Hertford N Line closed - tree down

[Mcq]

Does anyone know where this tree has come down please?

 

[Wandering Pom]

The OpenTrainTimes map has a berth marked "BLOK" at Langley South Junction. There are trains moving from Hertford North southwards, so I'd guess that's it.
EDIT: on closer inspection, nothing's moving north of Gordon Hill; the two trains between there and Hertford look to have been there since about 16:20 today.

 

[OxtedL]

Absolutely nothing moving between Bowes Park and Langley Junction for some hours now.

An unusually large impact from a single tree.

 

[Royston Vasey]

Crikey, that's a bit of luck, I got the previous train to Stevenage than planned and it ended up being the last one to make it all day. It was a calm dry afternoon, not typical tree down weather.

 

[Ediswan]

The National Rail page has Gordon Hill in the URL. Make of that what you will.

https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service-disruptions/gordon-hill-20240423/

The tree in question is reported to be substantial and the lines will have to be inspected for damage before any service can resume.

 

[dan4291]

Don't know exactly where the tree came down but it was somewhere between Gordon Hill and Hertford North. According to Network Rail emails it was a large oak tree that fell from outside the railway boundary and took the wires out on the Down line but they had to do an emergency switch off of both lines while they removed the tree and repaired the overheads. Looks like normal running this morning.

 

[Mcq]

Thanks @dan4291
Shame they couldn't run the evening services to Gordon Hill and turn round there - isn't it possible to isolate the power N of that?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 Apr 2024 ==

Whilst I understand the enthusiasm for electrification, compared to diesel - or steam, it can be a massive single point of failure - as it was here.
Thousands of commuters, many of whom would normally travel to stations between Bowes Park and Gordon Hill, were stuck because of a tree on the line near Bayford (I believe).
If Gordon Hill is designed as a turn around station, which it is, why isn't there OHL isolation nearby so that services to there and back could have continued to run.
The lengths of OHL 'single point of failure' should be constrained by more frequent isolation points.

 

[dan4291]

Thanks @dan4291
Shame they couldn't run the evening services to Gordon Hill and turn round there - isn't it possible to isolate the power N of that?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 Apr 2024 ==

Whilst I understand the enthusiasm for electrification, compared to diesel - or steam, it can be a massive single point of failure - as it was here.
Thousands of commuters, many of whom would normally travel to stations between Bowes Park and Gordon Hill, were stuck because of a tree on the line near Bayford (I believe).
If Gordon Hill is designed as a turn around station, which it is, why isn't there OHL isolation nearby so that services to there and back could have continued to run.
The lengths of OHL 'single point of failure' should be constrained by more frequent isolation points.

If I remember rightly that's exactly what happened. GN managed to run Moorgate - Gordon Hill shuttles and were planning to also run Stevenage - Hertford North shuttles too, don't know if these ones actually run though.

 

[Mcq]

Well at Winchmore Hill at 1820 everything was cancelled - nothing at all.
I wonder if anyone knows anymore about this?

 

[Class315]

The Tree came down on the overheads between Cuffley and Hertford North.
Several plans were suggested but could not be formulated as there's no Neutral section in between where the issue is, which potentially could have shortened the isolation. Hence why no services could run up to Gordon Hill.

 

[Mcq]

Thanks @Class315 - do 'we' think there should be more Neutral sections, so that sectional isolation can be performed without such a massive outage?