Grand Central Unit Swap Issues (19/05)

[harz99]

Well this morning's Grand Central shenanigans won't have encouraged some people to use their West Riding services again.

For context, yesterday (Sunday) afternoon unit 180103 operating the last of the special GC service trains from Peterborough to Sunderland/Tyne Yard, suffered problems in the Retford area and then lost a lot more time before finally reaching Tyne Yard about an hour late.

This morning the same unit 180103 was allocated to the second Sunderland to King's Cross, but was subject to a unit swap at York.

Now, GC swapping units at York has become more frequent in recent months, however the replacement unit usually works in ECS from Crofton Depot.

Not this morning, unit 180106 was the replacement. This had already worked the second West Riding service of the day from Bradford Interchange towards King's Cross, however it was terminated at Doncaster and it's passengers went (somewhere), whilst the unit worked ECS to York to pick up passengers from180103 to convey them to King's Cross!

 

[357]

Well this morning's Grand Central shenanigans won't have encouraged some people to use their West Riding services again.

For context, yesterday (Sunday) afternoon unit 180103 operating the last of the special GC service trains from Peterborough to Sunderland/Tyne Yard, suffered problems in the Retford area and then lost a lot more time before finally reaching Tyne Yard about an hour late.

This morning the same unit 180103 was allocated to the second Sunderland to King's Cross, but was subject to a unit swap at York.

Now, GC swapping units at York has become more frequent in recent months, however the replacement unit usually works in ECS from Crofton Depot.

Not this morning, unit 180106 was the replacement. This had already worked the second West Riding service of the day from Bradford Interchange towards King's Cross, however it was terminated at Doncaster and it's passengers went (somewhere), whilst the unit worked ECS to York to pick up passengers from180103 to convey them to King's Cross!

I can only post information that is/was available publicly on RTT for personal reasons I hope you'll understand, however it "seems" that the intended unit for 1A70 was 104 but was swapped out with 106 at the last minute and left Crofton late but made it to Bradford for an on-time departure.

The plan seems to have been for 104 to be ready in time to do the set swap at York (The ECS path is in RTT), however that ECS was then cancelled itself so decisions needed to be made regarding what services to run and what to cancel.

 

[harz99]

@357 thank you, and yes I can see why you can't say too much!

Are you able to say what the issue was with 103 yesterday?

 

[harz99]

And just to make it even worse for passengers on the West Riding route, the last train of the day from King's Cross to Bradford appears to have been failed and terminated at Doncaster tonight.

 

[800Travel]

And just to make it even worse for passengers on the West Riding route, the last train of the day from King's Cross to Bradford appears to have been failed and terminated at Doncaster tonight.

Train Describer/Panel/ARS/SSI/TDM/Remote Control failure

Source: https://www.charlwoodhouse.co.uk/rail/livetrain/P06267/19/05/25

19/05/25 21:44:39

Cancelled

At Doncaster Signal D276. Reason IF [Train Describer/Panel/ARS/SSI/TDM/Remote Control failure] EN ROUTE

 

[harz99]

Thank you, not having been a driver that doesn't mean a lot to me, I assume this is to do with the unit control systems/digital signalling?

 

[800Travel]

Thank you, not having been a driver that doesn't mean a lot to me, I assume this is to do with the unit control systems/digital signalling?

Seems to have been something signalling related, yes