Elizabeth line reliability issues

[Horizon22]

Yesterday I travelled from Whitechapel to Reading. Everything was like clockwork and as it should be. So it does work as advertised sometimes! All the trains in the central core were incredibly busy.

Well yes, despite the hyperbole in the thread, the Elizabeth line remains one of the most punctual railways in the country. Of course things go wrong from time to time.

To counter... Yesterday I traveled from T4 to Custom House. Heavily delayed on the way out resulting in fast running from Heathrow to Paddington, didn't even make it to T4 on the return as the driver announced at Hayes that the train would instead be terminating at West Drayton.

All platforms between Hayes and Ealing Broadway had lots of people on so it must have been very cosy on any services that did actually stop there.

A Heathrow Express train and then an Elizabeth line train not long both had signalling issues, possibly related to the infrastructure. It can quite congested at Heathrow if something goes wrong with up to 10tph and a single line to T4, hence the need to use Hayes or even West Drayton to prevent strandings.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 31 Jul 2023 ==

Why do they continue to do this? Surely there’s a better way of making back time. It’s not helpful for those of us waiting further down the line

The only alternative to "make back time" is to divert to the high level Paddington platforms. Better for the intermediates, but less so for the Heathrow passengers who wanted Central London and also a gap towards Abbey Wood. Also from a performance side it's worse also as you have two part-cancellations. It's a balance.

With a train every 15 minutes, you'd be better of running it non-stop if it's 15+ minutes late because the next service should be (nature of the disruption dependent) right behind.

 

[Annetts key]

Clearly a big benefit from Modernising Maintenance when this eventually happens, since it is evident from your postings that shortage of staff is a significant issue here. Inevitably a relatively small 'delivery unit' will be overwhelmed by something of this magnitude and the amount of time the incident was ongoing.

Competence should not and must not be allowed to become a blocker for this very sensible and much needed progression. Network Rail needs to be focused on the needs of the railway's customers, not its own IR / internal politics which have held sway for too long.

I’m not so sure. The level of engineering resources is being reduced everywhere (except off-track, which already can’t cope on Western).

So if the adjacent route/region has it’s own difficulties, they won’t be happy to loan staff to another area. Plus, in the London area, there is also the problem of travel time due to the amount of road traffic.

There is only limited value in getting other staff competent if they can refuse to go when the balloon goes up, and it sounds like anyone 'volunteering' against the wishes of the union risks become persona non-grata under current conditions.

Granted we don't know if the number of volunteers from the neighbouring delivery unit were significant or not, but that area is probably not even the third nearest to the incident.

The unions have no objections if it’s voluntary.

As an example, Bristol S&T have assisted all these places over the years:

• Gloucester,
• Newport
• Swindon
• Westbury
• Exeter

And Gloucester, Newport, Swindon, Westbury have helped out Bristol as well.

When Worcester transferred to a different route/region (it was originally part of Western, but was transferred to North West & Central), the unions agreed with the company sensible temporary cover arrangements whilst the new management team recruited and trained up new staff. Hence Gloucester covered faults and helped out with maintenance as well.

So Western Route Central DU helping out Western Route East DU is not surprising. Especially when Western Route Central DU already provide certain services to the other Western DUs.

Imposing is very different to coming to an agreement that is acceptable to both sides.

But this is going very off topic, if you want to discuss this further, I suggest you start a new topic.

 

[Skimpot flyer]

Look on the bright side. SWT_USER had a Heathrow Express without paying the premium fare!

 

[Backroom_boy]

When OOC opens, will there be dedicated EL tracks all the way there? Will that be the turnback point if there is disruption west of it?

 

[PGAT]

When OOC opens, will there be dedicated EL tracks all the way there? Will that be the turnback point if there is disruption west of it?

The tracks won't be dedicated to the EL as GWR need the option to use them to access Paddington High Level in case of disruption. Yes, all trains will serve OOC, half of them will turnaround in the sidings near the station.

 

[itfcfan]

The tracks won't be dedicated to the EL as GWR need the option to use them to access Paddington High Level in case of disruption. Yes, all trains will serve OOC, half of them will turnaround in the sidings near the station.

That's interesting. I'm sure I'd read the plan was to provide 6 tracks as far as OOC, allowing 2 tracks to be dedicated to XR? But possibly that was aspirations (or uninformed comment) rather than a concrete plan!

If dedicated XR tracks to OOC aren't provided, the potential for distributions on GWML to impact the XR core (even more severely than now) seems dangerously high. At least the Paddington-Shenfield services are somewhat immune from GWML problems for now (aside from 2tph that continue to Heathrow T5).

 

[Horizon22]

The tracks won't be dedicated to the EL as GWR need the option to use them to access Paddington High Level in case of disruption. Yes, all trains will serve OOC, half of them will turnaround in the sidings near the station.

Well there will be still be separate Relief & Main line platforms in terms of "dedicated" tracks - the Relief line pretty much given entirely over to the Elizabeth line now.

Believe there will be turnbacks west of Old Oak Common too effectively fulfilling the role Westbourne Park does now.

 

[Acton1991]

Points failure this morning at West Ealing means more issues, delays and cancellations. This is never ending!

 

[Cross City]

Points failure this morning at West Ealing means more issues, delays and cancellations. This is never ending!

Are we just going to moan about everything which affects this line even if it's not specifically an Elizabeth Line problem?

 

[Acton1991]

Are we just going to moan about everything which affects this line even if it's not specifically an Elizabeth Line problem?

Yes! I don’t understand why people continue to defend the substandard service we’re receiving. It doesn’t matter if it’s a problem of the Elizabeth line or Network Rail or whoever, the fact of the matter is that this line (especially in the West) continues to be plagued with issues.

 

[SWT_USER]

Look on the bright side. SWT_USER had a Heathrow Express without paying the premium fare!

Yes I wasn't complaining too much for my outward journey!

Yes! I don’t understand why people continue to defend the substandard service we’re receiving. It doesn’t matter if it’s a problem of the Elizabeth line or Network Rail or whoever, the fact of the matter is that this line (especially in the West) continues to be plagued with issues.

Agree - this morning it's because the points for the Greenford branch have failed, AIUI - I don't know why they can't just leave a unit on it all week as they do for the Windsor branch - would save a potential points failure for the morning peak

The west side seems to be particularly bad at the moment. Not great considering we're in summer and failures tend to be worse in Winter.

 

[800001]

Yes! I don’t understand why people continue to defend the substandard service we’re receiving. It doesn’t matter if it’s a problem of the Elizabeth line or Network Rail or whoever, the fact of the matter is that this line (especially in the West) continues to be plagued with issues.

No different to any other line in the country for points failures, signal failures, train faults, but we do not see posts about those every day!

What makes the line west of Paddington more important to complain about than any other line?

 

[TFN]

What makes the line west of Paddington more important to complain about than any other line?

Just using the Elizabeth Line as the example, failures and issues happen much much more frequently on the West than on the East.

3 days of signalling last week. An OLE fault at Southall yesterday. Points failure at West Ealing today. What’s happening tomorrow?

 

[800001]

Just using the Elizabeth Line as the example, failures and issues happen much much more frequently on the West than on the East.

3 days of signalling last week. An OLE fault at Southall yesterday. Points failure at West Ealing today. What’s happening tomorrow?

But we could say the same about the WCML, ECML, GEML etc, but there is not posts about every issue.

Been multiple issues on ECML on several days where the service for the whole day has been decimated, I don’t see posts about it.

I think this whole post about Elizabeth line issues, has reached the point where it needs to be closed.

Another should be started ‘Network Rail Infrastructure Failures’ where issues can be discussed regarding points, signal, OHL issues.

 

[JN114]

Agree - this morning it's because the points for the Greenford branch have failed, AIUI - I don't know why they can't just leave a unit on it all week as they do for the Windsor branch - would save a potential points failure for the morning peak

Whilst one of the multiple sets of points affected by the failure was the set on and off the branch, the failure didn’t happen when a train tried to join or leave the branch. Keeping the branch unit out all week wouldn’t have prevented this type of failure; and would almost certainly cause more issues than it solves.

 

[SWT_USER]

Whilst one of the multiple sets of points affected by the failure was the set on and off the branch, the failure didn’t happen when a train tried to join or leave the branch. Keeping the branch unit out all week wouldn’t have prevented this type of failure; and would almost certainly cause more issues than it solves.

Thank you for the explanation. Out of interest why would it cause problems to leave it on the branch - compared to Windsor which does have the same unit all week?

 

[Benjwri]

Thank you for the explanation. Out of interest why would it cause problems to leave it on the branch - compared to Windsor which does have the same unit all week?

You can’t leave the unit because it needed a refuelling, checking and toilets emptying.

That isn’t true about the Windsor unit, it comes off the branch as an empty service to Reading as 5A55 at around midnight, returns at 5W01 at 5:30 in the morning.

 

[JN114]

Thank you for the explanation. Out of interest why would it cause problems to leave it on the branch - compared to Windsor which does have the same unit all week?

Windsor unit doesn’t stay on branch all week, unless prevented by engineering work it goes back to Reading every night:

Realtime Trains | 5A55 0006 Slough to Reading Traincare Depot | 03/08/2023

Real-time train running information for 5A55 0006 departure from Slough to Reading Traincare Depot on 03/08/2023. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

If it cannot go back then it is limited to 3 days on the branch maximum before it has to return to Reading; and NR plan their possessions around the requirement for the Windsor unit to return to Reading at least at that frequency. When it does stay out Slough then it’s kept an eye on by station and security staff; engineers come out to it from Reading overnight to do work on it. There’s a whole infrastructure built up around decades of that service pattern.

The big issues with keeping the Greenford out each night are Fuel and Vandalism/Antisocial Behaviour. There’s also the question of what instead works the surprisingly busy 0354 Reading to Paddington and 0030 Paddington to Oxford services, cleaning, emptying toilets, fleet rotation for maintenance, the list goes on. Yes, some of these are Chicken/Egg scenarios but that whole infrastructure that allows it to happen on some nights on alternate weeks at Slough, isn’t present for the Greenford branch.

And as I alluded to previously - the current set up isn’t causing any issues, the points failures earlier were nothing to do with the Greenford; and would have happened with the same impact if it were a Sunday and the branch wasn’t running at all.

If it ain’t broke…

 

[Horizon22]

Just using the Elizabeth Line as the example, failures and issues happen much much more frequently on the West than on the East.

3 days of signalling last week. An OLE fault at Southall yesterday. Points failure at West Ealing today. What’s happening tomorrow?

Sure but these are all impacting GWR and Heathrow Express just as much. It is Network Rail (Western)’s performance of track assets that is the issue here. Today it was a set of batteries & the charger powering multiple points that failed.

The Elizabeth line (and other TOCs) can challenge and pressurise but ultimately can only act accordingly within pre-agreed contingency plans. And if the Relief lines are affected, guess what it’s going to be a degraded service for those stations.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Aug 2023 ==

I think this whole post about Elizabeth line issues, has reached the point where it needs to be closed.

Another should be started ‘Network Rail Infrastructure Failures’ where issues can be discussed regarding points, signal, OHL issues.

I agree somewhat - if this is just going to be a generalised disruption thread it doesn’t serve much purpose.

Things & discussion unique to the Elizabeth line is more beneficial.

 

[JN114]

I agree somewhat - if this is just going to be a generalised disruption thread it doesn’t serve much purpose.

Things & discussion unique to the Elizabeth line is more beneficial.

Hear hear

 

[thaitransit]

Maybe I'm missing something, but the Nuneham viaduct is located on the GWR between Didcot and Oxford, right? As far as I'm aware that's not an alternative route to the Elizabeth line tracks between Paddington and Reading - rather it's a continuation of that route. So I don't understand how freight not being able to use the Nuneham Viaduct means there's more freight on the Elizabeth line??? Can someone explain?

Does this mean diesel locomotive hauled freight train will run through Elizabeth line tunnels due to lack of alternative route? If so no wonder there are so many delays and failures. 1500 metre long container and grain trains don't mix well with all stopping metro style trains underground. So painful for the freight crews running on a mix of yellows and reds all the way!

 

[JamesT]

Does this mean diesel locomotive hauled freight train will run through Elizabeth line tunnels due to lack of alternative route? If so no wonder there are so many delays and failures. 1500 metre long container and grain trains don't mix well with all stopping metro style trains underground. So painful for the freight crews running on a mix of yellows and reds all the way!

No, freight trains are not running through the tunnels. The following posts to the one you quoted explain why Nuneham Viaduct (now fixed) was causing problems for EL trains.

 

[thaitransit]

No, freight trains are not running through the tunnels. The following posts to the one you quoted explain why Nuneham Viaduct (now fixed) was causing problems for EL trains.

Thats good as the noise and fumes would have be horrendous in those stations. This happens with diesel trains go through underground stations in Brisbane.

I seemed to have read the topic from very beginning rather than most recent post 1st then backwards. So possibly missed quite a few recent posts.

Has there ever been consideration of a greenfields freight bypass of inner london so such freight trains don't need to enter inner London at all? Eg the bypass starting west of the airport Junction so they never delay passenger trains again in suburban London.

 

[AlbertBeale]

Thats good as the noise and fumes would have be horrendous in those stations. This happens with diesel trains go through underground stations in Brisbane.

I seemed to have read the topic from very beginning rather than most recent post 1st then backwards. So possibly missed quite a few recent posts.

Has there ever been consideration of a greenfields freight bypass of inner london so such freight trains don't need to enter inner London at all? Eg the bypass starting west of the airport Junction so they never delay passenger trains again in suburban London.

I suppose the traditional freight bypasses of central London were the likes of the North London Line and the West London Line, which are still used but which have a lot more competing within-London passenger traffic now. Otherwise, the bypasses are much further out from London.

I'd guess the idea of new greenfield freight-only lines through the outer suburbs of London is a non-starter.

 

[DerekC]

If only the Central Railway proposal of the early 2000s had been implemented instead of the money being wasted on HS2! Subject of another thread, perhaps.

 

[stuu]

I noticed on a journey to Paddington today how luxuriant NR's buddleia forests are looking on the GWML. That can't be helping the infrastructure along there

 

[bicbasher]

Yesterday I travelled from Whitechapel to Reading. Everything was like clockwork and as it should be. So it does work as advertised sometimes! All the trains in the central core were incredibly busy.

I did Whitechapel to Tottenham Court Road on a Shenfield to Paddington service this afternoon, despite terminating at Paddington, the service was very busy with standing room only in some cars.

The eastbound Paddington to Shenfield's aren't too bad, but you know when it's a service from Heathrow to Shenfield when it's already busy and suitcases in the gangways.

 

[jayah]

So if the adjacent route/region has it’s own difficulties, they won’t be happy to loan staff to another area. Plus, in the London area, there is also the problem of travel time due to the amount of road traffic.

The unions have no objections if it’s voluntary.

As an example, Bristol S&T have assisted all these places over the years:

• Gloucester,
• Newport
• Swindon
• Westbury
• Exeter

And Gloucester, Newport, Swindon, Westbury have helped out Bristol as well.

When Worcester transferred to a different route/region (it was originally part of Western, but was transferred to North West & Central), the unions agreed with the company sensible temporary cover arrangements whilst the new management team recruited and trained up new staff. Hence Gloucester covered faults and helped out with maintenance as well.

So Western Route Central DU helping out Western Route East DU is not surprising. Especially when Western Route Central DU already provide certain services to the other Western DUs.

Imposing is very different to coming to an agreement that is acceptable to both sides.

The availability of technicians and staff is very relevant here.

It is illogical that when we talk about drivers overtime, the union agree the railway should not depend on volunteers, yet you seem to advocate for exactly the opposite here.

It is rare that two neighbouring regions will have a problem like this simultaneously and therefore sensible to the point of obvious that staff should be trained for and covering other regions, when it is required, not just when they feel like volunteering.

There are no figures provided concerning how many people volunteer and whether volunteering currently gets the enough of the right people where they are needed but it not should be left to that.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

I noticed on a journey to Paddington today how luxuriant NR's buddleia forests are looking on the GWML. That can't be helping the infrastructure along there

Ive never seen a worse year for Buddleia across the network in fact general vegetation makes we wonder whether they are being restricted on managing it due to environmental reasons. Was in Nottingham last week and even the passage of trains wasn't enough to stop it scraping along the side of the train. ASLEF ought to be making more of deal about this.

 

[Horizon22]

I did Whitechapel to Tottenham Court Road on a Shenfield to Paddington service this afternoon, despite terminating at Paddington, the service was very busy with standing room only in some cars.

The eastbound Paddington to Shenfield's aren't too bad, but you know when it's a service from Heathrow to Shenfield when it's already busy and suitcases in the gangways.

Eastbound you’d notice a significant increase at Liverpool St and Whitechapel with the former as the “traditional” terminus. Quite a lot of churn at Stratford though.