Continuing chaos on GWR

[lawried123]

The saga continues. Having suggested to my cousin that the trains should be back to normal on GWR, she has been stuck on the 12 19 from Twyford to Paddington for about 48 minutes with no information about what the problem is. Apparently the driver is making announcements but he said he can't find anything out about what's going on as he cannot contact the signaller. I'm looking at RTT and it seems that she has now arrived at Paddington 48 mins late having been overtaken on the relief lines by the following 1249 train in the approaches to Paddington.
As my cousin said, it's quite worrying to be stuck at a signal with no information as to what's going on. She said the driver sounded quite frustrated that he couldn't find anything out either due to not being able to contact the signaller.
Surely there should be some way that the driver of the train can find out what's going on in order to communicate it to passengers

Lawrie

 

[800001]

The saga continues. Having suggested to my cousin that the trains should be back to normal on GWR, she has been stuck on the 12 19 from Twyford to Paddington for about 48 minutes with no information about what the problem is. Apparently the driver is making announcements but he said he can't find anything out about what's going on as he cannot contact the signaller. I'm looking at RTT and it seems that she has now arrived at Paddington 48 mins late having been overtaken on the relief lines by the following 1249 train in the approaches to Paddington.
As my cousin said, it's quite worrying to be stuck at a signal with no information as to what's going on. She said the driver sounded quite frustrated that he couldn't find anything out either due to not being able to contact the signaller.
Surely there should be some way that the driver of the train can find out what's going on in order to communicate it to passengers

Lawrie

Hot axle alert on a 1L14 GWR service ahead which required line blocks for driver to check. That service was sat for 35 minutes.

The signaller will have a lot of trains attempting to call them, it maybe that each time the driver of the train your cousin is on, attempted to contact the signaller, that the signaller was busy dealing with the train with a fault organising line blocks etc.

 

[Benjiw17]

There’s several ways drivers can contact signallers, GSMR is pretty reliable, especially In busy areas like the above mentioned, however if in a black spot, there’s mobile phones and SPT’s providing they’re in a safe place to be accessed. Given the area mentioned and where it’s signalled from, it’ll most likely be the incompetence of said signallers over anything else…

 

[800001]

There’s several ways drivers can contact signallers, GSMR is pretty reliable, especially In busy areas like the above mentioned, however if in a black spot, there’s mobile phones and SPT’s providing they’re in a safe place to be accessed. Given the area mentioned and where it’s signalled from, it’ll most likely be the incompetence of said signallers over anything else…

As I wrote above a service had a HABD, signaller will be arranging line blocks. Speaking to every other train who was calling, it’s extremely unlucky that driver of OP couldn’t get through.

To say the signaller is incompetent is ridiculous when you don’t know what workload they were dealing with.

 

[Benjiw17]

As I wrote above a service had a HABD, signaller will be arranging line blocks. Speaking to every other train who was calling, it’s extremely unlucky that driver of OP couldn’t get through.

To say the signaller is incompetent is ridiculous when you don’t know what workload they were dealing with.

Have you ever been to TVSC?

 

[800001]

Have you ever been to TVSC?

You are calling a signaller incompetent when you have no knowledge of what was going on.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

Starting to feel almost quite bad for Great Western, they're really not having great luck lately are they.

 

[lawried123]

Starting to feel almost quite bad for Great Western, they're really not having great luck lately are they.

Not just GWR. Twice recently I've been turfed out of SWR trains terminating short, no doubt for a good reason. But then just left with no way of carrying on with the journey. In one case a full train at Ascot, far too many for the number of taxis available. And no advice or assistance available at the station.

Lawrie

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

There’s several ways drivers can contact signallers, GSMR is pretty reliable, especially In busy areas like the above mentioned, however if in a black spot, there’s mobile phones and SPT’s providing they’re in a safe place to be accessed. Given the area mentioned and where it’s signalled from, it’ll most likely be the incompetence of said signallers over anything else…

Cant they broadcast messages as well over GSMR?

 

[Saj8]

It always makes me wonder why the TVSC signallers never make use of the general broadcast facility of the GSMR when something like this happens. They could make a general broadcast which the drivers of all trains in the area would receive, telling them what the problem is what's happening about it. They could make subsequent broadcasts to give updates. They must spend a lot of time answering calls from all the trains piling up behind the problem, explaining the issue to every driver individually. In my 11 years, I have never heard a general broadcast from TVSC.

Between Acton and Paddington, our cells must overlap with the signaller that controls the NLL in that area. If we are in that area when an NLL signaller makes a general broadcast or a REC is made on the NLL, we hear it too. I must have heard at least a dozen general broadcasts from their signallers over the years when the NLL goes pear shaped. If they can do it, why can't our signallers at TVSC?

 

[Horizon22]

You are calling a signaller incompetent when you have no knowledge of what was going on.

TVSC's performance is certainly up for debate...

 

[Benjiw17]

Cant they broadcast messages as well over GSMR?

Absolutely, seems like quite a reasonable thing to do given the circumstances. I can’t imagine it was a lack of the signaller not knowing what was happening, more of a case of not wanting to engage with drivers, given TVSC’s reputation

 

[Nicholas43]

And again, Sunday 10 Dec:
Due to damage to the overhead electric wires between Slough and London Paddington all lines are blocked.
Impact:
Train services running to and from these stations may be delayed. Disruption is expected until 14:00 10/12.
Customer Advice:
-Please be advised that we're currently experiencing disruption on the lines on approach to London Paddington as one of our drivers has reported something stuck and wrapped around the overhead line equipment and the pantograph of their train.
-As a consequence, all the overhead lines have been switched off for safety with all of the lines on approach to Paddington blocked.
-The overhead lines have been switched off with all traffic between Slough and London Paddington at a stand. The driver of the affected train has taken a line block to enable them to inspect the train track-side.
-

Network Rail advise they've about half a mile of overhead lines left to inspect. So far nothing amiss found.

 

[apbj]

Yep. Nothing has moved for some time.

 

[Mag_seven]

Being discussed here:

Is the section of gwml beteen Paddington and reading the worst maintained line in the country?

This links into the thread about the poor performance of the EL. So far this week we've had a cracked rail at iver and a cracked rail at maidenhead. Since September we've had points failures, signal failures and ohle issues. I have nothing to compare it with, but travelling on it daily and...

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