Woking - Basingstoke (near Hook) landslip (15/01/23)

[swt_passenger]

How many services normally operate up and down the Woking - Basingstoke line, on a typical weekday?

This hour 1300-1400 last Friday there were 11 passenger services, (an up Portsmouth seems to have been missing) and 1 freight, that’s up and down combined. But the next hour 1400-1500 it was the expected 12 passenger services. Freight traffic is usually fairly sparse, there is ECS some hours.

Additionally there are Alton trains that join and leave the route at Pirbright Junction towards the Woking end of the route.

(Info will still be on RTT if checked today.)

Then going back before 2000 there’d be another west of England DMU service each way, and the Waterloo - Poole stopper each way in every hour. That gets it up to 16 tph ie 8 tph each way.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Thanks @Sultan and @swt_passenger . Gives a fair indication as to how busy / well used the line normally is.

 

[Kite159]

Bizarrely, via Woking tickets are now more expensive than "Any Permitted", so are the default on any online transaction. The difference was always a matter of a few pence anyway, aimed at simply capturing the whole ticket price for SWT and SWR. I doubt that SWR ever offered much in the way of a discount for the Advance and Evening Out tickets, the aim being the same, ie capturing the whole revenue.

The 'via Woking' fares have been more expensive for the last couple years. Who knows how much people have overpaid by selecting the wrong option on a TVM.

I popped to my local station (Grateley) yesterday afternoon (around half one) and the car parks had around 30 vehicles in. I suspect on a normal Thursday that would have been more but I guess the commuters have chosen to work from home this week rather than heading into the office.

 

[Arch9enius]

Pretty much so as I understand it, combined with the general opposition towards felling any trees.

You don't need to fell them, just cut them right back. They'l recover.

 

[yoyothehobo]

You don't need to fell them, just cut them right back. They'l recover.

But the problem still exists. The root system remains and pulls all the moisture out of the embankment in hot weather, causing shrinkage. The amount of subsidence claims related to Plane Trees and Willow trees from the roots removing all the water in London Clay is massive.

 

[Bikeman78]

I know flooding is beyond control of TOCs/NR, but SWR don't seem too bothered about helping people out here - wouldn't it be reasonable to allow ticket acceptance on GWR, especially are they are the same group? (This response to someone querying travelling on the Portsmouth route today)

https://twitter.com/SW_Help/status/1614575816918138880?t=iNJVGV5YiGU8DdDV2nbRQw&s=19

They can't just say do not travel, potentially for weeks. Some people have to travel. Expecting people to pay more for disrupted journeys isn't great either. Waterloo - Havant - Southampton - Wareham or Waterloo - Fratton - Southampton - Wareham are both reasonable alternatives. Walk up tickets would be valid.

EDIT: I see that Swanwick was also closed at one point. Oh well. Still possible to get through via Havant/Fratton and Eastleigh?

 

[swt_passenger]

So in that quote from Twitter, someone needed to get home from Waterloo to Wareham.

The advice was not to travel, and to claim a refund on the ticket.

What is someone who is in London but lives in Wareham supposed to do then?

Just pay ££££ for a hotel and meals in London for days on end until Network Rail can get round to repairing the damage, or SWR can condescend to arrange ticket acceptance on the obvious alternative route from Paddington via Reading and Basingstoke.

Indeed, travelling from Paddington via Reading and Basingstoke to places like Winchester, Southampton... etc is a permitted route according to the ATOC routing guide, so the customer should have been advised of that in the Twitter response.

As usual it looks as if the idiots on Twitter are unaware of that basic point you raise, that for normal any permitted tickets Wareham to London Terminals is always valid into Paddington, so ticket acceptance is not needed for those ticket types.

If it’s an advance ticket routed SWR only, it’s a completely different situation. But the Twitter team never seem to ask the obvious question, AFAICS. What’s their response if someone explains the routing guide to them?

 

[Fazaar1889]

What caused the landslip? Rain? Weak soil? It's been standing since the 1800s so I guess it was bound to weaken sooner or later...
Was a woking a couple hrs ago, and it seemed it was busier than usual.

 

[Horizon22]

I do find this "do not travel" attitude rather excessively moralising and not terribly helpful.

I would like to see an alternative, more intelligent message such as "the line between Basingstoke and Woking has collapsed, if you intend to travel that way please expect long and unpredictable delays, as well as short-notice cancellations".

More honest, and not trying to morally judge people who wish to travel. So people know it might take a long time, but people who are willing to risk such delays can do so.

This comes up time and time again on these forums. Whilst enthusiats and people on these forums might understand the nuance, a lot of the general travelling public doesn't and if you're spending too long trying to explain the message, it's not working.

The aim is to not send extra people into a known and problematic issue and to ask people to not travel if possible. People often misinterpret what the disruption means in reality. Sometimes the best way to do this is a rather blunt message but it does adequately announce the seriousness of the problem for people who might be interested in travelling, but don't have to. It's a major mainline in the UK seeing multiple trains per hour and the service now is a fraction of that.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

This comes up time and time again on these forums. Whilst enthusiats and people on these forums might understand the nuance, a lot of the general travelling public doesn't and if you're spending too long trying to explain the message, it's not working.

The aim is to not send extra people into a known and problematic issue and to ask people to not travel if possible. People often misinterpret what the disruption means in reality. Sometimes the best way to do this is a rather blunt message but it does adequately announce the seriousness of the problem for people who might be interested in travelling, but don't have to. It's a major mainline in the UK seeing multiple trains per hour and the service now is a fraction of that.

The SWR incident specific webpage is now pretty comprehensive and does confirm you can use XC and GWR into Paddington with a hyperlink at the top of the page.

 

[Horizon22]

The SWR incident specific webpage is now pretty comprehensive and does confirm you can use XC and GWR into Paddington with a hyperlink at the top of the page.

Yes it is much better (although the link just goes further down the page which you can scroll to). It's still obviously not recommending travel on the booked route and instead suggesting various alternatives.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

NR Wessex have a put a video tweet from the site today confirming the temporary slew and plan to remediate the slip

https://twitter.com/NetworkRailWssx/status/1616480048000778240

and news release

https://www.networkrailmediacentre....-service-while-the-long-term-repairs-continue

 

[Horizon22]

How many services normally operate up and down the Woking - Basingstoke line, on a typical weekday?

The disruption site on SWR says:

The landslip took place on a very busy part of our route. On a normal weekday morning, around 13 trains per hour run through this section, with services between London Waterloo and Basingstoke, Exeter St Davids, Portsmouth Harbour (via Eastleigh), Salisbury, Southampton Central, Winchester and Weymouth.

 

[Monty]

What caused the landslip? Rain? Weak soil? It's been standing since the 1800s so I guess it was bound to weaken sooner or later...
Was a woking a couple hrs ago, and it seemed it was busier than usual.

The embankment near Hook is notorious for land slips, this is the 3rd one in 10 years. I even have a colour photo of the same location in the 1960s with a BR standard 4 being used in an engineering possession for the same reason.

 

[Fazaar1889]

The embankment near Hook is notorious for land slips, this is the 3rd one in 10 years. I even have a colour photo of the same location in the 1960s with a BR standard 4 being used in an engineering possession for the same reason.

Oh right, is there a specific reason why this embankment is especially bad?

 

[endecotp]

I will be travelling from Poole to Edinburgh on Saturday. There are lots of choices of route, what do you all reckon I should do? Possibilities:

1. Poole - Dorchester - Bristol - Birmingham - Edinburgh
2. Poole - Southampton - Bristol - Birmingham - Edinburgh
3. Poole - Basingstoke - Reading - Birmingham - Edinburgh
4. Poole - Basingstoke - Reading - London - Edinburgh
5. Poole - Basingstoke - Woking - London - Edinburgh
6. Poole - Southampton - Havant - Guildford - London - Edinburgh
7. Poole - Southampton - Arundel - London - Edinburgh

I have the return half of a super off peak return, I think most of those are valid routes even without the current disruption, though I need to check what the restrictions are for afternoon Kings Cross departures.

Some more considerations:

- It looks like the LNER services are diverted via Sunderland, adding an hour or more to those routes.
- Currently realtimetrains shows no basingstoke-woking shuttles, presumably as they will be doing their slew.

So XC to Birmingham and then Avanti could be the better option - despite the recent unreliability of those services.

 

[Lifelong]

On a slightly related note to this, auto announcements at Waterloo tonight still talking about the Petersfield etc engineering works - now cancelled. Given these announcements are on loop, has not one SWR management member there not suggested changing this? It really goes on and on in terms of customer service issues….

 

[PG]

On a slightly related note to this, auto announcements at Waterloo tonight still talking about the Petersfield etc engineering works - now cancelled. Given these announcements are on loop, has not one SWR management member there not suggested changing this? It really goes on and on in terms of customer service issues….

Like 99% of passengers they probably tune out auto announcements so haven't clocked the inaccuracy which now exists...

 

[kristiang85]

I saw this posted on FB which made me laugh - it seems SWR has replaced trains with time machines

 

[Monty]

Oh right, is there a specific reason why this embankment is especially bad?

I think it's a combination that the area likely floods in heavy rain and the material the LSWR built the embankment out of.

 

[Renternolonger]

I saw this posted on FB which made me laugh - it seems SWR has replaced trains with time machines

That's normal for the Stagecoach bus app.

 

[The Ham]

That's normal for the Stagecoach bus app.

It's that why they can't understand the issue of their being no service to Fleet, Winchfield and Hook, add there were services 10 days ago that people could use!?!?!?

 

[Lifelong]

Like 99% of passengers they probably tune out auto announcements so haven't clocked the inaccuracy which now exists...

Like 99% of passengers they probably tune out auto announcements so haven't clocked the inaccuracy which now exists...

Yep but unlike the 99% of passengers they’re (well somebody is) paid to listen to this sort of thing and correct. Which doesn’t happen.

 

[fandroid]

The embankment near Hook is notorious for land slips, this is the 3rd one in 10 years. I even have a colour photo of the same location in the 1960s with a BR standard 4 being used in an engineering possession for the same reason.

Are you sure you aren't confusing cutting slips with embankment slips? There was a big cutting side remediation carried out nearer to Winchfield several years ago. The engineering implications of cutting slips and embankment slips are quite different. The latter removes the very foundations of the tracks. The former just sends debris onto the tracks. I've lived in Basingstoke for 23 years, regularly travelled the line, and don't recall a single embankment slip there

 

[Taunton]

What caused the landslip? Rain? Weak soil? It's been standing since the 1800s so I guess it was bound to weaken sooner or later...

Actually from around 1900, when the line here was widened out from two tracks to four. The way in which there is a sheer face for the collapse on one side, but the other side of the formation is still robust enough to run trains on, looks like the failure may be along the face between the original and the widening material. The other embankment collapses along here, particularly the big 1961 one, show the same.

There are a number of civil engineering slope stability experts around, who work on various issues; presumably NR have this in house, or at least readily available.

 

[FuzzyDuck]

Notice today there is no shuttle service running and also no replacement bus service either.

 

[Steve Harris]

Notice today there is no shuttle service running .

There won't be, as there's a possession so Network Rail can slew the Down Fast into the Up Fast and back again. (This was mention further up thread!)

 

[FuzzyDuck]

My point was, usually during weekend engineering works, SWR usually operates a RRB service, why not this weekend?

 

[The Ham]

Notice today there is no shuttle service running and also no replacement bus service either.

There are at least some buses today (Saturday).

 

[FuzzyDuck]

Nothing showing on RTT, they usually do.