Signalling fault/cable theft (?) at Newark (eve 21 March)

[38Cto15E]

It is very demoralising when trains such as 1E21 are able to go over the joint line but the driver does not sign it.
It is about time the Railway authorities got together and formed a National Rail cable theft task force to specialise in catching these offenders, many of them must be repeat offenders.
Even stick a quid on fares to finance it properly, cable theft causes so much disruption it would be worth it.

 

[WesternLancer]

The TM told us on 1N19 that nothing will likely leave in the next few hours towards Grantham and our best bet was head to St Pancras and try EMR.


The post about contacting the dispatchers I will remember for any future problems.

I do hope LNER don't use this as a way to be fussy and not pay the taxi fare because I wasn't more persistent at trying to find staff (only staff I saw was one dispatcher busy dispatching and a driver going into a mess room, nobody was in the ticket hall) . The EMR guard told me to just go to the rank and claim it from LNER, so did LNER customer support

I’d make a note as much as you can it from your phone log if the time and content of the discussion with Lner customer support so that you can clearly quite all that in your claim for the fare.

I assume by getting as far as Nottingham you minimised taxi costs to them as far as possible by your own actions. Which may be a point to make in your claim.

If you want specific help and advice with this in due course do start a thread on the ‘disputes’ section of the forum. I’m sure you’ve already thought of all that anyway.

 

[Bald Rick]

It is about time the Railway authorities got together and formed a National Rail cable theft task force to specialise in catching these offenders, many of them must be repeat offenders.

There is, albeit locally rather than national, as it needs local intelligence.

 

[Failed Unit]

It is very demoralising when trains such as 1E21 are able to go over the joint line but the driver does not sign it.
It is about time the Railway authorities got together and formed a National Rail cable theft task force to specialise in catching these offenders, many of them must be repeat offenders.
Even stick a quid on fares to finance it properly, cable theft causes so much disruption it would be worth it.

This is a problem ever since privatisation. In the BR days they would have at least had more conductor available.

In the 1980s however it was all HSTs.

I have had many times under previous east coast operators a HST, turfing us out at York or Doncaster as the driver didn’t sign the joint line. However reading through this, the open access don’t seem to have full coverage either. So even with the amount of issues the ECML has it still doesn’t happen enough for HT and GC to have everyone trained for the diversion.

 

[RJ]

I ended up taking the 2015 Cross Country from Leeds to Derby then getting a coach down south. LNER’s advice was to go to Manchester and use Avanti. This was around 8pm when the 1940 service was finally cancelled. I thought about going to Doncaster but with several trains from Leeds and the mainline all cancelled plus the uncertainty for timescales to get things moving, I didn’t fancy taking the risk with the best case scenario being a long wait then at least three hours on a potentially wedged train.

Long distance services from everywhere towards London have wound down early on a Saturday evening for as long as I can remember - I’d already been checking to see if any London trains could be intercepted anywhere and it was a negative, so was surprised to hear this being given as advice. Birmingham is a bit of an outlier but even this was out of reach by this time.

 

[sh24]

My other learning from this. If it looks like a cable theft, get moving via an alternative route as soon as possible. Had I jumped at Doncaster I would be have been home 2-3 hours earlier.

 

[merry]

Sadly, I hear from a S&T source that the Newark area and the Lincoln line in particular are a hotspot for cable theft at the moment. Apparently very organised gang(s), working rapidly to cut and haul away the cable, often the 650V main. Very expensive and disruptive for the railway and passengers, and hard to catch too. But not impossible... as recent arrests tell. Hopefully more can be caught to discourage others in the area. Never going to stop it though, while copper is worth stealing.

 

[ajp999]

Another instance of cable theft has been reported overnight in the Collingham area impacting EMR / LNER services between Newark and Lincoln.

 

[jfowkes]

How does cable theft actually work, logistically, for the thieves? It would seem to me that a long, thin piece of metal strung out and fixed in place in several locations is really awkward to try and steal. You presumably need to steal quite a lot to make the risk and effort worthwhile compared to other potential targets. Gaining access with a suitable vehicle, freeing/handling the cable, bundling/reeling it for transport - it surprises me that it's worth it.

But clearly it is, so what am I missing?

 

[Falcon1200]

Clearly the thieves have worked out a way of stealing sufficient cable, and a means of disposing of it, to make their villainy worthwhile, but we should not be going into the mechanics of it here, I think.