2340 London Euston to Northampton cancelled (16/09)

[Ken_Ilworth]

Many pax on concourse tonight at Euston awaiting 2340. At 2331 changed to cancelled 'due to operational incident'. Swiftly removed from board at 2337. Most able to get 0015, assuming it runs. No announcement and no staff around (a few BTP, but obviously there with other priorities). What does ' operational incident' mean?
(0015 currently expected 0022)

 

[AlexNL]

According to RealtimeTrains the service was cancelled throughout due to an issue with the train crew (TG). According to the Delay Attribution Guide, code "TG" has "Driver" listed as the cause.

My best guess is that there was no driver available to operate the 23.40.

 

[Ken_Ilworth]

Many thanks. 'operational incident' was a new one on me. In my experience they've always stated ' shortage of train crew' in the past.
Thanks for the links..

 

[tsr]

The stock for the service ran empty along its booked route, albeit a few minutes late from Euston (time which it quickly made up).

My guess is that either:
- Realtime Trains has the wrong reason, and it was the guard who was unavailable.
- As above, but that it was the train which had a problem.
- The driver was unfit to drive the train in passenger service for some reason.
- The stock and / or crew were needed back at Northampton a lot earlier than planned, perhaps due to avoid implications with the service the next day.
or
- We just don't know...

 

[BestWestern]

'Operational incident' generally means something has gone wrong somewhere, either human error or technological failure, resulting in the train and/or crew needing to come out of service. Could be a Spad, station overrun, Guard door release or dispatch issue, etc. Alternatively, it could well have been that somebody decided to tell a porkie and not admit that there was a lack of crew for it!

 

[CC 72100]

TG is the attribution code for the delay being attributed to drivers - but that can mean anything related to drivers, including driver operational incident or driver shortage.

tsr is probably the closest - it's far from unknown for traincrew incidents (Driver = TG, Guard = TH) to be mis-coded, although most common for miscoding when it is a staff shortage.