OHLE issues at Watford

[oversteer]

Apparently 30 min delays due to issues that started yesterday at Watford

LM not stopping at Harrow or Bushey (presume everything is going down the fast ?) and have cancelled some (more!) trains, as have VT

Did something damage the wires?

e: in fact a Pendo just went past north of Watford on the down slow ..

 

[infobleep]

It's the fast lines which are shut. When I got to Waterloo, most trains at Euston were shown as departing on time by National Rail Enquiries. Click on arrivals and one then sees that most trains coming in are running late. The system clearly can't factor in delays to inbound services.

How can a London midland train, due in at 8.23 and due to leave at 8.24, which divides into two be turned around in 1 minute? It's never happened yet.

As it is when I reached Euston this Milton Kynes train was due in at 8.38. The 8.34 to Tring was already there but had not enough crew.

However I didn't drill down into each service as the delay wasn't that great when I looked. Had I drilled down I would have seen that no trains were stopping at Harrow and Wealdstone or Bushy and I would have gone via Harrow on the Hill instead.

In addition to that there are the possibilities of short notice cancellations on London Midland due to staff shortages. So not a good day for them.

 

[oversteer]

Apparently NR expect to have all 4 lines operational by 1600

Must have been some serious damage, what caused it?

 

[western Champion]

The train crew working 1F25 18.33 Euston - Liverpool (390052) reported the ADD had operated and the pan was not housed. Network Rail advised the OHLE was damaged and down on the fast lines.

The train came to a halt in the tunnel on the down fast, passengers and crew were evacuated by walking them back to Watford station.

I booked on at Wolves at 23.59 last night and ended up taking 57308 light as 1Z99 from Oxley to Watford to rescue 390052. We moved it up to Hemel Hempstead and stabled it there on the down fast due to Network Rail chomping at the bit to take a possession.

57308 and 390052 finally left Hemel at approximately 13.30 as 5K88 to Longsight.

 

[oversteer]

Thanks for that update. Must have made a big mess and if it was in a tunnel that can only make it tricker to fix! Fingers crossed they fix it before the evening peak.

 

[jbb]

I was on the affected train yesterday.

The train did indeed come to a halt in the tunnel. We remained there for a little under three hours at which point they got another train to stop alongside our train and placed a bridge across the two trains at the doors at coach 'A' end of the train and got us across to the rescue train one by one and then took us back to watford from where we could eventually continue our journeys. I got back home about 4 hours later than I should have.

The train staff kept us informed by making announcements regularly. Although most of them consisted of saying "We've lost power and we don't yet know why", that seems fair enough under the circumstances, it can't have been too easy stuck in the tunnel to find out.

They kept smiling and gave us bottles of water and generally handled the whole thing very professionally.

 

[Stephen55a1960]

As an aside, yesterday lunchtime, I noticed that the taxi rank (at Manchester Piccadilly) was busier than usual! The Northbound (from Euston) trains must have been running, a reduced schedule?