Lumo overspeed incident at Peterborough (17/04/2022)

[JonathanH]

Information on TrackIT suggests that the Lumo service had run approximately 2 and a half minutes behind an East Midlands Norwich service all the way from Stoke Junction so had presumably not been running on green aspects, noting the slower speed on a 158.

- - TrackIT!

Indeed, it had been one minute slower than 1L06 from New England North Junction. I'd imagine, if the signal berth distances were known, it would be relatively easy to measure the speed of approach.

 

[Efini92]

I was thinking along the lines of brought down to a red while the signaller was making their regulating decision with the signal then clearing into platform one.

Apologies I thought you meant flashing yellows.

 

[Darandio]

You don't need to work in the industry to make an educated guess.

If you follow the actual dictionary definition then you would certainly need to work in the industry to make that 'educated guess'!

 

[cambsy]

Bengley, i m making educated guess, that with trains running, pretty normally through Peterborough, during incident time and after, and that,im pretty sure, that a train flying through a junction of 25mph, at 80mph, would have been a startling sight, and meant total shut down of the area, so im educating that, while an incident of over speed happened, its not of the magnitude of what was first said, and been blown out of proportion, its still bad, and need investigating, but i think too easy to get persuaded by the hype from twitter.

 

[the sniper]

Would most/any Lumo Drivers have done this move before, over to P1/2 from the UF?

 

[HST43257]

Information on TrackIT suggests that the Lumo service had run approximately 2 and a half minutes behind an East Midlands Norwich service all the way from Stoke Junction so had presumably not been running on green aspects, noting the slower speed on a 158.

This leads me to believe that a much worse accident has been avoided, assuming that the Lumo would’ve been regulated in any case.

 

[bengley]

Bengley, i m making educated guess, that with trains running, pretty normally through Peterborough, during incident time and after, and that,im pretty sure, that a train flying through a junction of 25mph, at 80mph, would have been a startling sight, and meant total shut down of the area, so im educating that, while an incident of over speed happened, its not of the magnitude of what was first said, and been blown out of proportion, its still bad, and need investigating, but i think too easy to get persuaded by the hype from twitter.

Yes you are probably right, however a full shutdown of the area wouldn't be necessary - presumably a MOM would have been sent out to check the points and ensure a quick resumption of services

 

[185]

Four hours on, nothing on the Lumo website, acknowledging the incident occurred.

 

[Scotrail314209]

Four hours on, nothing on the Lumo website, acknowledging the incident occurred.

For such a new company to have a major incident like this, it won’t do much good for their rep.

 

[westcoaster]

For a junction overspeed, driver would report it to the signaller.
Signaller would ask for the speed at the time of the incident.
Signaller would arrange for the MOM to go and inspect the points (if another route is available they would use that).
Driver would await relieving, then follow company instructions.
Unit download (can it be done remotely on IET's).


Also would the ambassador/host onboard (drivers also iirc) take over to continue in service.

 

[Megafuss]

Four hours on, nothing on the Lumo website, acknowledging the incident occurred.

Its not the sort of thing you expect an operator to put on the website, other than subsequent service information. We don't see news stories by TOCS when a SPAD has occured (an equally serious issue) and then a train is cancelled.

 

[bramling]

Its not the sort of thing you expect an operator to put on the website, other than subsequent service information. We don't see news stories by TOCS when a SPAD has occured (an equally serious issue) and then a train is cancelled.

There possibly ought to be some kind of acknowledgement, given that people are claiming to have been injured.

 

[D6130]

Lumo's Twitter account is saying that the 12 09 KGX-EDB and 18 52 EDB-KGX are cancelled due to an operating incident. Presumsbly the train will have had to have been taken out of service for a depot examination.

 

[Megafuss]

There possibly ought to be some kind of acknowledgement, given that people are claiming to have been injured.

They'll be dealing with those affected directly.

They'll also have prepared statements ready for when an inevitable press enquiry is made. No need for self flagellation for what is, in essence at this stage a customer service issue.

 

[ExRes]

There possibly ought to be some kind of acknowledgement, given that people are claiming to have been injured.

Why though? passenger wise it only concerns those travelling on that particular service

 

[bramling]

For such a new company to have a major incident like this, it won’t do much good for their rep.

An LNER (or was it VTEC then?) had an overspeed over a set of points at Peterborough a few years ago, not quite the same situation though.

Lumo are of course more likely to be caught by this sort of thing if their services are getting looped in all sorts of places, but are they at any greater risk than any newly qualified TOC driver? That will no doubt be something for any investigation to look in to.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Apr 2022 ==

Why though? passenger wise it only concerns those travelling on that particular service

That might have been the case a generation ago, however I’m not sure that’s necessarily the case in the modern world of social media.

 

[ComUtoR]

Would the driver have had to be relieved at Peterborough for drink/drug test? If this doesn't fall under the category for such a thing, why not?!

Not all incidents require a Drugs and Alcohol test. Each TOC will have a list of incidents where it is required or not. On the surface this looks pretty serious but on a technical side this is 'just' an overspeed incident. *No TPWS trip, *No SPAD (at least from what's been reported)

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

If flashing yellow sequences approaching a diverging junction are suppressed when the presence of a preceding train is preventing a free aspect from being displayed to the second (diverging) train, to what extent is the junction signal aspect limited when the second train finally approaches it? I can imagine that trains with very high acceleration rates are potentially more at risk of accidental overspeed, as suggested happened here, than more traditional stock. It’s not a SPAD trap but potentially an overspeed trap, for a junction signal to clear up to green to a train that has not seen the flashing sequence due to following something, but if the driver misses / fails to register the ‘feather’ indication, could potentially accelerate hard and subsequently overspeed through the turnout.

Would/should such locations, particularly where the junction signal is some way from the turnout, be limited to (say) single yellow rather than clearing to a free green aspect? (EDIT: only in circumstances when the flashing sequence has been suppressed.)

This of course presumes today’s incident is driver error rather than a signalling irregularity. It is reminiscent of a recent (last decade) derailment at Bletchley where a light class 90 was approaching a red signal along the Up Slow, which cleared up to Green (diverging feather) and the driver accelerated so hard that the loco was travelling at 50-60mph at the 20mph Slow-Fast crossover he was correctly signalled through and overturned.

 

[westcoaster]

If flashing yellow sequences approaching a diverging junction are suppressed when the presence of a preceding train is preventing a free aspect from being displayed to the second (diverging) train, to what extent is the junction signal aspect limited when the second train finally approaches it? I can imagine that trains with very high acceleration rates are potentially more at risk of accidental overspeed, as suggested happened here, than more traditional stock. It’s not a SPAD trap but potentially an overspeed trap, for a junction signal to clear up to green to a train that has not seen the flashing sequence due to following something, but if the driver misses / fails to register the ‘feather’ indication, could potentially accelerate hard and subsequently overspeed through the turnout.

Would/should such locations, particularly where the junction signal is some way from the turnout, be limited to (say) single yellow rather than clearing to a free green aspect? (EDIT: only in circumstances when the flashing sequence has been suppressed.)

That would depend on the aspect ahead. If the one ahead is green then the junction signal would step up from single yellow to green on approach (not knowing this area I can't be 100%).

 

[Towers]

There possibly ought to be some kind of acknowledgement, given that people are claiming to have been injured.

There is plenty on their Twitter, to be fair, and they've not removed or hidden the tweets from those on board. That's a lot more transparent than a lot of organisations would be.

 

[Darandio]

There is plenty on their Twitter, to be fair, and they've not removed or hidden the tweets from those on board. That's a lot more transparent than a lot of organisations would be.

How would they remove or hide tweets from other people?

 

[Towers]

How would they remove or hide tweets from other people?

I'm not a twitter expert by any means, but I'm pretty sure it's easy enough for a corporate account to hide or remove tweets as they wish? Lumo have also responded to them publically, rather than the often used 'please send us a DM' response when an account holder doesn't want to discuss something 'in public', as it were.

 

[Darandio]

I'm not a twitter expert by any means, but I'm pretty sure it's easy enough for a corporate account to hide or remove tweets as they wish? Lumo have also responded to them publically, rather than the often used 'please send us a DM' response when an account holder doesn't want to discuss something 'in public', as it were.

I'm fairly certain they can't. They can of course delete their own tweets to confuse the context of any replies for people subsequently reading them but they have no power to delete the replies of other users.

 

[FrodshamJnct]

I'm not a twitter expert by any means, but I'm pretty sure it's easy enough for a corporate account to hide or remove tweets as they wish? Lumo have also responded to them publically, rather than the often used 'please send us a DM' response when an account holder doesn't want to discuss something 'in public', as it were.

No, it doesn’t work like that. They can’t delete tweets from other people, only their own.

 

[Towers]

I'm fairly certain they can't. They can of course delete their own tweets to confuse the context of any replies for people subsequently reading them but they have no power to delete the replies of other users.

Well, you may well be right then, I've no idea! Seems a very 'high risk' strategy though if that is the case!

Anyhoo, my personal take was that their Twitter team's responses were reasonable, honest and accessible. I thought that was worthy of a mention!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Apr 2022 ==

No, it doesn’t work like that. They can’t delete tweets from other people, only their own.

Well then I bow to the RF collective's greater knowledge on that one!

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

That would depend on the aspect ahead. If the one ahead is green then the junction signal would step up from single yellow to green on approach (not knowing this area I can't be 100%).

Is there any allowance given for the distance from junction signal to turnout, or types of rolling stock predominantly in use?

 

[TheEdge]

The fact that the line is still open (rather than being closed for forensic investigation) gives a strong indication, I'd have said...

Oh, yea, it rather does.

 

[syorksdeano]

Pity the Ambassadors onboard, having to pick up all those Ferrero Rocher...

Oh come on this could have ended up very serious

 

[AlexNL]

Twitter does have functionality to hide tweets, but its scope is somewhat limited. It's possible to hide replies to a tweet you've posted, but only if the tweet isn't part of a chain of tweets with other Twitter users.

When using this it hides the replies from view, but there's still a button to show tweets which were hidden.

 

[Starmill]

Today the driver on our 0820 service from Newcastle had to apply the emergency brake near Peterborough.

Such events can be jolting for passengers and we took great care to check on everybody’s welfare. There was some falling luggage and naturally many people will have felt the effects of the sudden halt.

Regrettably there has been a knock-on effect for passengers on the 1209 from Kings Cross and the return journey at XXXX from Edinburgh, both of which have been cancelled. Safety is our first priority and we decided to take the train out of service in order to run thorough safety checks.

All passengers have already been re-routed via LNER today or any Lumo service tomorrow.

All passengers are entitled to a full refund. These should be claimed through the normal ‘delay repay’ channels.

While there were no serious injuries, if anyone has any concerns they should contact us immediately. We are very sorry for any distress the sudden stop may have caused.

A full investigation is now underway and we are supporting the Rail Accident Investigations Branch to determine precisely what happened.

This is the statement Lumo gave to Rail Advent.

Note that it implies that refunds can be claimed for used tickets, something which is frequently suggested, but of course incorrectly.

It was also reported on the BBC News at 5 o clock on Radio 4.