Delayed due to failure of Tesco daventry - coatbridge DRS service (17/12)

I agree that Bi-Directional signalling would be the best solution and in an ideal world we’d have the budget to just do this, but realistically this doesn’t seem to be on the cards at the moment.

Looking at yesterday’s incident however, is there any reason that single line working could not have been put in place on the down main between Abington and Beattock Summit?

There is a crossover immediately south of Abington loops from the up main onto the down main, with a crossover from the down main onto the up main just south of Beattock summit loops.

Surely trains could have been cleared through this section one at a time, with southbound services being cleared through the whole section verbally by the signaller to run along the down main?

Perhaps I’m missing something obvious here, but this seems like a fairly easy solution which would’ve significantly reduced the delays and subsequent costs to the railway!

Bald Rick said:

The costs of any such delay are actually relatively small. I haven’t seen the numbers for this recent incident, but I’d be surprised if the costs in terms of lost revenue, delay repay, taxis / buses, additional staff / overtime etc exceeded £200k.

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Isn't just monetary costs, thousands of passengers being disrupted could have a butterfly effect on their lives, whether big or small.

I understand and absolutely agree freight is important and should be encouraged, but surely its not hard to double head locos? Particularly 4S43 as that's the most likely to fail.

Peter0124 said:

Isn't just monetary costs, thousands of passengers being disrupted could have a butterfly effect on their lives, whether big or small.

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Of course, but that doesn’t pay the bills

Are those 9 DB 90s still stored at Crewe?

The pairs of 90s Freightliner use on their cross border services sail up Beattock, although they do draw a fair bit of juice doing so, but it's very rare to be delayed by a Felixstowe - Coatbridge service. And I'm pleased to see Freightliner using them more these days, having drafted in those extra ones from storage.
(And nothing terrifies the unwary punters on the platform at Wolverton quite like a pair of 90s rattling through at 70mph with 1500 tons of containers in tow!)

Both single 68s and 88s seem to be affected, so if DRS don't have enough to pair them up on every Coatbridge, they should get those DB 90s back up and running. That would give them 4 pairs and a spare loco at Kingmoor.

Just getting motive power than can pull the trains up the bloody hill will be cheaper than bi-di signalling to deal with motive power that can't.

Huntergreed said:

I agree that Bi-Directional signalling would be the best solution and in an ideal world we’d have the budget to just do this, but realistically this doesn’t seem to be on the cards at the moment.

Looking at yesterday’s incident however, is there any reason that single line working could not have been put in place on the down main between Abington and Beattock Summit?

There is a crossover immediately south of Abington loops from the up main onto the down main, with a crossover from the down main onto the up main just south of Beattock summit loops.

Surely trains could have been cleared through this section one at a time, with southbound services being cleared through the whole section verbally by the signaller to run along the down main?

Perhaps I’m missing something obvious here, but this seems like a fairly easy solution which would’ve significantly reduced the delays and subsequent costs to the railway!

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I believe that the crossovers are controlled by ground frames/switch panels and so single line working would require a pilot and 2 GF/GSP operators, all suitably qualified, to get on-site, and the control of each move would be a much longer process with the signaller needing to talk to each operator for the next movement.

It could, of course, have been done, but by the time all required resources could have got to site and the capacity limit of a single line, I'd be surprised if it was saving much delay.

Bald Rick said:

There would still be costs for the same incident but with bidi signalling in place. Trains would still be delayed (and in both directions, waiting for the single line), so whilst the costs would be lower, they would still be there.

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That is of course true, but there are times on the WCML when there is a greater flow of traffic in one direction than the other; In the early morning for example no Down train was booked to pass Lockerbie between 0557 and 0710, nor between 0710 and 0815. Whereas between the same times 9 Up trains were booked! Which would have applied during part at least of the 4M27 failure. Obviously this situation only applies during certain times, but IMHO if bi-di working existed, and had to be introduced, congestion would be reduced by cancelling short (ie TPE) trains and running the long ones (ie Avanti).

I appreciate your comments, however the issue with the lack of bi-di working over the WCML has been ongoing since the route was resignalled in 1974, and just during my time as Section Controller there were so many incidents where the facility would have massively reduced disruption.

Huntergreed said:

Looking at yesterday’s incident however, is there any reason that single line working could not have been put in place on the down main between Abington and Beattock Summit?

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Depending on the Single Line Working (SLW) section involved, up to 4 staff can be required on the ground; A points operator at each end, a handsignaller where trains return to the correct line, and a Pilotman. And this of course is in a remote area. I recall one incident I was involved in, overhead line damage near the Route boundary which required SLW; By the time we had managed to source sufficient staff, and they had all reached their required locations, the overhead line staff had attended and repaired the fault!

43096 said:

Of course, if the passenger trains were still locomotive hauled, they could have given a push from behind.

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I recall a stormy night (the early hours of 28 March 1987) when I was aboard 1S19 (the Bristol to Glasgow and Edinburgh sleeper - 15 coaches), 87030 slipped to a stand somewhere on Beattock. 86420 and 86425 were hauling a freightliner train behind and were brought up to 1S19 an coupled up. The whole cavalcade then stormed up the rest of the bank complete with 25 freightliner flats and 15 coaches, before reaching a point after the summit where the 1S19 continued unassisted 182 minutes late, being overtaken by the liner while at Carstairs...

Not relevant to the subject, but a day of 37s and 47s followed before returning south on 1V32 (the returning sleeper to Bristol) as far as Birmingham. 56093 piloted over Cannock and 58049 on an early Nuneaton drag!

Bald Rick said:

The costs of any such delay are actually relatively small. I haven’t seen the numbers for this recent incident, but I’d be surprised if the costs in terms of lost revenue, delay repay, taxis / buses, additional staff / overtime etc exceeded £200k.

There would still be costs for the same incident but with bidi signalling in place. Trains would still be delayed (and in both directions, waiting for the single line), so whilst the costs would be lower, they would still be there. The difference between the two is your cost saving. I’d be very surprised if it was more than £100k for each such incident.

Then you have to allow the additional costs of maintaining all the extra kit, and of course the delays incurred if/when some parts of the new kit fail.

Now I don’t know how many such incidents there are a year, but you would need an awful lot of them to pay for installing bidi on the current signalling, which for (say) Gretna - Carstairs I can’t see there being much change out of £100m if done as a standalone project.




Banned? What do you mean?





Yes, regularly. But the passenger service was about half of what it is now, so the impact was proportionally smaller.

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"Banned? What do you mean?" AFAIK (and if anyone knows if this is wrong please say so) I was told some time ago that 'simbids' is no longer an option as "they" want a driver signalled wrong-road to see the same signals on both lines (i.e. multiple wrong-road signals). Obviously with 'simbids' you see nothing once wrong-road till the distant/repeater for the signal protecting the next crossovers. (As for who "they" are - who knows? NR kow-towing to ASLEF maybe? I dunno).
Edit: New 'simbids' schemes, that is - not banning the use of existing ones.

43096 said:

DRS don't pay delay repay cash - that's down to Avanti/TPE/Caledonian Sleeper. DRS are liable for penalties under their contract with Network Rail, but that is not in any way linked to Delay Repay.

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I am aware of this being the arrangement (and that I should've worded my original post better), but I honestly think that's part of the problem here.

Changes need to be made - namely signifcantly higher penalties and DRS being made to directly contribute to Delay Repay for when it's their pig-headed decisions that utterly stuffs up the WCML North timetable despite the risks of sending a single Bo-Bo locomotive out with a heavy intermodal service over some of the steepest sustained grades on the network being well-known; it's also well-known that this is a section of line where the weather can change more or less on a dime and thus affect railhead conditions to the point that such a train slipping to a stand is far more likely than not.

But then again, given how long this has been an issue with DRS specifically and even with these glaringly bloody obvious solutions sitting right there - obvious even to a halfwit like me - that wouldn't require expensive infrastructure/signalling changes are obviously too expensive/difficult to implement, so I'm left banging my head against the wall in frustration and disbelief at the railway essentiallly sabotaging itself.

Thus the status quo will be maintained as that's cheaper and easier, thus the passengers that don't have the luxury of simply abandoning cross-border rail travel on the WCML entirely for other modes will continue to get bent over the barrel whenever 4S43 etc decides to sit down between Preston and Carstairs (where being 4 hours late as a result of the cascading delays/cancellations is considered good going) and those who do have the choice of simply driving will just stick to their cars or travel by air and never even consider travelling to/from Scotland by rail again as they know the railways simply can't be relied upon.

Honestly, this issue is one of many why I'm reluctant to use the WCML for any kind of cross-border travel despite it being the most convinent option for me, as I'm well aware that it could all go tits-up at any time. It's why that if I'm needing to at least get no further south than Carlisle by rail, I'll be choosing the Glasgow South Western despite that line's obvious limitations.

Strathclyder said:

I am aware of this being the arrangement (and that I should've worded my original post better), but I honestly think that's part of the problem here.

Changes need to be made - namely signifcantly higher penalties and DRS being made to directly contribute to Delay Repay for when it's their pig-headed decisions that utterly stuffs up the WCML North timetable despite the risks of sending a single Bo-Bo locomotive out with a heavy intermodal service over some of the steepest sustained grades on the network are well-known and where it's also well-known that the weather can change really quite quickly and thus affect railhead conditions to the point that such a train slipping to a stand is far more likely than not.

But then again, given how long this has been an issue with DRS specifically and even with these glaringly bloody obvious solutions sitting right there - obvious even to a halfwit like me - that wouldn't require expensive infrastructure/signalling changes are obviously too expensive/difficult to implement.

Thus the status quo will be maintained as that's cheaper and easier, thus the passengers that don't have the luxury of simply abandoning cross-border rail travel on the WCML entirely for other modes will continue to get bent over the barrel whenever 4S43 etc decides to sit down between Preston and Carstairs (where 4 hours late is considered good going) and those who do have the choice of simply driving will just stick to their cars or travel by air and never even consider travelling to/from Scotland by rail again as they know the railways simply can't be relied upon.

Honestly, this issue is one of many why I'm reluctant to use the WCML for any kind of cross-border travel despite it being the most convinent option for me, as I'm well aware that it could all go tits-up at any time. It's why that if I'm needing to at least get no further south than Carlisle by rail, I'll be choosing the Glasgow South Western despite the obvious limitations.

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"Obvious" solution? What if the cost of an extra loco tips the service over into being loss-making for DRS? Not "obvious", now, is it.

Bald Rick said:

There would still be costs for the same incident but with bidi signalling in place. Trains would still be delayed (and in both directions, waiting for the single line), so whilst the costs would be lower, they would still be there. The difference between the two is your cost saving. I’d be very surprised if it was more than £100k for each such incident.

....

Now I don’t know how many such incidents there are a year, but you would need an awful lot of them to pay for installing bidi on the current signalling, which for (say) Gretna - Carstairs I can’t see there being much change out of £100m if done as a standalone project.

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Even by this maths, I would think there are far more than 1000 days of delays of a moderate magnitude since the commissioning of Preston/Carlisle PSB plus the kit north of the border in WSSC.

Although, thinking about it further, the level crossings would need upgrading to AHBC-X standard or equivalent to save the time and cost of mobilising a MOM and having them drive up and down the motorway to reset then for wrong-direction working?

I'm with @Falcon1200, without the dead hand of the Treasury, such an important mainline should have been (re)signalled bidirectionally a long time ago.

Strathclyder said:

If I were Tesco's CEO, I'd be phoning up DRS management directly and making my feelings on this crystal-clear.

Heck, if it were possible (it isn't for all sorts of reasons) even escalate it to the point of threatening to withdraw from the contract altogether as soon as would be practical unless DRS pull their head out their backside and sort this out properly.

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This must surely be part of the issue here, too - farces like this must make railfreight look deeply unreliable in the eyes of the very customers whom the industry should be looking to attract and retain.

Whilst road transport might be slower and less efficient, if there is an issue with either the road network or the vehicles themseleves there will be solutions close at hand. A container train stranded for hours, on a steep hill in the middle of nowhere and with 1000 tons of your perishable stock on board, is a pretty sizeable hurdle. And when it happens every week I find it difficult to believe that nobody is noticing!

Port Road said:

"Banned? What do you mean?" AFAIK (and if anyone knows if this is wrong please say so) I was told some time ago that 'simbids' is no longer an option as "they" want a driver signalled wrong-road to see the same signals on both lines (i.e. multiple wrong-road signals). Obviously with 'simbids' you see nothing once wrong-road till the distant/repeater for the signal protecting the next crossovers. (As for who "they" are - who knows? NR kow-towing to ASLEF maybe? I dunno).
Edit: New 'simbids' schemes, that is - not banning the use of existing ones.

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AIUI (not an expert, so happy to be corrected), SIMBIDS is not permitted for new installations as it only requires reduced protection of the wrong-direction signals. Not sure if it's NR, RSSB, ORR or a combination who've made that ruling.

However, new installations are very much allowed of Bi-Directional signalling with reduced capacity in the 'wrong' direction (i.e. fewer signals), so long as all normal protection for the relevant speeds on approach is followed. An example of this style of Bi-Di would be Didcot-Oxford, which is 90mph for the normal direction of travel and 75mph against the normal direction of travel, and the 'wrong' directions are provided with only 1 section between Kennington Jn and Appleford Jn, whereas the normal directions have enough signals for a 3 or 4 minute headway.

Adrian Barr said:

88010 on 4M27 had 1283 tons behind it today, which is below their 1400 ton max load.



The traditional system of the loads books still applies (albeit now in the form of an excel spreadsheet). Class 88s working solo are authorised to haul a trailing tonnage of 1400 tons in either direction between Daventry and Coatbridge. The loads book takes into account the characteristics of each line (mainly the gradients) as you would expect, but warns that adverse weather conditions can sometimes reduce the weight a loco is able to pull:



In today's case it looks like the issue with 88010 on 4M27 was a loco fault, rather than a problem with adhesion.

Also of interest in relation to this thread is that class 93s were recently tested by DRS on these Daventry - Coatbridge Tesco services, with 93009 working a 4Q45 / 4Q27 diagram in mid-July. 4Q27 was running in the path of the usual 4M27 service, i.e. the one which had problems today. With 9 workings in each direction taking place between the 12th and 22nd July using a class 93, it suggests that serious consideration is being given to using these locos on the services in the future (other tests by DB Cargo and Freightliner using class 93s on this route have been more of a one-off demonstration run).

See the class 93 thread for more info and discussion on this topic - in post #2494 it was suggested the DRS lease agreement for the 88s ends in 2027, which could be significant. Whether class 93s will take over these Daventry - Coatbridge services for DRS at some point is open to speculation, but after this recent trial (and the earlier decision to move the home base of the class 93s to the DRS depot at Crewe Gresty Bridge) I'm cautiously optimistic. Although based on the class 88s, the 93s are a later development of the design which seems to be a bit more capable, and I think they could be a worthwhile improvement which would hopefully alleviate some of the issues discussed in this thread.

Although I've questioned the suitability of 88s on these services, I think it's fair to point out that the signalling is also inadequate in the event of a train failure, with the 2-track section of the WCML north of Preston sorely in need of bi-directional signalling, as per the comment in post #148 of this thread. Hopefully this can be done at some stage, although given the cost it would almost certainly have to wait until sections of the existing signalling become life-expired and due for renewal. With bi-directional signalling, a failed train still causes delays, but not the kind of service meltdown we see at the moment.

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Thank you for the informative up-date.

I formed the impression that some people posting thought that DRS just hung on the back of the loco. as many wagons as they thought they could get away with, rather than any formal process. But I may be wrong.

I'm a bit puzzled by the reference to 'headwind'; Considering the front profile a head wind would, I would suggest, have a minimal effect because of a train's frontal profile (about the same as a double deck bus) compared to the power available. What *does* have an effect is a side-wind which increase resistance by pushing the flanges on the leeward side against the rail. Not just on long container trains but it was also mentioned in steam age performance logs over Shap and Beattock.

The Planner said:

Depends if its running as a specially authorised load or a trial.

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Does one of these apply to this service? i.e. not a 'normal' FTLB load.

Strathclyder said:

/snip


If I were Tesco's CEO, I'd be phoning up DRS management directly and making my feelings on this crystal-clear.

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Welcome to the world of freight marketing. I still have flash-backs from the days of picking up the Customer Services phone when they were busy and being harangued by one particular customer with a strong Scouse accent about his train being delayed and his unloading staff being paid for doing nothing. Usually caused by Operations later known as "Production' so became the fault of Railtrack (after the hive-off) but we were specifically banned from blaming our supplier (EMR Inter City please note )

One question; did DRS specify performance parameters for the 88s? I would expect them to have done so, perhaps some blame lies with the traction supplier. But then it gets into the privatised world where everyone can blame someone else when things go wrong,

Falcon1200 said:

I appreciate your comments, however the issue with the lack of bi-di working over the WCML has been ongoing since the route was resignalled in 1974, and just during my time as Section Controller there were so many incidents where the facility would have massively reduced disruption.

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Oh I agree, and wish it had been installed in the 70s from new.

But knowing the cost of installing bi-di on existing signalling, I have no doubt that the cost of thst would not have been worht spending at any time in the last 30 years.

Let’s hope thst it can be justified on the next resignalling.

liam456 said:

Even by this maths, I would think there are far more than 1000 days of delays of a moderate magnitude since the commissioning of Preston/Carlisle PSB plus the kit north of the border in WSSC.

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That equates to over 20 days a year of incidents north of Preston where bi-di would have made a material difference. I don’t buy that.

Bald Rick said:

Oh I agree, and wish it had been installed in the 70s from new.

But knowing the cost of installing bi-di on existing signalling, I have no doubt that the cost of thst would not have been worht spending at any time in the last 30 years.

Let’s hope thst it can be justified on the next resignalling.



That equates to over 20 days a year of incidents north of Preston where bi-di would have made a material difference. I don’t buy that.

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From personal experience (fortnightly trips to Glasgow for the last 2 years) I estimate 20 days per year is a significant underestimate! I average a delay/repay claim on around a third of my journeys and most of those are 1+ hours

Bald Rick said:

Now I don’t know how many such incidents there are a year, but you would need an awful lot of them to pay for installing bidi on the current signalling, which for (say) Gretna - Carstairs I can’t see there being much change out of £100m if done as a standalone project.

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You’re essentially talking about a resignalling as the expertise to alter those 1970s interlockings is for the most part retired, six feet under or both, but I’m happy to quote if asked, and my number would be in that ballpark, as the saying goes.

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zwk500 said:

I believe that the crossovers are controlled by ground frames/switch panels and so single line working would require a pilot and 2 GF/GSP operators, all suitably qualified, to get on-site, and the control of each move would be a much longer process with the signaller needing to talk to each operator for the next movement.

It could, of course, have been done, but by the time all required resources could have got to site and the capacity limit of a single line, I'd be surprised if it was saving much delay.

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I believe the crossovers are now power worked from WSSC but have no signalling for wrong-direction moves so still need “boots on the ground“.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Jul 2026 ==

zwk500 said:

AIUI (not an expert, so happy to be corrected), SIMBIDS is not permitted for new installations as it only requires reduced protection of the wrong-direction signals. Not sure if it's NR, RSSB, ORR or a combination who've made that ruling.

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No “reduced protection“, but you cant send multiple trains one after the another. Put another way, you have a signal to get you in, one to get you out and nothing in between.

MadMac said:

You’re essentially talking about a resignalling as the expertise to alter those 1970s interlockings is for the most part retired, six feet under or both, but I’m happy to quote if asked, and my number would be in that ballpark, as the saying goes.

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Exactly.

I'm surprised given the number of times the Tesco train has failed heading up to Beattock summit that one of these two things hasn't happened yet:

One, DRS are forced to use two locos or the train gets stopped before it's allowed near Beattock until a second loco is attached. Stopping any delays to the public before they happen.

Or

Two, they are no longer allowed to use the west coast mainline and have to use the GSWR. Yes it will make their freight trip longer but there's much less chance of it causing massive delays to the public.

CoachB said:

I'm surprised given the number of times the Tesco train has failed heading up to Beattock summit that one of these two things hasn't happened yet:

One, DRS are forced to use two locos or the train gets stopped before it's allowed near Beattock until a second loco is attached. Stopping any delays to the public before they happen.

Or

Two, they are no longer allowed to use the west coast mainline and have to use the GSWR. Yes it will make their freight trip longer but there's much less chance of it causing massive delays to the public.

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I'm fairly sure containers aren't cleared via the GSWR.

43096 said:

"Obvious" solution? What if the cost of an extra loco tips the service over into being loss-making for DRS? Not "obvious", now, is it.

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A common-sense solution to anyone on the outside looking in at this utter farce then.

If DRS can't afford to consistently double-head their cross-border intermodals using 68s/88s without the whole operation slipping into the red despite the issues with this approach being well-known and have been repeatedly coming home to roost in the form of having to pay NR for the resulting penalties and the rescue loco, they ought to at least consider doing the following:

• Reintroduce Co-Co locos on these services (so that would be 66s)
• Introduce 93s on these services full time to replace the 88s if the results of the recent trial runs the former class undertook on these trains are considered an overall success and are worth building on
• Negotiate with NR to bring track access charges down enough to enable consistent double-heading the next time the contract comes up for renewal
• Go for the nuclear option and just give it up altogether if it's so much of a financial albatross that adding in a bit of operational resilience renders the whole thing a basket case

I honestly don't think it is a financial basket case though. If it were, they wouldn't double-head the trains at all at any point during their journey, even on the comparatively flatter sections south of Preston.

With all this in mind, one has to wonder how Freightliner have managed to double-head their intermodals over the same sections of the WCML on a far more consistent basis without collapsing into financial difficulties for over 30 years using 86s & 90s, both of which were/are far less energy-efficient on the juice than the 88s even on a good day and thus cost more to operate.

Regardless of the solutions we or anyone else propose and how realistic they are, the bottom line is that farces like this one are hardly a good reflection on the industry, especially with the very customers they should be looking to attract and/or retain as @Towers points out. Given how often a time-critical train with thousands of tons of their perishable goods onboard is grinding to a halt in the middle of nowhere for potentially hours at a time awaiting rescue, I honestly find it hard to believe that no-one within the upper rungs at Tesco is taking notice.

43096 said:

"Obvious" solution? What if the cost of an extra loco tips the service over into being loss-making for DRS? Not "obvious", now, is it.

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So what alternative solution would you propose?

43096 said:

Of course, if the passenger trains were still locomotive hauled, they could have given a push from behind.

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Beattock, 18th May 1969. Driver killed and 22 passengers and staff injured. From The Railways Archive. www.railwaysarchive.co.uk

On a cold morning with occasional sleet showers, the 21.30 Euston to Inverness express passenger train, consisting of 14 coaches including sleeping cars, came to a stand in the section between Greskine and Beattock Summit signalboxes, owing to the locomotive being unable to haul the train up the rising gradient. Arrangements were then made for the 22.15 Euston to Glasgow express passenger train, consisting of 12 coaches including sleeping cars, with the Beattock pilot locomotive coupled to the rear, to be used to assist the Inverness train to Beattock Summit.

The Glasgow train was carefully brought up to the rear of the Inverness train, but the two trains were not coupled together prior to assistance being given. Shortly after the assisting movement commenced, the Inverness train pulled away, with the result that a gap of 6 to 10 yards developed between the two trains. After travelling approximately 400 yards, the Inverness train suddenly came nearly to a stand, with the result that the locomotive of the Glasgow train struck its rear at about 10 m.p.h. The body of the rear coach was lifted from its rear bogie by the impact and became embedded in the driving cab of the locomotive.

Immediate first aid was given to the driver and second man of the Glasgow train, who were trapped in the cab of their locomotive, and to 19 passengers and 2 sleeping car attendants from both trains, who suffered slight injuries or shock, by 2 doctors who were travelling in the trains, by a railway man, trained in first aid, who was travelling as a passenger in the Glasgow train, and by the uninjured sleeping car attendants. The emergency services were summoned at 06.48 and a local doctor, an ambulance and the police arrived at this isolated site by 07.05, while the first of four fire brigades arrived at 07.10. The second man, who was not seriously injured, was quickly released from the locomotive cab, but I regret that the driver, who was seriously injured when trapped in his seat, died before he could be released.

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Beattock collision

zwk500 said:

I'm fairly sure containers aren't cleared via the GSWR.

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I'm sure they have ran that way in the past during engineering work etc. Running along the Ayrshire Coast after Mauchline.

zwk500 said:

I'm fairly sure containers aren't cleared via the GSWR.

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Oh they're cleared to use the GSWR as they went up and down a couple of months back when the WSML was closed due to an incident.

CoachB said:

Oh they're cleared to use the GSWR as they went up and down a couple of months back when the WSML was closed due to an incident.

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They were running W8 containers if they did, W10 aren't cleared.

The Planner said:

They were running W8 containers if they did, W10 aren't cleared.

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The IDAs and IKAs used by DRS on these services are cleared for high cube containers & swapbodies over the GSW - either via Annbank, or via Kilmarnock with a reversal at Falkland Yard or Barassie, then via Kilwinning. This is classed as "special gauge" on the RT3973 paperwork, but effectively gives similar clearance to W9. This allows high cubes on the megafrets typically used for Tesco traffic and other domestic intermodal, but not on the standard flats used for most deep sea container flows, which would require the extra height of W10 gauge. IDAs are no problem since they were specifically designed to carry 9 foot 6 high, 45ft long swapbodys within W8 gauge.

Despite the adequate gauge clearance, the additional journey time and associated costs mean the GSW route - made even longer since the trains have to use the Ayrshire Coast instead of running direct via Barrhead - is only really suitable for occasional planned diversions when the WCML is shut north of Carlisle; and even then the preferred diversionary route seems to be via Doncaster and the East Coast main line unless something is blocking that route too.

68004 seen on the GSW near Thornhill with 4S43 in March 2023 - the first container looks like a high cube, and a couple of others are seen further down the train, sticking up above the LCGB coded 8 foot 6 Tesco containers:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/goremirebob/52736449973/ (Photo: Bob Avery)

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Just to recap this thread and give some context:

In post #12 Freightmaster says:

Freightmaster said:

4S43 has alternated between being single and double headed for weeks at a time for the past couple of years and frequently comes to grief on Beattock when single headed in the Autumn/ Winter months

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Back when this thread started, 4S43 already had a bit of a reputation as a troublesome train. Posts #44 and #45 give some examples:

Falcon1200 said:

28th June 2021
On 1110 Euston-Glasgow C which arrived at Central 245 minutes late due to the failure of 4S43 (which did not occur on Beattock Bank as we passed the failed train at Penrith).

13th September 2022
On 0643 Euston-Edinburgh which arrived at Carlisle 100 minutes late due to the failure of 4S43, clearly also not on Beattock Bank.

While I have been delayed on the WCML multiple times due to infrastructure failures, severe weather and other incidents, no single train has ever cost me as much time as 4S43.

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littledude said:

Four more dates I can find from this year [i.e. 2025] where 4S43 has seriously affected the WCML are:

February 20th 2025, April 14th 2025, September 1st 2025 and December 17th 2025

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The December 17th incident was the one that started the thread. A summary of the delay incidents mentioned since the thread started:

17/12/25 - 4S43 - 88009 came to a stand approaching Beattock Summit

20/01/26 - 4S43 lost 40 minutes in Oxenholme area (single 88)

09/02/26 - 4S43 brake issue Quintinshill, 125 mins late

11/06/26 - "4S43 appears to have caused widespread delays earlier today between Carlisle and Edinburgh/Glasgow" resolved in about 90 mins

12/07/26 - 4M82 blocked the line for just over an hour (south of Oxenholme). Loco fault. (This was a DRS train - confusingly Freightliner have also used a 4M82 headcode on this route)

28/07/26 - 4M27 failed on the southbound approach to Beattock. 88010 loco failure. Stood for 2 and a half hours.

28/07/26 - 4S45 failed on Beattock in the early hours. Loco 68007. Stood for 90 minutes

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So with 4S43 specifically, there are 5 known incidents in the last 12 months - 2 of which appear to be related to adhesion. Taking the DRS intermodal services as a whole over the northern WCML, that rises to 8 incidents, of which all but one blocked the line for at least an hour. Of these, loco issues of one sort or another are the most common cause (3 failures and 2 slipped to a stand), with the cause unknown in 2 cases and the other a brake issue (which from what I can remember was not caused by a loco fault).

I think the adhesion issues with single 88s are largely mitigated by the existing practice of double-heading services in the autumn leaf-fall season, but the two incidents in December and January indicate there are still problems in bad weather extending beyond the traditional "sandite season." As I said in previous posts, I don't think single 88s are suited to these trains, and the recent class 93 trials on these services suggest replacement traction is under consideration.

It's hard to assess the other incidents since the exact details and loco type are unknown in some cases, but it certainly looks like these services - and the 88s in particular - have more than their fair share of problems on this route. In the short term DRS are stuck with the fleet they've got, but hopefully there is a plan to replace the 88s on these trains with more reliable traction. We'll have to wait and see, but without some prospect of improved reliability I would be surprised if the end customer (never mind Network Rail or delayed passengers) was happy with the status quo.

Would the reintroduction of a dedicated thunderbird operation on WCML be cheaper to reinstate than BIDI signalling?
Carlisle , Preston. Carstairs (?

Seems a great opportunity to shine for Class 93 although staffing would be an issue with many different FOCs using the route.

Also what are the current rules in control for use of banking locos at the rear to assist? I know they tend to favour assistance from the front.
Obviously on the WCML not usually a consideration as trains back up quickly behind a failed train.

TrainOnLine said:

Also what are the current rules in control for use of banking locos at the rear to assist? I know they tend to favour assistance from the front.
Obviously on the WCML not usually a consideration as trains back up quickly behind a failed train.

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When 4M82 sat down at Clifton a couple of weeks ago, there happened to be a light engine class 68 right behind it. It was noticeable that it didn't bank the failed train, but instead dragged it back to Penrith and dumped it in the Platform 3 loop for a rescue engine to collect before continuing its original journey.

D1537 said:

When 4M82 sat down at Clifton a couple of weeks ago, there happened to be a light engine class 68 right behind it. It was noticeable that it didn't bank the failed train, but instead dragged it back to Penrith and dumped it in the Platform 3 loop for a rescue engine to collect before continuing its original journey.

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The rules seem to have changed somewhat. Many years ago I was working the Matisa track recording trolley on the up line passing Tebay when an eerily quiet class 50 passed near line speed on the down line hauling 12 coaches. Imagine my surprise when attached to the rear were 2 more class 50s, working hard with 12 more coaches behind them!