Darlington Points Failure

[eastcoast77]

There was a points failure at Darlington this afternoon, preventing trains heading south from using Platform 1.

Instead of using Platform 4 for all services has been done in the past, the majority of trains skipped Darlington at the last minute (ie. This wasn’t communicated to passenger until after the train left Durham/Newcastle) to prevent congestion forming and delaying services between York and Newcastle.

Passengers instead had to change at Northallerton (SSOs added in for convince) and double back to Darlington.

I was curious about any other examples of larger stations being completely skipped like this and what it says about how much of a priority Darlington to York/London/Manchester services are? Is used less now TPE stop at Eaglescliffe, Redcar and Saltburn?

 

[norbitonflyer]

I was curious about any other examples of larger stations being completely skipped like this and what it says about how much of a priority Darlington to York/London/Manchester services are? Is used less now TPE stop at Eaglescliffe, Redcar and Saltburn?

Darlington ranks 223rd in the stats on station usage, with 2,349,906. There are plenty of stations in the London suburban area with higher stats than that - Catford Bridge is in the place above with 2,356,720. Maryland has more than double, at 4,713,620. Such stations are frequently skipped to make up time.

Of course those stats do not include interchanging passengers, of which Darlington has more than a few (486,363 in the latest stats, ranking it at 104), but I have experienced trains skipping all their stops between Waterloo and Teddington or Surbiton - including Clapham junction, which has nearly 23 million entries and exits and more than 20 million interchanges (the busiest interchange for which stats are recorded).

I understand at Darlington the problem was a points failure making calls physically impossible. The skips in London are done despite the trains in question actually runnning through the platforms they are scheduled to call at - it's simply to get the train and crew to the other end of the line in time - and frequently doesn't work as the signallers don't prioritise them so they get stuck behind trains that are still calling.

 

[800001]

Darlington ranks 223rd in the stats on station usage, with 2,349,906. There are plenty of stations in the London suburban area with higher stats than that - Catford Bridge is in the place above with 2,356,720. Maryland has more than double, at 4,713,620. Such stations are frequently skipped to make up time.

Of course those stats do not include interchanging passengers, of which Darlington has more than a few (486,363 in the latest stats, ranking it at 104), but I have experienced trains skipping all their stops between Waterloo and Teddington or Surbiton - including Clapham junction, which has nearly 23 million entries and exits and more than 20 million interchanges (the busiest interchange for which stats are recorded).

I understand at Darlington the problem was a points failure making calls physically impossible. The skips in London are done despite the trains in question actually runnning through the platforms they are scheduled to call at - it's simply to get the train and crew to the other end of the line in time - and frequently doesn't work as the signallers don't prioritise them so they get stuck behind trains that are still calling.

This is a contingency plan which is agreed between Network Rail and the train operators, and is meant to happen when ever there is a points failure like this.

However in exactly the same situation they some times ignore this and get all services using platform 4 however this causes delays to mount up as a queue of trains form in each direction to use the platform.

 

[Gwr12345]

I was in Darlington station at the time and I thought it was handled quite well. The train before ours was cancelled, and the XC almost immediately after was diverted into platform 4, where an announcement came over the tannoy to board the train and change at York, even before much was known.
Trying to get all services in Darlington in 1 platform would've been near impossible. I cannot really fault LNER in this case