All cross country services suspended 23/08/26

Iron_Duke · Sunday at 12:50

EYFanatic said:
I apologise if this has already been answered, but why can crews not report themselves ready for duty by telephone or by text message under the circumstances or by signing a paper something at their depots or signing on

Surely the rest of the job, ie: putting trains on the right tracks and headcode allocations, is NR's job

When/if they have a problem they have to ring someone to discuss it - whether service amendments, customer issue, security problem, train issue etc. Some of these (especially train faults in the Defective On Train Equipment plan) are safety critical or security critical to the business. You can't run a train without someone being able to authorise decisions.

RailUK Forums

class 9 · Sunday at 12:51

Russel said:
Not sure the location is relevant, XC have been based at Cannon House for the best part of 20 years and this is the first issue on the scale we're seeing...

What is relevant though is the clear lack of any contingency, but then, that isn't surprising.

I wasn't commenting on the location, just answering a question about backup power.
There may have not been a problem of this magnitude before, but it suffers from frequent problems with IT and the phone lines.
It's also been renamed as a carpark, it's now known as multistory!!

ox_chap · Sunday at 12:53

Haywain said:
See post #33, which says:

Wow. So they are. Hats off to Chiltern. That’s very impressive. Every 2 out of 3 hours, there’s a xx:39 Oxford departure for Banbury, Leamington and Brum (Moor St.).

ThisIsSurbiton · Sunday at 12:54

I don't think this is a public/private thing. XC can sell tickets (private) but not run trains (private). Of course, it's easier to sell a ticket, and presumably everything for that is cloud-hosted, but then so could/should be all they need for a Control. You have to have a Disaster Recovery plan *and* know that it works. Very (whether it should have been or not) private BT and others in that industry run systems with mean time between failures measured in decades. It can be done

GoneSouth · Sunday at 12:56

class 9 said:
Because XCs Control office is just a floor in rented office building shared with many other non railway, non safety critical businesses.

This maybe factual, but it shouldn’t form any kind of defence against shoddy business practice. They’re not running a charity shop here, they are running a vital service that affects many thousands of people’s lives and millions of pounds of economic spend.

They are like open access operators in the sense that they just plonk a train on a track and let somebody else worry about making sure the whole thing functions and they just ignore the difficult jobs. Heck, they don’t even run some stations where they are the only train operator, that’s how easy their job is! They don’t care and the sooner we’re rid of them the better

RailwayCottage · Sunday at 12:58

I've just been over to Derby station, and all XC services are showing as cancelled, including the Cardiff-Nottingham, hence no way of getting to Birmingham this afternoon, unless you want a scenic trip via Stoke.

Word has obviously got out, as the place is practically deserted.

NCT · Sunday at 12:58

GoneSouth said:
This maybe factual, but it shouldn’t form any kind of defence against shoddy business practice. They’re not running a charity shop here, they are running a vital service that affects many thousands of people’s lives and millions of pounds of economic spend.

They are like open access operators in the sense that they just plonk a train on a track and let somebody else worry about making sure the whole thing functions and they just ignore the difficult jobs. Heck, they don’t even run some stations where they are the only train operator, that’s how easy their job is! They don’t care and the sooner we’re rid of them the better

I don't think there's defence against such practice. It seems when somebody states a fact represents new knowledge to others, that person ends up being attacked as the messenger.

A S Leib · Sunday at 13:04

RailwayCottage said:
unless you want a scenic trip via Stoke.

...which, on a Sunday, isn't possible for another hour and a half.

TUC · Sunday at 13:10

Iron_Duke said:
When/if they have a problem they have to ring someone to discuss it - whether service amendments, customer issue, security problem, train issue etc. Some of these (especially train faults in the Defective On Train Equipment plan) are safety critical or security critical to the business. You can't run a train without someone being able to authorise decisions.

All of which could presumably be done by back-up alternative phone numbers which crews are asked to use in circumstances such as today.

Iron_Duke · Sunday at 13:12

TUC said:
All of which could presumably be done by back-up alternative phone numbers which crews are asked to use in circumstances such as today.

I don't think it's just the phones that have gone down...

riceuten · Sunday at 13:15

Mike395 said:
Not a good look. Whoever approved non-redundant critical systems for CrossCountry operations at Arriva must be a bit red in the face today….

I very much doubt it. If there's one thing I've learnt in my 60-odd years is that most managers under no circumstances will take the blame for systems failures.

mrcheek · Sunday at 13:16

many people complaining about the lack of contingency plans here.

I assume XC has such plans. But presumably they are contained in or on a file that is somewhere in this building which they cant get in to...

Alternatively, it may be that their official contingency plan for a Sunday is "Bin all services, and let the other TOCs deal with it"

Still, at least if theyre running some of the Anglia area services, it means theres a better Sunday service than on GWR........

class 9 · Sunday at 13:16

TUC said:
All of which could presumably be done by back-up alternative phone numbers which crews are asked to use in circumstances such as today.

There are back up phone numbers, but control don't have access to any of the IT systems required to run a service.

Man of Kent · Sunday at 13:17

ox_chap said:
Nightmare if you want to travel north from Oxford. No East West rail available, changing at Worcester Parkway won”t work. Walk across Bicester it is…

No, as stated up thread, Chiltern has stepped into the breach. There's a 1339 Oxford to Birmingham Moor Street about to depart.

bahnause · Sunday at 13:20

Iron_Duke said:
When/if they have a problem they have to ring someone to discuss it - whether service amendments, customer issue, security problem, train issue etc. Some of these (especially train faults in the Defective On Train Equipment plan) are safety critical or security critical to the business. You can't run a train without someone being able to authorise decisions.

It probably depends on where – or in which country – you’re driving. If everything goes well, I can usually get through a normal shift without making a single phone call. As far as the rulebook and the rolling stock are concerned, I’m responsible for that myself anyway. I wouldn't get assistance from the helpdesk, but they usually just tell me what I already know (or make suggestions which I occasionally have to politely decline).

class 9 · Sunday at 13:20

GoneSouth said:
This maybe factual, but it shouldn’t form any kind of defence against shoddy business practice. They’re not running a charity shop here, they are running a vital service that affects many thousands of people’s lives and millions of pounds of economic spend.

They are like open access operators in the sense that they just plonk a train on a track and let somebody else worry about making sure the whole thing functions and they just ignore the difficult jobs. Heck, they don’t even run some stations where they are the only train operator, that’s how easy their job is! They don’t care and the sooner we’re rid of them the better

I can't see anything in my original reply to an earlier post defending anything.

Ferret · Sunday at 13:25

mrcheek said:
many people complaining about the lack of contingency plans here.

I assume XC has such plans. But presumably they are contained in or on a file that is somewhere in this building which they cant get in to...

Alternatively, it may be that their official contingency plan for a Sunday is "Bin all services, and let the other TOCs deal with it"

Still, at least if theyre running some of the Anglia area services, it means theres a better Sunday service than on GWR........

Then how in times gone by did they relocate Control to International or more recently, somewhere out towards Aston?

What’s happened here is that somebody has made a cost-based decision to dispense with the contingency. With predictable consequences. I sincerely hope to see XC’s MD before the Select Committee answering some very probing questions about what has happened, then perhaps answering further questions regarding why ORR are having to investigate multiple operational failings, and then tendering their resignation...

TUC · Sunday at 13:28

class 9 said:
There are back up phone numbers, but control don't have access to any of the IT systems required to run a service.

It should be possible-and a reasonable expectation-for the back-up plan to include alternative ways for staff to access the key systems.

Deepgreen · Sunday at 13:43

sir_gummerz said:
Due to a power failure at the head office and control center in Birmingham, all XC trains look to have been removed from the timetable today. Services aren't showing as cancelled on any screens, rather they have been completely removed.

Attached, a photo of the special notice stating the issues at bristol temple meads

Centre...

Qwerty133 · Sunday at 13:43

The social media team (who i believe are also based our of the control room unless things have changed in the past couple of years) are responding as normal. It says a lot that theyve put more thought into being able to respond on X in the event of failure than in being able to run a train service.

Deepgreen · Sunday at 13:46

Ferret said:
Then how in times gone by did they relocate Control to International or more recently, somewhere out towards Aston?

What’s happened here is that somebody has made a cost-based decision to dispense with the contingency. With predictable consequences. I sincerely hope to see XC’s MD before the Select Committee answering some very probing questions about what has happened, then perhaps answering further questions regarding why ORR are having to investigate multiple operational failings, and then tendering their resignation...

I doubt if any TOC bosses care much anymore, knowing they will be taken in-house soon. Things are withering badly, with more and more bad decisions being revealed.

Iskra · Sunday at 13:46

Qwerty133 said:
The social media team (who i believe are also based our of the control room unless things have changed in the past couple of years) are responding as normal. It says a lot that theyve put more thought into being able to respond on X in the event of failure than in being able to run a train service.

It’s a bit more simple to launch X from a different computer, than it is to run a railway…

scosutsut · Sunday at 13:50

SuspectUsual said:
No, that’s absolutely not fair enough

BC/DR * should be a fundamental for businesses, especially those operating in what used to be the public sector, ie what you might call “public critical” services. If Tesco choose not to (they don’t) then that’s their loss. This is a public service for goodness sake

Was there really nothing in the tender documents that required XC to provide and demonstrate sufficient resilience, or did the DfT accept that they’re OK if a power cut can knock out an entire TOC?

* business continuity / disaster recovery

Agree 100% with this. The loss of a single office should not take out an operation like this.

When I worked for a non-critical financial services firm, great expense was spent maintaining and periodically testing a local power generator that was capable of powering the whole site for a considerable length of time.

We also had two different internet connections, from two completely unrelated providers, entering the building at opposite ends.

Additionally they had full third party hosted Disaster Recovery (DR) set ups they could access nearby, so if an outage was deemed to be longer term than was sustainable on the original site, it would be decided to activate that and move people out to that based on a stacked priority order and schedule.

This was on top of full data centre duplication with DR failover capability. Irrespective if one or more of those Data Centres are hosted in offices or have moved to "the cloud" - it's essential if what you provide is too!

I'd expect XC (and any other TOC) to need all of this, yet it sounds like they have none of it?

AdamWW · Sunday at 13:56

scosutsut said:
I'd expect XC (and any other TOC) to need all of this, yet it sounds like they have none of it?

I think we have to wait to see what further information comes out.

They may have been extremely unlucky in some way. And maybe not.

ivorytoast28 · Sunday at 14:01

Good to see other operators stepping up but ultimately there is the core east west node that only Cross-country serve and there doesn't really seem to be any alternative from Derby/Leicester to Birmingham

Are other operators really allowing via London for all those on that journey or is the expectation to go via crewe which even with some extra services cannot possibly have the capacity to support all XC customers

Andrew1395 · Sunday at 14:02

How are Grand Central coping with the loss of (their shared use) XC control?

liamf656 · Sunday at 14:03

Andrew1395 said:
How are Grand Central coping with the loss of (their shared use) XC control?

They're running perfectly fine

ox_chap · Sunday at 14:10

Qwerty133 said:
The social media team (who i believe are also based our of the control room unless things have changed in the past couple of years) are responding as normal. It says a lot that theyve put more thought into being able to respond on X in the event of failure than in being able to run a train service.

And don”t forget Kevin the pigeon either (the XC advert in case you’ve missed it).

45Fox · Sunday at 14:14

Qwerty133 said:
The social media team (who i believe are also based our of the control room unless things have changed in the past couple of years) are responding as normal. It says a lot that theyve put more thought into being able to respond on X in the event of failure than in being able to run a train service.

They could very well be doing this on their smartphones, no need to be anywhere on railway premises.

EYFanatic · Sunday at 14:23

ox_chap said:
And don”t forget Kevin the pigeon either (the XC advert in case you’ve missed it).

Ironically, Kevin is the fastest member of XC staff today

Edit:

I have to say I am surprised that XC haven't used the coloured rubber process that some smaller airlines use when their systems go down

For those who dont know, thats when they get coloured rubbers and call them Crew 1, Crew 2 and so on and move them around as and when they are supposed to be at the other end of a route thereby getting things moving and knowing where people are

All cross country services suspended 23/08/26

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