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Today's problems in Portsmouth

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Sabre999uk

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Hi all,
Today on the spur of the moment we took my 9 year old nephew from Havant to Southampton to watch trains and treated him to First Class, getting there was no problem. First sign of problems was an announcement that the 1210 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff Central was delayed due to a fault on a preceding train at Hilsea, this was repeated 5 minutes later immediately followed by another announcement that the same service was delayed due to a power supply problem at Hilsea.

After we returned from getting lunch the services from Portsmouth to Southampton were just shown as delayed.

The Cardiff Central - Portsmouth Harbour arrived at 1402, terminated & shunted to the bay platform, there then followed a rash of platform alterations as there was a points failure at the west end of the station which prevented the 1437 to Salisbury from calling at Millbrook.

Starting with the 1459 arrival from London Victoria all Southern services were announced as cancelled due to slippery rails, we were starting to wonder how to get home.

We had planned to get the 1633 Southern back to Havant but were advised by a announcement to take the 1605 FGW Service to Portsmouth Harbour and to change at Fareham onto the Southern service which would start from there. Before we left Southampton Central our destination on the platform display changed to Fareham only..... Apparently this was news to the guard as no announcement was made on the train even when we got to Fareham where there was a lot of confused passengers wondering why their train wasn't going any further and a replacement bus waiting running to Havant only. Passengers for Portsmouth were being told to take this to Havant then get a replacement bus to Portsmouth which didn't go down well.

Anyhow could anyone on here make sense of what happened for me? Was it train fault/power failure/slippery rails or all of the above?

Also have I got any chance of recompense for the first class travel we couldn't use on the way home? I'm not too bothered if I can't as my nephew still had a good time.

Thanks for putting up with my ramblings :)

Steve
 
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87015

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450xxx collapsed big time on the triangle, they attached 444xxx to the rear to rescue it but the fault transferred and the pair then blew the power supply up as the fault on the 450 meant it was drawing too much current. Chaos reigned.
 

ushawk

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Major power failure which led to a few trains being stuck in various places, cant get anymore exact than that. Did lead to no service into Portsmouth for a couple of hours too, with 1 SWT from Waterloo to Portsmouth Harbour being delayed (and terminated at Havant) 2 and a half hours late and a Portsmouth - Waterloo service trundled into and terminated at Fratton 2 hours and 50 minutes late.

Looks like a total loss of power between Cosham, Fratton and Havant though - im sure someone with access to the TRUST report could possibly give more detail.
 

Sabre999uk

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Hi,
Thanks for the replies, a whole cascade of failures then. Glad I'm not a signaller, I think those at Havant (and the surrounding area) must be bald after today...

Steve
 

Matt Taylor

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Offending unit was 450112.

My train was the first affected, the 1145 Portsmouth-Waterloo which arrived on time in Fratton and then sat there until 1728, that's a total delay of 334 minutes. All four trains I was supposed to work today were cancelled but having spent 1154-approx 1600 dealing with passengers at Fratton from my train and others it was by no means an easy day.

The line reopened around 1700 and delays are still continuing now. Passengers from the combined 450/444 combination were eventually transferred to an adjacent 313 unit in the Hilsea area before repairs to the power cables could be arranged.
 

Sabre999uk

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Thanks for the extra info, if any of the passengers were anything like some I saw at Fareham you have my sympathies.

Steve
 

BestWestern

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Thanks for the extra info, if any of the passengers were anything like some I saw at Fareham you have my sympathies.

Steve

Have to expect many irate travellers when it's been half a day with no services! The P-way guys found a power cable for the third rail which had burnt out, and obviously required replacement. This led to a full isolation for a time while they dealt with it. This was obviously in addition to (and evidently because of) the pair of stricken Desi's.

In addition, FGW's service was further affected by a bridge strike between Bath and Oldfield Park, and a cow doing it's best to end it all in the Freshford area. Further still, Southern had something going on with the track at Arundel Jcn for a time.

All in all, not a great day!
 

fgwrich

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Im supprised though, that there seems to have been no sign of Network Rails 57310 - Now modified to drag Desiros (as it has done in Eastleigh Works) and Electrostars (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XgKt9fpX-k). I know it's up at Selhurst for Olympic standby duties, but surely in this case it could and possibly should have been used to at least remove either one or the pair of stranded Dessies?
 

Sabre999uk

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When I tell my nephew later today what went on I bet the first thing he asks is "Why didn't they use a 57". I think from now on I'll warn the members of the forum when I'm taking him out, getting to our destination is fine - getting home is usually more awkward:
Reading: Broken down freight between Reading & Basingstoke, got home via Woking.
Basingstoke: Signal failure at Botley, cleared as we were working out alternative route.
Southampton: Person hit by train somewhere in Southern territory, cleared to minor delays.
& of course yesterday!

Part of the fun of course is trying to work out what the permitted routes back to Havant were as all these trips were before I joined this forum.

Thanks again for all the replies, I just wish passengers would treat staff on trains & platforms as part of a solution, not part of the problem. The single staff member I saw at Fareham was getting a lot of grief. The mood of the Pompey passengers on the coach didn't improve when as we were going along the A27 a 450 passed heading in the Portsmouth direction.

Edit: When I knew the FGW we caught was terminating at Fareham I expected us to go into bay platform 2, however there was already a FGW 158 in there with passengers aboard. Our now empty 158 headed towards Portsmouth (again not improving the mood) - would this have gone straight to Brighton ready for service to resume or somewhere else?

Steve
 
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GB

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Thunderbird class 73 was offered from Redhill but was declined. Presumably due to the distances and amount of standing trains it would have been extremely difficult and lengthy to get it to site and still wouldn't have fixed the electrical supply problems.

Nearly 6000 minutes in delays in total.
 

swt_passenger

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Edit: When I knew the FGW we caught was terminating at Fareham I expected us to go into bay platform 2, however there was already a FGW 158 in there with passengers aboard. Our now empty 158 headed towards Portsmouth (again not improving the mood) - would this have gone straight to Brighton ready for service to resume or somewhere else?

I think they could reverse it just east of Fareham, if the ground frame there was manned. Unlikely they'd send a random FGW unit towards Brighton, unless their 1434 off Southampton (the single afternoon eastbound FGW to BTN) did not run, depending when the chaos started...
 

tsr

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Thunderbird class 73 was offered from Redhill but was declined. Presumably due to the distances and amount of standing trains it would have been extremely difficult and lengthy to get it to site and still wouldn't have fixed the electrical supply problems.

Nearly 6000 minutes in delays in total.

Redhill is slightly more convenient than a depot or siding further north, but, even so, you'd be lucky getting it south of the station without screwing something up! A rather unconventional method would have been for it to hitch onto a southbound Arun Valley 377 and pull that as far south as possible, thereby allowing that 377 to provide a passenger service and the 73 to get closer to the incident site simultaneously. I can see a number of problems with this method, though. Other trains in the way would indeed also have been a big problem.
 

BestWestern

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Redhill is slightly more convenient than a depot or siding further north, but, even so, you'd be lucky getting it south of the station without screwing something up! A rather unconventional method would have been for it to hitch onto a southbound Arun Valley 377 and pull that as far south as possible, thereby allowing that 377 to provide a passenger service and the 73 to get closer to the incident site simultaneously. I can see a number of problems with this method, though. Other trains in the way would indeed also have been a big problem.

Ah, some joined up thinking. We're not allowed to do that sort of thing any more are we?! :D I would imagine the mountains of paperwork required to allow a loco to haul an in service 377 would probably have been enough to put the management off the idea rather quickly! :roll:
 

Sabre999uk

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I think they could reverse it just east of Fareham, if the ground frame there was manned. Unlikely they'd send a random FGW unit towards Brighton, unless their 1434 off Southampton (the single afternoon eastbound FGW to BTN) did not run, depending when the chaos started...

Ah, I got myself in a twist I should have said did the empty unit go to Portsmouth when it left not Brighton - Sorry about that.

The 1434 to Brighton did run with 158 952 according to the notes my nephew made.

Steve
 

The Colonel

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450xxx collapsed big time on the triangle, they attached 444xxx to the rear to rescue it but the fault transferred and the pair then blew the power supply up as the fault on the 450 meant it was drawing too much current. Chaos reigned.

The P-way guys found a power cable for the third rail which had burnt out, and obviously required replacement. This led to a full isolation for a time while they dealt with it. This was obviously in addition to (and evidently because of) the pair of stricken Desi's.

From what I've heard 1st train was stuck through lack of volts, due to above cable fault. 2nd train dispatched and unsurprisingly suffered same fate. Units themselves not at fault.
 

BestWestern

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From what I've heard 1st train was stuck through lack of volts, due to above cable fault. 2nd train dispatched and unsurprisingly suffered same fate. Units themselves not at fault.

That sounds to me a very logical explanation, thanks for the info!
 
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