Electrical fault at Motherwell Bridgeworks..

[Jydo]

There seemed to be some kind of electrical fault yesterday at Motherwell level crossing which affected the whole (road) traffic light signals plus the level crossing aswell. Traffic was chaos with traffic lights out of sync, changing green --> red every 10 seconds or not changing at all - frustrated motorists also choosing to drive through red lights. Anyway I was in Network Rail just round the corner dropping off packages & the guys in there looked a bit stressed to say the least, the point i'm making is that some trains were diverted via Mossend junction onto Shotts line (??) obviously causing a squeeze on the usual services, some of these were Virgin trains heading both north & south so because of this would every service then be running late? Are drivers under more pressure in this instance or is it just "heyho" services are late but business as usual? I seen one Virgin train heading south thru Bellshill at a snails pace plus the right curve at Mossend wouldnt give it any chance to speed up........DBS also use that line clogging it up plus I also seen a EDI - GLA train running about 7 mins late.....

Does a Virgin driver have to include possible diversions into his route knowledge??

I dont really know what i'm trying to say with all this, from someone on the outside looking in I suppose this is just another one of these fascinating days on the railway!!!

 

[edwin_m]

Yes drivers typically have commonly-used diversionary routes in their route knowledge. There are often a few trains at odd times of day deliberately timed by these diversionary routes so that the operator can use all their staff in turn on these workings to keep their knowledge current.

A diversion via Mossend might add 10min or so to a Glasgow-London journey, perhaps a bit more if it got stuck behind a stopper. If going towards Glasgow it would be late there is there is only a few minutes margin in the schedules, but it should be possible to reduce the turnaround time so the next departure was on time.

If nothing else went wrong a train to London should make this up by the time it got there, but unfortunately it's often the case that a delayed train misses its planned path and gets stuck behind other slower trains further down the line so its delay often increases.