall right up to the ticket gate line. This was around 12pm. On a normal commuter day this might be 1-3 train loads I guess. They had crash barriers outside. The station forecourt was empty however and nor was it closed off, like they do when rail replacement buses are running. 3 or 4 staff outside which was good to see.

About 30 miniutes later, after another train from Brighton had arrived, people still waiting. Staff said a bus to Three Bridges within 30 mins and then another 30 minutes on from that to get to Three Bridges.

National Rail Enquries online departure board were listing no trains running around this time but the departure board at Haywards Heath station had a 12.31 running to Gatwick and then terminating there. What this suggests is that the information that feeds the NRE live departure boards is not the same as that which feeds the station departure boards.

From a technical stand point I think it would make far better sense for them to have one system that feeds out to both. It would save staff hours and help passengers, which surely would also reduce costs, saving the railway companies money in the long term.

I've seen large companies under invest in their IT and only now that XP is due to be not supported by Microsoft that they waking up to the fact something needs to be done. To be fair some woke up to this a couple of years ago but being large organisations it takes much longer to sort out as they are so behind with the times.

I will put up some photos on here a bit later. As for the 12.31, it wasn't going north of Haywards Heath. A tannoy announcement confirmed this. Shortly after that the automated announcement kicked in telling passengers of its stopping pattern to Gatwick and the station cancelled beyond that. I made a video of the announcements. No mention of the Brighton service it then formed. Looks like someone entered the wrong info into the system, which goes back to modernising the information systems staff have to use. Yes you can't stop human error but you can at least help staff to do their job as efficiently as possible.

i will add that all of this is just based on what I saw today and not any experience of the systems staff use. Although I'm sure I read that the backend systems that the whole thing relies on nationally dates from the 1980s. Please correct me if I am wrong.

 

[GodAtum]

i still dont understand why rail replacement buses werent put on?

 

[CallySleeper]

I've found RTT not always correct. Last week showed my train as departing from platform 8 when in fact it went from 2

I was at Euston last Saturday at the platforms of two outbound 390s were switched very last minute, contrary to RTT. Sometimes it's worth being cautious when using RTT, especially at London Terminals.

Not surprised, most Mainline lines are suspended/part suspended.

Just to clarify this statement better, EMT MML services appear to be running well. FCC Thameslink are part suspended I believe. Can't speak for SE.

 

[Michael.Y]

The news has just had 'trapped' passengers berating TOCs for 'not preparing contingencies in advance as they obviously knew the forecast'.

These contingencies obviously being cutting down every single trackside tree in the country, many of which are on private land....

 

[infobleep]

I've just come across the following Tweet on Southern's Twitter account:
SouthernRailUK ‏@SouthernRailUK 2h
#BrightonMainLine has been closed again south of Balcombe Tunnel due to floodwater moving across the line #UKStorm
Expand

However I can't find any Tweet to say it was ever open. I will say this, around 11.40 I saw a train heading south from north of Haywards Heath. It was an FCC train. Had it gone north without or with passengers to see what the line was like?

There was a train showing in Real Train Times heading south from Three Bridges. However the time appears to be later than the time I was passing the bridge.

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/G40638/2013/12/24/advanced

 

[30907]

I'd imagine common problems will be fixed if they are regularly causing delays, e.g. by improving drainage in spots prone to flooding and cutting back vegetation.

Don't want to restart arguments about trees etc, but a couple of points that have not yet been made AFAIK.

(1) the increased rainfall and warmth of the last few years has resulted in substantial tree growth (my garden and the churchyard over the road are both surrounded by them, so I speak from experience). I would think this makes mature trees more vulnerable to being dislodged from ground that is wetter anyway. There's also been quite a few years since major storms caused the sort of wind damage we've seen this autumn, so they've had time to grow.

(2) NR's (and predecessors') tree clearance programme was IIRC primarily about removing vegetation to ease leaf-fall problems (a bit more predictable than storm damage).

(3) It has already been said that NR are not the only European operator to act pre-emptively in bad weather (the infrastructure authorities in NL, DE, DK and SE at least, on the last two occasions) - but I am fairly sure the trend started on the European mainland some years ago.

 

[user15681]

Just to clarify this statement better, EMT MML services appear to be running well. FCC Thameslink are part suspended I believe. Can't speak for SE.

When I said Mainline, I meant SE Mainline. They class their lines as Metro, Mainline or High Speed.