The report says that East Coast had sold 36,714 advance tickets for Saturiday 27 December. I don't know how that compares to a typical weekday or Saturday, but it's clearly a lot of people.
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ECML Disruption - Saturday 27th December
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The report says that East Coast had sold 36,714 advance tickets for Saturiday 27 December. I don't know how that compares to a typical weekday or Saturday, but it's clearly a lot of people.
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carriageline
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It seems the reason it overrun was when removing the old ballast, scrap rails and sleepers. New equipment that was bought in especially to reduce the risk of breakdown, broke down 
It was a new machine that was new hardware on the railway, hadn't been tested on the railway and ultimately proved to not be unreliable when put into use. They then thought they could still have 2 lines open, and by that point they had past the point of return and they was committed to the works. And then as we know, the drivers ran out of hours.
And it sounds like they will be doing another report looking into whether works should actually take place over xmas/holidays!
It was a new machine that was new hardware on the railway, hadn't been tested on the railway and ultimately proved to not be unreliable when put into use. They then thought they could still have 2 lines open, and by that point they had past the point of return and they was committed to the works. And then as we know, the drivers ran out of hours.
And it sounds like they will be doing another report looking into whether works should actually take place over xmas/holidays!
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MichaelJP59
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I hope NR don't go overboard just to satisfy the politicians. It seems the main lessons are to do with project and risk management, especially testing untried equipment!
I see nothing wrong with holiday work if the projects are correctly managed, the other alternatives are just as inconvenient to passengers.
I see nothing wrong with holiday work if the projects are correctly managed, the other alternatives are just as inconvenient to passengers.
When an IT project I was part of went wrong, the lowest ranked employees where made scapegoats.
My reading of the report was that it wasn't new technology, just new equipment.
carriageline
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steverailer
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Don't get the bit about untried equipment?
The grabs are used regularly on the railway, the way the report is worded suggests that they had never been used in this situation, which is wrong. As I see it the only untested part was wether they would work on the Giggas supplied.
As for the hours of the drivers, why are they the only ones on engineering work not allowed to go over there hours? I was on a OLE job further down the line, due to delays getting the machine controllers signed in we had a 2 hrs overrun on our job, we were just risk assessed and asked if we would carry on to finish the job, that was after 9hrs in the basket installing new wire, cantelevers and section insulators. Surely they could do the same for the drivers and go from there
From reading the report it seems the original problem was an incompatibility between a brand new set of "log grabs" (used for picking up the scrapped rail) and the Road Rail Vehicles (RRV's).
Nobody seems to have tested the new grabs with the supplied RRV's and staff unfamiliarity and hydraulic oil leaks caused time to be lost whilst the equipment was being made to work. The contractor did supply an on site fitter who must have had his work cut out getting it all to work, but several hours time was lost. More time was then lost when the drivers ran out of hours as discussed in the 20 pages above this one.
A further problem mentioned in the report was a failure with one of the wagons in a ballast train which meant it could not move for several hours.
The report mentioned that new log grabs were ordered as an insurance against failure of older ones but it seemed optimistic to expect things to work straight out of the box - how often have we heard that?
Nobody seems to have tested the new grabs with the supplied RRV's and staff unfamiliarity and hydraulic oil leaks caused time to be lost whilst the equipment was being made to work. The contractor did supply an on site fitter who must have had his work cut out getting it all to work, but several hours time was lost. More time was then lost when the drivers ran out of hours as discussed in the 20 pages above this one.
A further problem mentioned in the report was a failure with one of the wagons in a ballast train which meant it could not move for several hours.
The report mentioned that new log grabs were ordered as an insurance against failure of older ones but it seemed optimistic to expect things to work straight out of the box - how often have we heard that?
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That's not unusual, although I tend to see the CTOs of this world under far more pressure.
If we're sold a line that people at CxO level deserve the highest wages and bonuses in order to attract the best people, then their performance deserves the highest scrutiny. Presiding over what sounds like a systemic failure that led to a complete meltdown, dominating headlines for days, well... You have to ask if they're capable of doing their job effectively. And you don't keep someone that expensive on if they're not.
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
It's not that many people, it's only just over half the capacity of the Emirates Stadium which empties out through Finsbury Park station, and they all arrive at once and not across a 12-hour day.
The killer line in the report is that no emergency planning was undertaken to mitigate the risk that all four lines would be closed on the Saturday. That seems a staggering omission. It would also explain why GTR and Network Rail planners were running around like headless chickens at 2100 on Boxing Day.
Finsbury Park station regularly copes with bigger crowds than it saw that day. The fact it descended into chaos is because nobody bothered planning an emergency management procedure. They could even have used the one they normally have when there are events at the Emirates Stadium or Finsbury Park!
DaveNewcastle
Established Member
That's not a vast variation on the numbers on other days - passenger numbers frequently exceed 50k on a day *, and I would expect the proportion of passengers travelling on 'walk up' tickets to be lower on holidays.
[ * That's passengers across the entire EC network, whether reaching London or not, the number travelling into or out of London is ca. 60% of that i.e. around 30k ]
bramling
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I love the bit about 100 trains having arrived, departed at or passed through Finsbury Park by 10:00 with "little incident". Nice to know that the 90 minute delays to some of the first trains, making numerous people late for work, is regarded as "little incident".
This aspect of the disruption appears to have been completely ignored, from what I understand there were issues elsewhere on the railway during the early morning period. Also the complete lack of information from the TOCs. None of this has been covered in the report.
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The key difference though is that with a football match everyone is aiming for the station exits. In the Christmas situation everyone was looking to transfer between tube and train which, apart from being slower in itself, also required passengers to take more time to find their way than just look for the nearest exit. Football fans are also seeking to get out of the station to the match as quickly as possible. Passengers on longer journeys with luggage will be much slower.
Why do they try and do/use new stuff on jobs like this, use equipment/ideas that have been used/done before and proved to work, use the new stuff on less important jobs so if there are some issues they are not such a problem to sort out.
Another case of shiny and new is better, when actually dirty and run in is best.
Another case of shiny and new is better, when actually dirty and run in is best.
It is a staggering omission to say the least, if anything there should be an investigation into why there was no contingency planning.
I also agree that Finsbury can deal with big numbers coming out the Emirates, what has probably escalated the issues on the 27th is luggage, buggies etc and animals (of the four legged variety not irate passengers honest). The Emirates emptying sees 60,000 mostly able bodied people making for the station without luggage, probably the odd fold down buggy and no animals (again of the four legged variety). That's where the lack of contingency made the situation worse. From going to the odd match at the Emirates there are also a lot of staff at Finsbury to keep things moving so obviously that would not be in place either and I'm damn sure if I was off on the 27th I probably wouldn't go into work knowing I'd been dealing with passengers who had been decamped from KGX and probably wouldn't be happy.
The transport select committee really needs to ask why there was no planning for overrun
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carriageline
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It's the plant supplier you should be saying that to! Whilst NR wanted new equipment, the supplier (presuming it's the same one) supplied the RRVs and the log thingys, yet they wasn't compatible with each other. A RRV (which I believe one was provided as a spare) also failed which the onsite fitter couldn't fix, so outside help was requested there.
Old and run in fail too, as the first Watford blockade showed us!
It was also nice to see none of the decisions made on the ground (with regards to the works and what was undertaken) were criticised, and it was planned correctly and within a suitable risk matrix.
Oh I know that, but I think that a brand new untested item has a bigger chance of failing than a similar component which has been bedded in.
It makes a refreshing change, cant see it happening again mind!
carriageline
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Oh I know that, but I think that a brand new untested item has a bigger chance of failing than a similar component which has been bedded in.
It makes a refreshing change, cant see it happening again mind!
I completely agree. It should of been tested off site with the exact set up that was going to be used on the day.
steverailer
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Oh I know that, but I think that a brand new untested item has a bigger chance of failing than a similar component which has been bedded in.
It makes a refreshing change, cant see it happening again mind!
Do you actually understand the piece of equipment used? There's no more chance of a fail on a new machine than an old one in this situation. From reading the report I guess it was the mix of new hose fittings to old that caused the problem. These fittings can leak just as easily on old gear as well. These are not 'new and untested' as in the equipment has never been used in that situation. They were 'new' as in brand new to the firm instead of using the grabs they have that are 5-10yrs old
I would assume that all the gear had had some sort of testing and service before being put out to work, I know it does happen at my firm, but there is only so much you can do in the depot. Major breakdowns can occur at any point, all a firm can do is mittigate that risk with regular servicing (part of NWR approval, every 6 weeks at our place wether the item has been used or not), and having on site fitters with equipped vans (done on this job). Some times you cannot predict when a component will fail and it may be a major breakdown as in the 2 cases on this job (rrv and wagon).
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You don't exactlly get chunks of panels lay around every hire depot. The type of grab have been used for this type of work for years, they were just brand new grabs for the job, not a new type of grab
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I agree, in fact I said that near the beginning of this thread on the 27th (and got fairly roundly monstered for my troubles)
The Pope is Catholic, bears poo in the woods and possessions overrun (for whatever reason).
The earlier question about Hidden (with regards to drivers running out of hours) is also interesting. Firstly the freight drivers from all I can make out are a fairly accomodating lot and I'm not implying anything about them.
Certainly it used to be the case when I was on the track in pre rimini days that the 12 hours rule on Hidden could be busted if things had gone badly wrong. I'm aware of the towing 400 tonnes argument but its I would say no worse a risk than someone terminating or checking a colour coded signal cable after 12 hours, so why do have we an *apparent* exemption allowed for S&T when the merde hits the fan but not for train crew. There may well be an obvious reason, such as an EU directive, I just don't know it.
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I think you missed the line before it:
"the contingency plans for the handing back of the two lines on the 27 December focussed mainly on the likelihood that any delay would be a few hours at most, which would be realistic for this sort of work."
i.e. There was a contingency plan, to cater for the event that all four lines would be closed on the Saturday. Just not all day Saturday, ie for 24 hours.
So the question becomes: for a relatively routine piece of work, in a possession lasting around 54 hours, which has been demonstrated to have a 95% confidence of handing back on time, and that has a full operational contingency plan in the event of a few hours overrun, is it reasonable to expect the preparation of another detailed operational contingency plan to cater for a 24 hour overrun? Especially when there already is an off the shelf contingency plan for an all line block south of Finsbury Park?
And if the answer that is yes, then should it apply to all other relatively routine jobs on main lines? And if so, who is picking up the bill? Taxpayer or fare payer?
If there had just been that one bit of work on that stretch then you might have a point but, as you stated on the 26th December:
Bald Rick said:
With so many sets of major work going on simultaneously the risk of one of them significantly overrunning was much higher. Also it was also known that the other Anglo Scottish route would be blocked all day at Watford, meaning any overrun would have more impact than usual on long distance pax.
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wensley
Established Member
I agree that the contingency produced was suitable for the level of risk - as with all these jobs you can only plan for so many eventualities.
As for the other works (including the Thameslink Project) there were no others that 'filled' the available window of time from late Christmas Eve to early 27 December, apart from the new OLE neutral section at Coreys Mill (Stevenage - Hitchin). The contingency plan produced addressed various scenarios for this work overrunning, as well as the scenario catered for at Holloway.
MichaelJP59
Member
That's true, if you have 6 unrelated tasks all at 95% probability of success, simple maths indicates probability of all 6 succeeding is 73.5% or an approx 1 in 4 chance of failure.
Agreed that the risk is higher, but not much higher. The Holloway work was the most complex in that block.
Having said that, I'm not an overrun apologist. It shouldn't have happened, and when it did it should have been managed much better.
Agreed. Which was why contingency plans were in place for overruns, but unfortunately the particular failure was one that wasn't foreseen.
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
The problem is that they identified major issues with the usual "off the shelf contingency plan"- i.e. Euston was shut and St Pancras was overrun- but took no steps to mitigate the issue.
There's nothing wrong with the plans used for Arsenal home matches, for music events at Finsbury Park, or for all-line blocks at Kings Cross. The problem was these plans were implemented with a truly astounding amount of incompetence. The fact is that, when they finally got around to it, the one-way system cleared the station backlog in about 90 minutes. Why nobody thought to implement that plan from the first train of the morning- preventing the backlog ever building up- is anyone's guess. I'm assuming it comes down to pounds and pence.
Can we stop referencing the plans for football and how Finsbury Park copes with 60k Arsenal fans...... A tiny percentage of Arsenal fans in reality use the GN route,the vast majority use the underground from either Finsbury Park or Arsenal tube stations,plus those that use the bus and drive to say Finsbury Park sees 60k Arsenal fans every game is very misleading.
Also part from 3 or 4 football specials the rest are normal services, all the services take into account the lines are open from Kings X which on this day meant there wasn't the scope to run these services.
Only one platform has the ability to turn back from the north at Finsbury Park which meant that was all East Coast could use, Drayton park is as far as GN units ( with the exception of 313's can go) and only Kings X drivers sign the canonbury lines which requires two drivers for most shunts due to lack of change end facility.
The basic principle is that Finsbury Park in its current shape/design is no replacement for London Kings Cross and it would never be able to cope with the passenger flows from Kings Cross
Also part from 3 or 4 football specials the rest are normal services, all the services take into account the lines are open from Kings X which on this day meant there wasn't the scope to run these services.
Only one platform has the ability to turn back from the north at Finsbury Park which meant that was all East Coast could use, Drayton park is as far as GN units ( with the exception of 313's can go) and only Kings X drivers sign the canonbury lines which requires two drivers for most shunts due to lack of change end facility.
The basic principle is that Finsbury Park in its current shape/design is no replacement for London Kings Cross and it would never be able to cope with the passenger flows from Kings Cross
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
Who said it received all 60,000? Point is the station can cope with big crowds after big events at the Emirates Stadium or Finsbury Park (over 100,000 attended the Stone Roses gig in 2013, for instance). Even if only 10% of an Arsenal crowd use Finsbury Park that's still 6000 people, far more than you would get on or off an EastCoast train.
The plan was to arrive on platform four and depart on platform five. That plan was not stuck to which, combined with the lack of crowd segregation in the station, directly caused the crowding.
Incompetence doesn't even begin to cover it.
And nobody says it is (although Kings Cross had a heavily reduced timetable that day- 4tph in each direction IIRC). But with even the slightest bit of organisation you can prevent a situation where nobody can get off an arriving train because the platform is full of outbound passengers.
Overruns happen and, when they do, delays happen. Everyone who is sensible accepts that, and also accepts that planning mitigation for events that have a 0.01% likelihood is a waste of cash. But that's no defence for what was a complete shambles in the crowd management at Finsbury Park.
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They are "allowed" to go over their hours and many did do just that on Xmas day. The issue is how much they go over their hours (most were already on a 10+hr diagram) and the fact that many of them then have at least an hours van drive back to the booking off point. No one should, or be made to feel they should, be working over 12hrs whatever grade.
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