Not a Good Day for Southern 02/08/17

[JStrainspotter]

Not a good day for Southern Today.

Failure of the electricity supply at London Bridge. Platform 14 is out of use, and 15 was earlier. Advice being not to travel from London Bridge, instead from Blackfriars or Victoria.

Disruption between Fareham and Southampton Central due to a broken down train at Bitterne.

Delays between Leatherhead and Mitcham Junction due to a fault with the signalling system around Sutton.

Disruption between Oxted and East Grinstead/Uckfield because of a fallen tree around Lingfield and a vehicle striking a bridge around Oxted.

 

[Busaholic]

Not a good day for Southern Today.

Failure of the electricity supply at London Bridge. Platform 14 is out of use, and 15 was earlier. Advice being not to travel from London Bridge, instead from Blackfriars or Victoria.

Disruption between Fareham and Southampton Central due to a broken down train at Bitterne.

Delays between Leatherhead and Mitcham Junction due to a fault with the signalling system around Sutton.

Disruption between Oxted and East Grinstead/Uckfield because of a fallen tree around Lingfield and a vehicle striking a bridge around Oxted.

Half a century ago, all that news would be the prelude to a white, middle class, early middleaged man leaning back on a wall and lighting a Hamlet cigar, breathing in with a sigh and then blowing the smoke out with a great look of self-satisfaction (the bit you wouldn't see was having to book into a hotel near London Bridge at £200 for the night, or his subsequent death from lung cancer five years later).

 

[Gerard92]

2J61 was leaving the platform when the issue occurred, the issue at London Bridge has now been resolved and back to normal working. we're now just waiting driver to move the unit from the platform

 

[tsr]

The present tree on the line is apparently across the platforms and both running lines at Hurst Green. Lots of delays and alterations to both the Uckfield and East Grinstead lines, potentially for at least another hour. Not presently passable and appropriate resources are being dispatched.

There was also another tree down in the Lingfield area earlier.

The Sussex and Surrey area has had loads of heavy rain today, so this does not surprise me in the slightest. The trees at Hurst Green are large and do not like anything approaching bad weather. To a lesser extent the same applies for the site of the earlier incident, too.

2J61 was leaving the platform when the issue occurred, the issue at London Bridge has now been resolved and back to normal working. we're now just waiting driver to move the unit from the platform

Yep, the affected bit of third rail really did not like the train taking power. For this reason it could not be used, and a tricky series of workarounds was needed to close the Platform 14 line in the evening peak and keep it safe, and then isolate the right bits of track for repairs. Fortunately the service recovery and repairs generally went to plan.

 

[RichardKing]

Yesterday wasn't much better on the network, with a signalling problem blocking the down slow line from Battersea Park to Clapham Junction from approximately 10:30 to 17:30 (does anyone know why it took so long to fix this?) and an electrical supply problem occurring whilst a Reigate service was leaving platform 18 at Victoria at around 15:00.

Most trains from the coast destined for Victoria were terminated at either East Croydon or Gatwick...the last direct service from Victoria to Ore/Eastbourne & Littlehampton was at 11:47 and didn't resume until 15:47 (I imagine this restriction, as well as all the others, was to allow for the services that would normally use to down slow room to use the down fast).