Brighton Main Line Blocked

[Evvy73]

Just in case anyone needs to get between the Capital and the South Coast today, avoid the Brighton Main Line.

Not too sure exactly what is wrong with the Balcombe tunnel, but at Wivelsfield this morning we were told it was a 'serious problem'.

It is quite a key part of the BML as there is no simple way around it, so hopefully they will be able to get it fixed fairly quickly.

From the Southern Website:

08.45 Friday 23 September
Balcombe tunnel is currently closed and is likely to be for the rest of today due to emergency repairs.
As a result, we are unable to run trains betweeen Haywards Heath and Three Bridges in both directions.
Rail replacement buses are running between Haywards Heath and Three Bridges.
Brighton Main Line services will run between Brighton and Haywards Heath and some services will be diverted to run via the Arun Valley Line. Eastbourne to London services are terminating at Haywards Heath.
North of Three Bridges, services will start/terminate at Three Bridges/Gatwick Airport.
South West Trains, First Capital Connect and Southeastern Trains are accepting Southern tickets on all reasonable routes.
We apologise for the inconvenience this is causing.

 

[ushawk]

Weird, i made a topic at the exact same time about it

 

[Evvy73]

D'oh - I've just seen that we posted at exactly the same time!

Fortunately I can WFH so I didn't even bother trying to get to London as soon as I heard what was (or wasn't!) happening.

 

[ushawk]

Quoting what i said in my topic (which can be locked now) - its apparently emergency repairs for structual damage and may take the rest of the day.

 

[yorksrob]

Times like this highlight how useful the reinstatement of uckfield - lewes would be.

 

[paul1609]

Times like this highlight how useful the reinstatement of uckfield - lewes would be.

Not really, unless you are going to demolish a large part of Lewes town centre it would still be necessary to have an awkward reversal on the Eastbourne side of Lewes to run a direct service to Brighton. This would kill the capacity on the Coastway.

The Arundel Curve on the other hand would support a 1 hr 30 min direct service and would cost a fraction of the Uckfield Lewes reopening.
It would also provide a duplicate route all the way to London rather than just to South Croydon.

][/i]

 

[pendolino]

It's all going so well on the Brighton main line today. There was a current isolation for an hour or so at East Croydon last night/this morning (0100) after reports of a trespasser.

 

[hammerwood]

and a bit of 'blue sky' thinking:

Network Rail 'invest' in reopening Ardingly to Horsted Keynes; do a deal with the Bluebell that mainline trains can divert via East Grinstead (when EG is reopened).

 

[Minstral25]

and a bit of 'blue sky' thinking:

Network Rail 'invest' in reopening Ardingly to Horsted Keynes; do a deal with the Bluebell that mainline trains can divert via East Grinstead (when EG is reopened).

Why not go even further and extend East Grinstead trains to Brighton taking over the Semi-fasts from London south of Haywards Heath. Gets them past the main constrictor on the BML which is the two track Balcombe viaduct and tunnel.

East Croydon can be developed to handle far more trains by removing flat crossings at Windmill Junction with new flyovers and developing to an 8 platform station

 

[yorksrob]

Not really, unless you are going to demolish a large part of Lewes town centre it would still be necessary to have an awkward reversal on the Eastbourne side of Lewes to run a direct service to Brighton. This would kill the capacity on the Coastway. The Arundel Curve on the other hand would support a 1 hr 30 min direct service and would cost a fraction of the Uckfield Lewes reopening. It would also provide a duplicate route all the way to London rather than just to South Croydon. ][/i]

alas, whilst the arundel curve would have solved todays problem, you wouldn't have got the additional benefit of linking a fairly isolated part of the weald with the coast. When spending on infrastructure you may as well get an all year round benefit.

 

[ushawk]

West Coastway services now effected too.. Portsmouth trains starting/terminating at Fratton and calling at all stations.

Update on southern website says the tunnel will be closed for the rest of the day. Good info on Southern site, but when I was at Eastbourne station earlier, all PIS was off and staff didn't have much idea when trains were leaving.

 

[paul1609]

alas, whilst the arundel curve would have solved todays problem, you wouldn't have got the additional benefit of linking a fairly isolated part of the weald with the coast. When spending on infrastructure you may as well get an all year round benefit.

Im afraid I think that the cost benefit ratio of a direct service linking west sussex's biggest towns Crawley, Horsham and Worthing would blow any Uckfield scheme out of the water.

Im not against the Uckfield to Lewes scheme per se but to suggest it provides best solution for an alternative service to Brighton is just not correct. If the 1960s formation through Lewes was available may be, but as I say that would now require Major demolition in Lewes Town Centre and I havent seen any scheme that proposes that.

 

[David Sinnett]

Curious the knock ons... my 7.58 Bedford to Elephant was cancelled due to investigation at Haywards Heath despite the fact the train was at Bedford, waiting. Consequently the next service was full to capacity.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Explanation of what's caused the problem at the following link...

http://www.rail.co/2011/09/23/brighton-main-line-closed-for-a-day/

Anyone know what time the rail replacement buses between Haywards Heath and Three Bridges actually got up and running?

 

[yorksrob]

Im afraid I think that the cost benefit ratio of a direct service linking west sussex's biggest towns Crawley, Horsham and Worthing would blow any Uckfield scheme out of the water. Im not against the Uckfield to Lewes scheme per se but to suggest it provides best solution for an alternative service to Brighton is just not correct. If the 1960s formation through Lewes was available may be, but as I say that would now require Major demolition in Lewes Town Centre and I havent seen any scheme that proposes that.

whilst there might not be a direct service between those towns, you can get between them relatively easily with a change at gatwick or three bridges. Also, reversal isn't as big a problem. I have on occasion been diverted via lewes when travelling between haywards heath and brighton.

 

[causton]

Curious the knock ons... my 7.58 Bedford to Elephant was cancelled due to investigation at Haywards Heath despite the fact the train was at Bedford, waiting. Consequently the next service was full to capacity.

Hmm that's weird! The only thing I could think of is that it would then get stuck without any path to go back when it could go no further, and had no place to stable for the meantime...

 

[ChrisCooper]

I sometimes wonder if they shoot themselves in the foot with their constant assertions that "at no time were the travelling public at risk", as it then leads to the question of why the rush to stop the job then if there is no risk? It does contradict. At the end of the day anyone who knows about how H&S is today knows it's about being risk averse, that as soon as a problem comes to light it's a far bigger risk than it was when no-one knew about it. I've had to do the same in my own work, and often thought how mad it is that I'm causing disruption to customers because of a problem that has been there for a while without causing an incident but now it's been noticed needs attending to immediatly, but at the same time I know damned well that if it had failed before it had been noticed and lead to an incident then at worst questions would have been asked about monitoring, yet had by terrible bad luck it failed between being noticed and being delt with and lead to an incident, myself and others involved could be in serious trouble. Of cource though the public doesn't see that, despite the fact that the public are the ones who have made things how they are (afterall they buy the tabloids who will demand the book is thrown at anyone who doesn't do everything by the book when things go wrong, yet at the same time criticise "jobsworths" for doing things by the book when it causes disruption).

On the subject of diversionary routes, we've had this discussion time and time again whenever a line is blocked where alternative routes could be available. The problem is that these sorts of incidents are rare. Yes we hear about them often, but they happen in all sorts of different places, but the number that occur that would be delt with by one particular diversion being available are very small (when was the last time the BML was blocked for more than 2 hours when a diversion via Uckfield would have been usable?). Diversionary routes though can be costly to implement, and can never be viable just for that. Even where they are available, they are not perfect, it requires drivers and guards to know the diversion, trains must be cleared for the diversion. There can be pathing problems on the diversionary route (and again it is not viable to design signalling systems to cope with diversions just on the offchance). Diversions are no good for trains that have already passed the point where they can turn off, or for passengers wishing to travel too or from stations in the effected area. They also are no good at times where problems are widespread such as due to weather or widespread signalling or power failure. Diversions usually take some time to set up, and can lead to longer journies, so are only really useful for long delays, not shorter ones. Actually I remember one time I was on a train that almost got diverted, but it took so long to get it arranged that by that time the line was re-opened, but had they been a bit faster we'd have ended up about 20mins later because of the time taken to go around the diversion compared to the direct route.

 

[button_boxer]

Diversions are no good for trains that have already passed the point where they can turn off, or for passengers wishing to travel too or from stations in the effected area. They also are no good at times where problems are widespread such as due to weather or widespread signalling or power failure. Diversions usually take some time to set up, and can lead to longer journies, so are only really useful for long delays, not shorter ones. Actually I remember one time I was on a train that almost got diverted, but it took so long to get it arranged that by that time the line was re-opened, but had they been a bit faster we'd have ended up about 20mins later because of the time taken to go around the diversion compared to the direct route.

One occasion I was on a Sheffield to Derby XC that got to about a mile north of Derby station (inside the Derby ring road) and stopped for 20 minutes or so. Guard announced that police had closed the line due to a suicidal individual threatening to jump off a bridge. Eventually reversed all the way back to Chesterfield with the intention of diverting via the Erewash valley. Pulled into Chesterfield platform 1, stopped for a few minutes, then out of Chesterfield northbound to cross onto the freight line, stop, and reverse again into platform 3, intending to couple up to what would have been the following XC service to run in multiple to Birmginham...

... at which point the line was re-opened. Eventually made it to Derby by the direct route an hour and a half or so late.

 

[adtrainz]

Southern really aren't doing well this week, are they?

Ticket offices/machines, damaged tunnels, Three Bridges closure this weekend...

 

[Class377/5]

Curious the knock ons... my 7.58 Bedford to Elephant was cancelled due to investigation at Haywards Heath despite the fact the train was at Bedford, waiting. Consequently the next service was full to capacity.

Just because your train doesn't go to the area doesn't mean the driver of said service didn't. All routes on FCC are inter connected so once you get something major like this then you end up with drivers missing their trains and it being too late to run it. Hence your train was cancelled.

It's always been like this so it's nothing new.

 

[embers25]

Major props to Southern. Am currently sitting on virtually empty 1700 London Bridge to Brighton Express running fast to HASTINGS via Orpington then Bexhill, Eastbourne, Polegate, Lewes and Brighton!! At least they tried to run a service around Balcombe even if it was only advertised and hour before so only a handful of people are on it! Is this the first visit of a Southern unit whilst in service to the Tonbridge-Hastings Line?

 

[ushawk]

Southern really aren't doing well this week, are they?

Ticket offices/machines, damaged tunnels, Three Bridges closure this weekend...

The Three Bridges closure is because they are putting in a new bridge on the lines which run over the station subway, so the station obviously has to be closed for the work to take place. Seems disruption is getting more frequent for Southern now.

 

[embers25]

24 mins to Tonbridge but just not fast enough to pass the 1649 so stuck behind it in our allotted path to Hastings. Still gonna have 20 minutes at Hastings as we aren't scheduled to leave till 1849 for some reason! Apparently 2000 into Brighton which at 3 hours is not that express but it does beat standing. Been getting strange looks passing through the stations!

 

[Evvy73]

Southern have just posted these two pictures of the work taking place in the Tunnel.
http://yfrog.com/kidd4qej
http://yfrog.com/18e4mbhj

Obviously something major going on, but despite having travelled through it twice a day for the last 14 years, I am afraid I can't tell you exactly what!

 

[embers25]

Southeastern train crew of two drivers crewing the 1700 Southern service made many footy fans very happy as I asked him if they'd stop at St Leonards to allow passengers to cross over the bridge and catch the 1828 to Brighton as it would get in earlier than us to all stations and also went to Falmer. He asked the driver and he agreed...cue many happy people. I for one would like to thank the Southeastern crew for staffing the train and for being as much help as they possibly could.

 

[ushawk]

New delays for Southern. A broken-down train at Falmer is causing 40 minute delays between Lewes and Brighton - which is going to be made worse by the fact Brighton are playing a Home game at the Amex tonight

 

[DJ_K666]

Not really, unless you are going to demolish a large part of Lewes town centre it would still be necessary to have an awkward reversal on the Eastbourne side of Lewes to run a direct service to Brighton. This would kill the capacity on the Coastway.

The Arundel Curve on the other hand would support a 1 hr 30 min direct service and would cost a fraction of the Uckfield Lewes reopening.
It would also provide a duplicate route all the way to London rather than just to South Croydon.

][/i]

No great loss, a load of 70s buildings and a Tesco. None of which ought to be there.

Arundel Curve would still mean an 80 mile diversion and an ALL STATIONS CRAWL for much of it...

 

[ushawk]

No great loss, a load of 70s buildings and a Tesco. None of which ought to be there.

Arundel Curve would still mean an 80 mile diversion and an ALL STATIONS CRAWL for much of it...

So what will you say for the hundreds of people who will lose everything for it ?

"Sorry but we may need to use the new line occasionally for some diversions". If the Lewes line was to be reopened, only possible way in my eyes would be to tunnel through to somewhere near Southerham Jct, but this would cost too much, why the Arundel chord looks better, as it would be handy if any place on the mainline (South of Balham) was badly affected by disruption and theres the opportunity of a new direct service linking Horsham and Arundel to Worthing and Brighton.

 

[Minstral25]

Curious the knock ons... my 7.58 Bedford to Elephant was cancelled due to investigation at Haywards Heath despite the fact the train was at Bedford, waiting. Consequently the next service was full to capacity.

FCC very disappointing today - just cancelled every second train to Brighton turning it from a 15 minute interval to a 30 minute interval - although they could have just terminated at Three Bridges and then returned North (Yes Train crew may have been in Brighton but it takes 30 minutes by cab from Brighton to Three Bridges). Don't they realise there are other passengers between Bedford and Brighton who didn't want to go south of Gatwick

At least Southern did there best to run as many trains as possible.

Not Biased of course but I tried to use FCC today.....

 

[swt_passenger]

West Coastway services now effected too.. Portsmouth trains starting/terminating at Fratton and calling at all stations.

Predictable knock on effects. The Arun Valley signalling can apparently only deal with 2 fast and 2 slow tph between Horsham and Arundel/Ford, so the first thing that always gets changed is that the Portsmouth/Bognor and Southampton/Bognor services are altered to split/join at Barnham, and run in the stopping paths. Hence they cannot get beyond Fratton or Fareham in time to meet their return trip.

SWT's PIS announcements at Southampton this evening were confusing the situation IMHO though - they had presumably added a 'helpful' PA announcement for use all over their network describing the problem at Balcombe and suggesting passengers for Brighton should travel to Havant and change for an onward connection. This would have made perfect sense for stations between Waterloo and Woking and probably as far as Guildford, but wasn't a lot of use at Southampton where the normal SN Brighton service was running (although subject to short delays)...

That's only a minor criticism though - given I was at SOU I felt they were generally pretty good at advising Gatwick bound pax to head for Fareham via FGW and SWT services - it was all properly displayed against the relevant services on the display screens listing upcoming services...