Euston fiasco today

[Tetchytyke]

Apparently significant signalling problems at Bushey have caused the job to stop for hours this afternoon. Things are running again but still seriously delayed.

Does anyone know what the problem was? Right now all I can see is network rail incompetence, given that this area is just what they've spent weeks and weeks "upgrading". I'm assuming not a theft as they kept saying it was about to start working again, before failing.

 

[infobleep]

Interestingly in the National Rail Enquiries disruption page they don't state Tring services from and to Euston are all cancelled. When South West Trains have services cancelled they are very good at explaining which ones.

When I use to work in Harrow it wasn't uncommon for the cancelling of Tring services to get ignored in such disruption information. Sometimes they got mentioned but very hit and miss.

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service_disruptions/82636.aspx

 

[The Planner]

Complete loss of signalling from Euston to Bushey on all lines. Bushey is the fringe on the Watford job so not necessarily anything to do with that.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Getting information about which trains will stop at Apsley and Kings Langley is always a nightmare in disruption. They forget about those two stations, and Cheddington, and its frustrating when stop orders aren't put in place for the trains that do run. We saw that on Sunday when there was a two hour gap in trains because of problems further north.

The Twitter feed is often the only way to get any info, even when you're on the concourse at Euston.

I'm glad I gave up quickly and came back via Amersham and a lift, but seriously not impressed!

 

[WatcherZero]

My mother was caught up in it, to reach Wigan she was diverted onto the MML on a Sheffield service, NR was advising that WCML tickets would be honored on the MML and the ECML.

 

[dcsprior]

Does anyone know what the problem was? Right now all I can see is network rail incompetence, given that this area is just what they've spent weeks and weeks "upgrading".

I know the sweet-FA about railway technology, but when it comes to kit in other areas, it's common to see a high level of faults on newly-commisioned equipment - the phrase 'bathtub curve' is used to describe high failure rates of new and old kit, with a generally reliable period inbetween.

 

[GadgetMan]

this area is just what they've spent weeks and weeks "upgrading".

The work isn't finished. The new signals haven't been commissioned yet and both Watford North and South require more work.

Network Rail didn't get the block they wanted so work is now being done in dribs and drabs.

No idea what the cause of todays delays was.

 

[The Planner]

5800 delay minutes attributed to this by this morning. Looks like a UPS failed.

 

[PaxVobiscum]

Looks like a UPS failed.

Then that design should be publicly dishonoured and stripped of its title in a ceremony in the presence of rail commuters as it evidently is wishfully rather than accurately named.

 

[talltim]

We have more UPS failures than power failures at my place. They normally take longer to fix than waiting for the power to come back on too.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Looks like a UPS failed.

UPS?

I'm no techie, what's one of those?

It's still causing problems this morning. Hilariously I see that London Midland short-formed the 0739 Bletchley to Euston, four carriages vice the usual twelve.

 

[Feathers44]

UPS?

I'm no techie, what's one of those?

Rather ironically, it's an Uninterruptible Power Supply

 

[WatcherZero]

Essentially either a large battery or diesel generator that will kick in either immediately or within seconds of mains electricity supply being lost and provide a few hours of backup of power.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Then that design should be publicly dishonoured and stripped of its title in a ceremony in the presence of rail commuters as it evidently is wishfully rather than accurately named.

Remember the WCML upgrade was done on the cheap - it only cost £8bn.:cry:

 

[WatcherZero]

Indeed, work was descoped to remain within target budget rather than the budget increased to achieve the original outputs.

 

[infobleep]

Well it doesn't matter. NR will pay compensation to the TOCs for the delays and then things can return to normal until something else happens.

 

[carriageline]

Signalling went down at half 2, the UPS had already failed and was being looked at when the crash happened. The TD system didn't come back up (train descriptions were all over the place ) and trains were being described with post it notes, then the system went down again about 15:30


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[oversteer]

Highlight of the evening for me was the 1813 which spent about 5 minutes being switched between platforms 8 and 11 with an ever changing list of station calls