A week of delay on SWR

swr444 said:

Really annoys me when I’m working an up Windsor and the signaller just lets the ARS set the route behind the stopper. If it was 1 min late you’d then be late into Waterloo and delay the reading out. It’s less off a problem now the readings leave at 08/48 and from platforms 15-19

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Yep, rattles me to no end

embers25 said:

The West of England off peak has up to 10 minutes slack between Basingstoke and Tisbury westbound and so my biggest frustration is that they won't hold a train curtailed to start at Basingstoke for 5 minutes during disruption to wait for the incoming train running late from London. Really annoying to watch it then sit in Andover for 5 minutes particularly. Also, its annoying when they bring it in on Platform 2 from the siding early preventing the London train that would have easily made the connection from making it.

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They will sometimes do it if there is a large number of passengers but that is dependent on Control being made aware so more likely during severe disruption and more often done during ends of the day when services are more sparse. It's also less feasible during the peak as most peak services don't have any booked dwell at Tisbury loop so they won't hold these unless as a last resort as they risk completely messing up the West of England otherwise.

bb21 said:

They will sometimes do it if there is a large number of passengers but that is dependent on Control being made aware so more likely during severe disruption and more often done during ends of the day when services are more sparse. It's also less feasible during the peak as most peak services don't have any booked dwell at Tisbury loop so they won't hold these unless as a last resort as they risk completely messing up the West of England otherwise.

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I agree it cant be done in peak as thees no dwell anywhere but off peak is easy.

zsl11913 said:

SWR seems to be hit badly by the heat and infrastructure failure - Since Tuesday there have been quite significant delays especially in the suburban area. First the heatwave and points failure, today there is a section of defective track that needs emergency repairment, basically knocked out services via Surbiton at Vauxhall, Earlsfield and Wimbledon. It's really frustrating given these are quite busy stations, especially Earlsfield has no other rail/tube station close by.

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Its been a terrible week for sure

Waterlooville said:

Its been a terrible week for sure

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Certainly has. Small random sample I know but my daily journey has required some rethinking 6 out of 9 times so far this week - engineering work overrun this morning. Big drum roll going on in my head this afternoon given they are on a hat trick for the Friday pm peak going in the bin!

Phil R said:

Certainly has. Small random sample I know but my daily journey has required some rethinking 6 out of 9 times so far this week - engineering work overrun this morning. Big drum roll going on in my head this afternoon given they are on a hat trick for the Friday pm peak going in the bin!

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I had to go via the Staines / V Water loop last week in the middle of the day, haven't seen that loop for years usually only when engineering is on

Seems to be yet more problems between Waterloo and Vauxhall this afternoon. Does anyone know if it's the same problem that keeps resurfacing or just different issues occurring each time?

On a 701 into Waterloo and seems very busy even for a Friday afternoon - several suburban trains are cancelled as well.

Matthew5689 said:

...Does anyone know if it's the same problem that keeps resurfacing or just different issues occurring each time?

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I don't have answers for this. My observation is that Vauxhall area seems to be hit by signaling/points failure a bit more often than before recently. Can probably argue just too many tracks there but still..

E16 Cyclist said:

The main reason for how bad service recovery is is because trains coming into Waterloo have the stock doing one thing the driver doing another and the guard does something else so straightaway delayed trains coming in are affecting up to three trains going out.

This means that controllers are mostly unable to turn trains round as often crew are due a break and therefore are unwilling or are unable to be turned around, this is what the MD refers to when he talks about full crew working which was cut to something like 8% under First as it was more cost effective but means disruption quickly becomes unmanageable

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Thank you.

This explains why disruption now causes a melt down. Back in the day when I was a commuter in to Waterloo, disruption only seemed to last a few hours before the service recovered, now it's disruption till end of service.

Formed the basis of a letter to my MP.

I'm tired of having to drive to London to collect stranded people.

It's been horrid on SWR since the GSMR issues about a month? back. The 'week' in the thread title is very generous

E16 Cyclist said:

The main reason for how bad service recovery is is because trains coming into Waterloo have the stock doing one thing the driver doing another and the guard does something else so straightaway delayed trains coming in are affecting up to three trains going out.

This means that controllers are mostly unable to turn trains round as often crew are due a break and therefore are unwilling or are unable to be turned around, this is what the MD refers to when he talks about full crew working which was cut to something like 8% under First as it was more cost effective but means disruption quickly becomes unmanageable

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aavm said:

Thank you.

This explains why disruption now causes a melt down. Back in the day when I was a commuter in to Waterloo, disruption only seemed to last a few hours before the service recovered, now it's disruption till end of service.

Formed the basis of a letter to my MP.

I'm tired of having to drive to London to collect stranded people.

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Firstly, I do sympathise with you regarding the number of times you have had to endure a drive into London in the last couple of weeks because of disruption to train services into Waterloo. I had one trip on the West of England line into London on 26 May which was a complete mess, with us being turfed off the train at Basingstoke, but only after we had been held at Worting Junction to allow an up ten-coach Weymouth train to precede us into and out of Basingstoke, thereby subjecting us to a 20 minute wait before we were shoe-horned into a three-coach train with non-functioning air-conditioning for the trip into London. I was fed up after one such trip, I can only imagine what multiple journeys in such conditions would be like.

In your post you refer to another one from @E16 Cyclist which makes a point about the lack of full crew working on trains into and out of Waterloo, and which you say explains why disruption now causes a meltdown. You also refer to disruption only lasting a few hours when you commuted back in the day. It might be inferred from your post that full crew working was a contributor to better service recovery from disruption in the past.

I’m not sure when ‘back in the day’ was for you, but I commuted into Wimbledon/Waterloo between 1973 and 1979 and I agree with you that disruption seemed to be less frequent and generally recovered more rapidly, although I have many memories of standing shoulder to shoulder with fellow commuters in the evening peak, staring at the departures board at Waterloo, which was bereft of trains. However, if disruption was handled better in those days, it has nothing to do with full crew working.

Between 1973 and 1979 my work entailed diagramming drivers and guards for trains into and out of Waterloo (South Western Division (SWD) of the Southern Region). I was involved with compilation of the permanent diagrams for drivers and guards, and with short-term alterations to those permanent diagrams to accommodate weekend engineering work, etc.. There was no attempt to employ full crew working in those days. Diagramming of drivers was separate from diagramming of guards and carried out by different individuals. In fact, the individuals responsible for short-term alterations to drivers and guards diagrams were in different offices. In passing, I would observe that while this practice also applied to the South Eastern and Central divisions of the Southern, it was different on the Western and London Midland Regions (with whom I had contact over the crewing of inter-regional trains), who had a much greater focus on full crew working.

If service recovery on the South Western is slower now than it used to be, then that is more likely to be, in part, down to the sheer volume of train movements these days in off-peak as well as peak times. When blockages occur close to London there is a need to reduce the flow of incoming services as quickly as possible and then transition to a sustainable interim train plan. And then manage the transition back to a normal service later on. I have nothing but admiration for the controllers who do that work. @Falcon1200 has pointed out in this thread that their task could be made easier with full crew working. I am sure he/she is right, but its adoption will result in less efficient utilisation of traincrew as I mentioned in an earlier post. There is an unfortunate tension between the most efficient utilisation of resources to meet the train plan and the easy manipulation of those resources when the train plan falls apart. Obtaining government support for the funding of additional traincrew to accommodate full crew working where it is not currently employed could be quite a challenge.

It seems to be back to normal anyway now, will see how it plays out this week as on the train most of the week to Waterloo

@Undaunted thanks, seems the easy answer is, as usual, a little bit to easy.

I also have memories of coming out of the tube at Waterloo to be met by a sea of people... and the surge when a train was announced....

Undaunted said:

.When blockages occur close to London there is a need to reduce the flow of incoming services as quickly as possible and then transition to a sustainable interim train plan. And then manage the transition back to a normal service later on.

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This is the part which just doesn't seem to happen. Post 2004 with the new timetable and full crew working service recovery improved dramatically. Part of that was built on falling back to a fairly standardised plan to terminate services short when there was disruption towards Waterloo. For whatever reason this doesn't seem to happen much now (with the exception of Waterloo - Exeter) and instead everything just grinds to a halt. It's common for parts of the network well away from any failure to have no service for hours at a time.

Craig1122 said:

For whatever reason this doesn't seem to happen much now (with the exception of Waterloo - Exeter) and instead everything just grinds to a halt.

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It can't happen, I've been stuck a few times on my way to london just starting my day and able to turn but my guard is from Waterloo or Wimbledon and on their last trip of the day, my next working is a Waterloo or Wimbledon guard and they are in London waiting. Chaos ensues.

Hit a problem on the evening of Saturday 13th. Waterloo to Guildford via Epsom service ran normally until Bookham where we were held at a red. After about 10 - 15 min, guard announced there was an indeterminate delay due to a problem on the line ahead and advised "anyone who could to consider making other arrangements”. A bit later, guard explained there was a report of a train striking a tree; and after a few minutes more, said the blocked line was between Horsley and Clandon and the signalman was letting the train move on to Effingham Junction. This then happened. The next announcement, with our train held in platform at EJ with another red signal, was that the power had to be turned off for the tree to be removed; and no information or even guesses could be made about the length of the hold-up. We left, and were fortunate to be able to walk home to Horsley in about 35 min.

Information provided - but not enough information to give most passengers any confidence in their decision making. As it turned out we presumably made the right decision - no train movements being heard during our long walk home. But passengers deserve better advice on their options. And hadn’t matters reached the point when Clandon and Guildford passengers should have been advised by SWR that a bus was on its way, or a fleet of taxis?

This is the sort of thing that makes it hard to convince people to trust the railway service.

Bigfoot said:

It can't happen, I've been stuck a few times on my way to london just starting my day and able to turn but my guard is from Waterloo or Wimbledon and on their last trip of the day, my next working is a Waterloo or Wimbledon guard and they are in London waiting. Chaos ensues.

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The very nature of the incidents we are talking about is that they can occur at any time of day, at any location and continue for variable, but initially unknown, periods of time. When they occur, hundreds of driver and guard diagrams will be ‘live’, with crews scattered all over the network. Contingency plans can only ever be high-level, such as establishing a Basingstoke/Salisbury/Exeter shuttle. This works reasonably well because there are only three depots involved with these services and one of them is at the temporary termination point itself. There are a number of sidings at Basingstoke to accommodate the units involved in the shuttle service. It’s curious that other parts of the network do not benefit from similar arrangements, but some contributors to this thread have commented on the limited possibilities elsewhere on the network for turning trains around.

It’s clear from the professionals on this forum that full crew working reduces some of the complications arising from severe disruption to services, but there is, of course, an elephant in the room. Wouldn’t Driver Only Operation make management of disruption even easier than full crew working?