Merseyrail Winter Resilience Review

[M28361M]

Liverpool City Region has published a review into the severe disruption which occurred on Merseyrail on the morning of 9th January. From around 7.30am that day, trains encountered difficulties due to freezing conditions causing a sudden build up of ice on the 3rd rail, resulting in multiple trains getting stranded and a complete shutdown of the system for several hours.

The review has been conducted by Vernon Everitt of Transport for Greater Manchester. It is a 60+ page document which can be viewed/downloaded at https://api.liverpoolcityregion-ca....inter-Weather-Resilience-Review-2024-2025.pdf

A couple of key points I spotted. One train was stranded near Old Roan for two hours after being unable to take power from the 3rd rail. It was a 777/1 fitted with a battery, but using the batteries other than on the Headbolt Lane line required permission from Stadler which delayed using that as a rescue option.

As mentioned later in this report, orderly recovery of service, and specifically the rescue of the 60 passengers on the stranded train at Old Roan, was made more complicated by the need to observe a provision in the contractual arrangements between Stadler and Merseytravel. This placed a restriction on the use of 777 units in battery power mode on parts of the network other than the Headbolt Lane route (there are seven such units in the fleet) and required Merseyrail to seek permission from Stadler during the disruption to switch the stranded train into battery mode as it was operating elsewhere on the network. Clearly, the last thing anyone needs to be doing is referring to contractual clauses at times like these and a revised agreement needs to be reached to remove it as a potential impediment to taking timely action to helping passengers at times of disruption.

A second key point is that the 777s behave very differently to the 507/508 fleet in icy conditions and this was not taken into account when preparing the winter plan for 2024/5.

The plan did not take sufficient account of how differently the 777 units would, by design, behave in icy conditions as compared to the 507/8 units that had operated in previous winters. In particular, there was no commonly shared in-depth understanding across all of the partners as to the consequences for resilience plans of the intended behaviour of the 777’s conductor shoes. According to their manufacturer Stadler, if the conductor shoes have difficulty drawing power from the third rail for greater than 15 minutes (and their main reservoir pressure falls below 5.5 bar), then they ‘lift up’ and no longer remain in contact with the third rail. This is what happened when thick ice suddenly formed across virtually the entire Merseyrail network on the morning of 9th January. The winter resilience planning for 2024/25, however, had carried on pretty much as it had done in previous years even though the 507/8 units, which did not behave in anything like the same way as the 777s, had by then been retired from service.

Elsewhere in the report it is noted that the much heavier shoes on the old trains had the unintentional effect of scraping the ice off the conductor rail, something the 777 shoes do not do. Also that the 507/508s would "plough on" regardless in icy conditions, although this risked causing damage to the units.

Another point is that running trains overnight to keep lines clear was not possible that day, due to Network Rail taking overnight possessions (although the report notes that this may not have helped in this case, as the first trains of the day ran fine, it was only later in the morning after a fresh sleet shower that failures started to occur).

Other recommendations include taking care to ensure accuracy when communicating service disruptions (the Twitter updates at the time said the failures were due to "heavy snow" which attracted ridicule because there had been a light dusting but nothing like the severe weather earlier that week)

 

[Horizon22]

If it’s freezing rain type conditions, it bares a remarkable similarity - excepting the new fleet - to the Lewisham strandings back in 2018.

 

[Harpo]

the contractual arrangements between Stadler and ……... required Merseyrail to seek permission from Stadler…………to switch the stranded train into battery mode as it was operating elsewhere on the network.

Speechless.

 

[The exile]

Speechless.

Given that kind of agreement, the failure of Stadler to arrange for someone with authority to give that permission to be available 24/7 should make them liable for all of the delay between the first contact from Merseyrail and permission being given.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Given that kind of agreement, the failure of Stadler to arrange for someone with authority to give that permission to be available 24/7 should make them liable for all of the delay between the first contact from Merseyrail and permission being given.

It really depends what the contract says. I suspect while morally Stadler Look quite bad, those who agreed the contract at Mersey rail have a lesson to learn too.

 

[jamesst]

Given that kind of agreement, the failure of Stadler to arrange for someone with authority to give that permission to be available 24/7 should make them liable for all of the delay between the first contact from Merseyrail and permission being given.

There is someone. But by the time you've rang the signaller then them the train may of lost too much air to be able to activate the shunt battery

 

[TheSel]

Being reported on BBC News, Link here to the article, which reads:


The reasons why a rail network ground to a halt in icy weather earlier this year have been made public.

The "unprecedented" winter failures happened on Merseyrail services on 9 January and a report has warned they could happen again if changes aren't made immediately ...


Well, I can confidently say the same won't be said next time there's any icy weather. Why? Well, because by then, it won't be unprecedented!