Problems near Shap summit tonight 14/2/2026

[DarloRich]

Quite.

I am being slightly facetious but people seem to hold the railway to higher standards than they expect from other forms of transport.

Flying my biggest delay has been about 6 hours on a Glasgow > Luton flight ( the weather was bad and the pilot and controllers seemed to be in a violent disagreement about the state of the wind which the pilot explained in detail when we boarded!) I still fly ( not often, but I fly when I have to)

A family member was stuck in Seattle for nearly 48 hours due to technical fault with the plane. A new one had to come form the UK. The airline were less than helpful and they had a battle to get any support. Every single entitled element was grudgingly granted after an argument. The complaint was so bad the airline gave them a free return ticket to any destination on thier route!

Driving it has taken me 13 hours to get from MK to Glasgow due to weather, accidents, congestion and what were essentially emergency engineering works to the carriageway after a crash. I still drive on the motorways................

 

[Bletchleyite]

I am being slightly facetious but people seem to hold the railway to higher standards than they expect from other forms of transport.

The railway has a very high degree of control over its operating environment, so deserves to be held to higher standards than road transport in this regard. National Express or Flix can't with the best will in the world do anything about it if someone rear-ends someone and shuts the M6. Whereas the railway, while it does get impacted by external issues, has control over how quickly it clears such issues and what it does in response to them.

Air transport is maybe a bit different, but I think many people still regard flight as a bit of a miracle. I am however fairly quick to criticise poor operations over that side of things too (and compliment good ones, though I didn't see much of the latter yesterday).

At least they didn't declare DO NOT TRAVEL I suppose, that's the norm at the moment it seems.

 

[Ken X]

We are gradually moving over to trains from the car for long journeys and have had mixed experiences. Some are faultless, others are more challenging.

Our last trip was delayed by 75 mins going out on a four hour journey. This meant less time with the outlaws (so it wasn't all bad ). Coming home was a similar story but, on consulting the interweb, I noted that the motorway we would have used was completely stuffed due to a car fire. Delays were two hours plus due to complete closure of the road.

We got home over an hour late, but had ample opportunities to visit loos, eat, drink and relax in relative comfort. The Kindle got a spanking and we sorted out a chunk of paperwork. Best of all we claimed back every penny using Delay repay.

On balance I would do it again happily. All the staff were friendly and helpful when we had questions. We were kept informed as to progress and encouraged to claim back costs. It was pleasant to have somebody else deal with the delays whilst we dozed.

Still beats sitting on the motorway in the dark and wet busting for a wee and wondering what to do for the best.

 

[DarloRich]

The railway has a very high degree of control over its operating environment

Does it? Is the railway immune to, say, adverse weather? Is access to the M1 for emergency repairs easier or harder than access to the WCML for the same?

I am playing a bit of a devils advocate as I suspect Highways England have very similar challenges to NR. I cant imagine closing the M1 or M6 or M62 is an easy discussion.

Best of all we claimed back every penny using Delay repay.

Exactly - i don't get my petrol money back from Highways England when there are delays................

 

[Innerhome1]

A question on the single line working at Shap please. Would the single line working have been controlled with a pilotman - or would the track circuiting on the up line have been sufficient to prove the route clear ? Also would the crossovers have been manually clipped or was this controlled by Carlisle PSB. I did notice (looking at openmaps) that it was taking around 20 minutes from arrival of train in one direction to departure of the next train in the other direction over the SLW ? The train a family member would have used (actually switched to car) stood for around 40 minutes at Shap.

 

[philthetube]

I was at Preston yesterday and saw the 1842 Glasgow service depart, a 9 car set.

Surely it could not have been impossible to have arranged things better.

I was on platform 2 so could not see boarding but the platform was crowded prior to the train arriving and it took 5 mins for the train to load.

The one thing I would compliment them for was not cancelling all the Edinburghs north of Preston given that they were full of displaced East Coast passengers.

They were announcing on my avanti NB Preston service that all Edinburgh services were cancelled and the TM gave instructions about getting across to Queen st. either by bus or on foot.

 

[Bletchleyite]

They were announcing on my avanti NB Preston service that all Edinburgh services were cancelled and the TM gave instructions about getting across to Queen st. either by bus or on foot.

Not all Edinburgh services were in fact cancelled, but it could be either that he didn't know properly/assumed it would be the normal reduction, or they were trying to avoid too many people crowding one train out.

 

[D1537]

Anecdotal, but I do quite a bit of rail mileage and looked back through my serious delays for the last few years - not one of them was due to a railway issue...

17/01/26 (2 hours) Bridge strike at Greenfield
02/11/25 (90 mins) Aftermath of Huntingdon stabbing incident
08/08/25 (2.5 hours) PHBT at Stevenage, had to travel via St Pancras - Sheffield - Doncaster
30/6/25 (90 mins) PHBT at Northallerton
21/12/24 (75 mins) High winds, item blown onto OHLE at Marshall Meadows
3/6/24 (90 mins) Trespassers on line, Vauxhall

 

[voyagerdude220]

Most notably the crew change at Preston took a lot longer than it really needed to.

Yes I've been at Preston over the years and seen this happen a few times. The platform has cleared of passengers getting on and off, the signal is green, the despatcher(s) are ready, but the two TMs were busy relaying information to each other.

Maybe the handover would be best completed by the incoming Train Manager recording all the information they need to pass on to their relief colleague either electronically on an app or even by hand, so the relieving TM can simply greet the incoming TM and despatch the train when it is safe to do so. (Then when the train is clear of the platform they can then go to the notes and see what they need to be aware of)

 

[bleeder4]

I am being slightly facetious but people seem to hold the railway to higher standards than they expect from other forms of transport.

Flying my biggest delay has been about 6 hours on a Glasgow > Luton flight ( the weather was bad and the pilot and controllers seemed to be in a violent disagreement about the state of the wind which the pilot explained in detail when we boarded!) I still fly ( not often, but I fly when I have to)

A family member was stuck in Seattle for nearly 48 hours due to technical fault with the plane. A new one had to come form the UK. The airline were less than helpful and they had a battle to get any support. Every single entitled element was grudgingly granted after an argument. The complaint was so bad the airline gave them a free return ticket to any destination on thier route!

Driving it has taken me 13 hours to get from MK to Glasgow due to weather, accidents, congestion and what were essentially emergency engineering works to the carriageway after a crash. I still drive on the motorways................

Flying is a bit different though. If someone is flying somewhere it's quite often because it is the only viable form of transport to get to their destination. You have no choice other than to fly, so have no choice other than to suck up any problems that may occur. Whereas with trains it is different. We are a small country. There are other domestic travel options. Someone stuck on a train for 4 hours will just be thinking that if they'd driven there instead they'd be at their destination by now. Hence they switch to using the car next time. Whereas on a plane that thought process wouldn't happen. If you're stuck on a plane for 4 hours there is no way you could have used some other form of trans Atlantic transport to get there quicker.

 

[driver9000]

A question on the single line working at Shap please. Would the single line working have been controlled with a pilotman - or would the track circuiting on the up line have been sufficient to prove the route clear ? Also would the crossovers have been manually clipped or was this controlled by Carlisle PSB. I did notice (looking at openmaps) that it was taking around 20 minutes from arrival of train in one direction to departure of the next train in the other direction over the SLW ? The train a family member would have used (actually switched to car) stood for around 40 minutes at Shap.

Single Line Working can't be operated without a Pilot (the name Pilotman was changed a couple of years ago).

 

[Aaron_TTL]

Anecdotal, but I do quite a bit of rail mileage and looked back through my serious delays for the last few years - not one of them was due to a railway issue...

17/01/26 (2 hours) Bridge strike at Greenfield
02/11/25 (90 mins) Aftermath of Huntingdon stabbing incident
08/08/25 (2.5 hours) PHBT at Stevenage, had to travel via St Pancras - Sheffield - Doncaster
30/6/25 (90 mins) PHBT at Northallerton
21/12/24 (75 mins) High winds, item blown onto OHLE at Marshall Meadows
3/6/24 (90 mins) Trespassers on line, Vauxhall

This is absolutely going off topic, but I think it's also fair to consider, whilst all those above issues aren't the fault of the railway, to a customer they will still effect them and their journey.

 

[Innerhome1]

I think there is an operating/capacity issue at Preston. The main facilities are on platform 3/4. Trains up and down the WCML are pathed in flights - ie the Birmingham - Edinburgh : London - Glasgow : and TPE Manchester to the North are fairly close together. If they run close together they follow each other into 3 (northbound) or 4 (southbound) - rather than - say using 3/4 for northbound and 5/6 for southbound. No easy solution if the passengers stay near to the main platform facilities - ie toilets / food. This also applies to the stations going north - but they're not as busy and don't have the crew changes. I've watched a number of trains go through and lose around 5 minytes each.

 

[Mag_seven]

With the incident now over we will bring this thread to a close - as ever if posters want to suggest how this (and similar incidents) could have been better handled then they are welcome to start a new thread in the Speculative section.

thanks all