Weather disruption Sunday 17th July and following few days

[43066]

But, as things stand, people can travel.

I realise you mean well here. Please, please, please don’t encourage people to travel by rail over the next few days.

Rest assured, it will be going massively t*ts up over the next few days.

 

[yorkie]

I was presuming the person going to work at 8am Monday morning was returning home the same day!

That's the problem with presuming Anyway I am glad to hear the answer to their query is yes, acceptance will be in place.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Jul 2022 ==

I realise you mean well here. Please, please, please don’t encourage people to travel by rail over the next few days.

I'm not "encouraging" anything but simply point out that if trains are going to run via the Trent Valley then those trains need to be made available to WMT's customers not just Avanti's.

In situations like this, ticket acceptance should be in place and I am pleased to hear the answer to the passenger's query is that yes it will be.

 

[MCSHF007]

We all know from storm Arwen people ignore the do not travel , then kick off when they are stranded for several hours.

Exactly this.

 

[43066]

I'm not "encouraging" anything but simply point out that if trains are going to run via the Trent Valley then those trains need to be made available to WMT's customers not just Avanti's.

In situations like this, ticket acceptance should be in place and I am pleased to hear the answer to the passenger's query is that yes it will be.

Okay. Operationally, this weekend is shaping up to be a disaster across the network - people may well be stranded for hours in trains as rails buckle. It just has that smell about it…

If there’s any way you encourage “no travel”, across your extensive network of contacts, that would be good, because it will likely be a nightmare for all concerned.

Something to consider. I hope I’m wrong. Thankfully I’m not at work!

 

[Towers]

Okay. Operationally, this weekend is shaping up to be a disaster across the network - people may well be stranded for hours in trains as rails buckle. It just has that smell about it…

If there’s any way you encourage “no travel”, across your extensive network of contacts, that would be good, because it will likely be a nightmare for all concerned.

Something to consider. I hope I’m wrong. Thankfully I’m not at work!

The best way to encourage "no travel" is "no trains"! The industry is surely very well aware that if you run a service, people will attempt to use it.

The industry needs to be incredibly careful with this situation. I's one thing having people stranded on trains for hours when a storm has brought trees down or there is flooding up ahead, where those affected are relatively safe, but several hours of a people being trapped on a powered-down train in 40 degree heat could easily turn very, very unpleasant. Let's hope we aren't going to see ill-equipped trains being dutifully sent out into raging high temperatures without any apparent plan for what happens when they get stuck.

 

[AlastairFraser]

The best way to encourage "no travel" is "no trains"! The industry is surely very well aware that if you run a service, people will attempt to use it.

The industry needs to be incredibly careful with this situation. I's one thing having people stranded on trains for hours when a storm has brought trees down or there is flooding up ahead, where those affected are relatively safe, but several hours of a people being trapped on a powered-down train in 40 degree heat could easily turn very, very unpleasant. Let's hope we aren't going to see ill-equipped trains being dutifully sent out into raging high temperatures without any apparent plan for what happens when they get stuck.

The best way would be to arrange ticket acceptance for the next day like with the storms, so it's only absolutely essential travel that goes ahead.. Avanti have got the message and done that. But Chiltern for the next leg not...
It's all well and good saying travel tomorrow - no worries, happy to do that. But i'm on Advances and defo cannot afford the on the day fare if they don't arrange next day acceptance.
I'm sure many can see how it puts people in an awkward financial position.

 

[MadCommuter]

The best way to encourage "no travel" is "no trains"! The industry is surely very well aware that if you run a service, people will attempt to use it.

The industry needs to be incredibly careful with this situation. I's one thing having people stranded on trains for hours when a storm has brought trees down or there is flooding up ahead, where those affected are relatively safe, but several hours of a people being trapped on a powered-down train in 40 degree heat could easily turn very, very unpleasant. Let's hope we aren't going to see ill-equipped trains being dutifully sent out into raging high temperatures without any apparent plan for what happens when they get stuck.

It does seem odd to say "do not travel" but then allow people to do the opposite of the advice.

Hopefully there is some mitigation in place, such as a crate of bottled water on board each traiin? Or perhaps advise travellers to carry their own water.

Good luck to everyone out there that will be trying to fix the problems as they occur too. Often overlooked that it's bad being stuck, but worse being out in the conditions on the frontline.

 

[muz379]

The best way to encourage "no travel" is "no trains"! The industry is surely very well aware that if you run a service, people will attempt to use it.

The industry needs to be incredibly careful with this situation. I's one thing having people stranded on trains for hours when a storm has brought trees down or there is flooding up ahead, where those affected are relatively safe, but several hours of a people being trapped on a powered-down train in 40 degree heat could easily turn very, very unpleasant. Let's hope we aren't going to see ill-equipped trains being dutifully sent out into raging high temperatures without any apparent plan for what happens when they get stuck.

I'm glad I'm booked leave next week because It just seems almost inevitable that somewhere a train will get stranded because of a traction or infrastructure issue with passengers on board and conditions on board will become dangerous for both passengers and crew . I would hope that by thinning out services we can try as much as possible to stop services out of course at stations or set them back to stations quickly . But this won't be possible in all situations such as if there's OLE problems caused by the temperatures leaving electric traction vulnerable .

I hope Tocs and NR are bolstering response resources so that staff can get to stranded trains quickly and evacuate passengers within the hour of any stoppage .

 

[Seehof]

Is there any news what LNER are planning for Monday and Tuesday?

 

[HuggyB87]

GB Rail
Rain, wind, sun or snow; we don't go

That's the marketing sorted.

 

[KeithR]

Wtf? They'd damn better arrange mutual ticket acceptance with Avanti. It's a Monday morning, I need to get to work. 23 deg at 8am on Monday.

Seconded. Surprised they don’t at least consider a shuttle to Rugby or Northampton - the Trent Valley has significant commuter flows now.

 

[The Middle]

Is there any news what LNER are planning for Monday and Tuesday?

Trimming down to 2tph London to Scotland and 1tph London to Leeds only.

 

[krus_aragon]

Bit early for school holidays yet, though of course students and some private schools will be earlier.

(All?) Schools in Wales finished yesterday, so it's already summer holidays here.

I was confused to see news articles about schools contemplating sending kids home early, given that ours have already done so.

 

[Snow1964]

Overhead wires will sag and potentially collapse.

Tracks will expand, they will buckle…….need we go on?

The physics (and bear with me, I only got a B at physics A level in 1980s) so might not be most technically exhaustive answer like those above to the question of physics.

Overhead wires like all metals expand in heat, there would therefore sag, but to avoid this there are tensioned at the ends of each wire section (every few hundred metres), where it runs off the side, over a pulley an is weighed down. If the weights run out of travel (hit the bottom) then no longer provide the tension. So the length of each wire and the tension weights are determined by the temperature range you want it to be good for.

The good news is the railway often puts in huge margins for safety, so a wire designed to operate at +36c in service would probably be installed to at least 10c higher, so shouldn’t fall down. But the passage of trains does move (wobble) it a bit and near the limits safer to do this by running the trains slower which puts lower movement forces on it. The alternative safety check is to check pantographs for wear (no grooves or worn surfaces), as a train with a good (smooth) pantograph will move the wire less.

Imposing a blanket speed restriction an electric train is a bit clumsy from a physics point of view, the reduced speed should really be based on how long since the pantograph was last maintained. But Network Rail doesn’t receive this info so can’t impose it that way.

Moving to the rails, again they expand when hot, in the old days there were gaps every 60 feet (about 18m) and they were joined with fishplates with oval holes, were oiled so they could slide. In cold weather gaps were bigger.

The downside is the ends where the gaps were would get a hammer blow effect as wheels went over the gap. This could eventually lead to cracks and bits of rail falling off. Occasionally leading to a derailment, and of course don’t want crashed trains. Plenty of jointed track still exists on little used lines and sidings.

CWR (continuous welded rail) is used nowadays, when installed it is stressed (either heated, or pulled with hydraulic jacks) so it is clipped in place as if a hot day. Steel is very good in tension. Once installed it cannot really expand lengthways, and because it is taller than wide (the cross section shape) if it expands anywhere it goes sideways rather than up.

In the early days of CWR there were problems of buckled rails quite frequently in hot weather, but two things have changed, modern concrete sleepers weigh something like 4 times wooden ones (so much heavier to move so need lots more force), and the shoulders (the areas at end of sleeper) are now much wider (there is more ballast). In certain vulnerable areas on curves there is sometimes a metal plate added to increase the surface area against the ballast at the end. All these mean very unlikely to move bedded in track.

There are some areas where track is newly laid, or newly tamped (so the ballast is not so well bedded in) over time vibrations from trains effectively shake it down, the stones falling by gravity and getting tighter together). The tighter the stones the harder they are to move. So areas with recent disturbance are not as secure and slightly easier for track to buckle.

Again, from a physics point of view the amount a track expands will depend on how much sun it gets (the orientation, and if on an embankment or in a shady cutting etc) The safety margin will depend on if recently disturbed. Again a blanket limit is not a physics answer, it is a makes life easy answer, rather than having lots of local limits depending on the risk of buckling.

From an operational point of view rather than short messages saying ignore the speed limit boards along the track and instead work to a blanket max, it would be possible to have route by route versions, or even a mini I-pad like device that is updated with the appropriate max for each mile of track that the driver could use depending on conditions

 

[Falcon1200]

Hopefully there is some mitigation in place, such as a crate of bottled water on board each traiin? Or perhaps advise travellers to carry their own water.

National Rail Enquiries website says;
Please check before you travel and allow more time for your journey on the affected days, as speed restrictions can cause train delays and cancellations. If you are travelling by train in hot weather please carry water with you, to avoid dehydration. Please don’t travel by train if you feel unwell.

 

[popeter45]

Any updates on HS1 services?

 

[43066]

The best way to encourage "no travel" is "no trains"! The industry is surely very well aware that if you run a service, people will attempt to use it.

The industry needs to be incredibly careful with this situation. I's one thing having people stranded on trains for hours when a storm has brought trees down or there is flooding up ahead, where those affected are relatively safe, but several hours of a people being trapped on a powered-down train in 40 degree heat could easily turn very, very unpleasant. Let's hope we aren't going to see ill-equipped trains being dutifully sent out into raging high temperatures without any apparent plan for what happens when they get stuck.

You won’t get any disagreement from me there.

The Kentish Town/Thameslink incident report provides an insight into what happens when people are trapped on a hot train. It doesn’t make for pretty reading.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Jul 2022 ==

From an operational point of view rather than short messages saying ignore the speed limit boards along the track and instead work to a blanket max, it would be possible to have route by route versions, or even a mini I-pad like device that is updated with the appropriate max for each mile of track that the driver could use depending on conditions

What would be the point? Much easier just to say “50mph everywhere”.

 

[Essexman]

I'm trying to decide whether to cancel my trip to Glasgow on sleeper - outward Sunday back Tuesday.
I assume overnight temperatures won't cause problems but how likely is daytime infrastructure damage to affect the sleeper?
For example, does sagged OLE simply go back to normal once cooler, if one track was buckled could they run the sleeper on the other?

 

[Snow1964]

What would be the point? Much easier just to say “50mph everywhere”.

Easier, but if make trains too slow in places where they don’t need to be that heavily restricted, run the risk of staff not being able to complete their journey during their shift, or Operators running out of stock, because an incoming train is late so need to find another in sidings, or do customer unfriendly cancellations instead.

So even if cut service by 50%, if incoming train takes more than twice the time, it would be unavailable for return, so positioning for maintenance gets messy

 

[dk1]

I'm trying to decide whether to cancel my trip to Glasgow on sleeper - outward Sunday back Tuesday.
I assume overnight temperatures won't cause problems but how likely is daytime infrastructure damage to affect the sleeper?
For example, does sagged OLE simply go back to normal once cooler, if one track was buckled could they run the sleeper on the other?

It does go back after time hence why restrictions are normally until 20:00. This time however it's not planned to get below the mid 20s at night either.

 

[muz379]

Easier, but if make trains too slow in places where they don’t need to be that heavily restricted, run the risk of staff not being able to complete their journey during their shift, or Operators running out of stock, because an incoming train is late so need to find another in sidings, or do customer unfriendly cancellations instead.

So even if cut service by 50%, if incoming train takes more than twice the time, it would be unavailable for return, so positioning for maintenance gets messy

That's why you also discourage all but essential travel telling people to expect disruption .

 

[GeordieO]

Could they not maintain the normal frequency between Newcastle and Edinburgh? Not everywhere in the UK is going to be that hot

Newcastle is forecast to peak at 25c and Edinburgh at 27c, there seems little reason to reduce the service drastically between the North East of England and Scotland

Newcastle is forecast to reach 33 degrees on Tuesday so expect disruption all over the country, don't think you can discount anywhere really.

 

[LAX54]

Please can someone explain the physics of WHY the hot weather would cause issues to railway infrastructure? Furthermore, what are the efforts continental Europe are taking in response to the extreme temperatures?

Looking at a old rail forum from a few years ago, Spain (and others) reduced the speed of trains during the hot weather, and cancelled trains due to the lower speeds. I also see that currently there are SEVERE WEATHER WARNINGS in force for Spain and Portugal issued by their Met Offices/Governments.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Jul 2022 ==

That's why you also discourage all but essential travel telling people to expect disruption .

Whilst a blanket of 60mph (its 30/60) will help the track, by reducing impact etc, and I guess this will cover the 'red zone' area, and a little bit surrounding it, freight will be 30mph, so I am not sure how they will be able to run any freight at all ?

what could muck it all up are points and switches, a bit of heat, well a lot of heat, any slight over the norm expansion of the metal locking, will see points failures here there and everywhere.........luckily the proposed 2500 maintainance job cuts hasn't taken place yet !

 

[Watershed]

Maybe off topic, but BBC just saying not all trains have air conditioning, accepted that's true but there can't be many left without

Lots. All of the Sprinters (except the 158/159s but their A/C is so unreliable they may as well not have it). All 376s, 455s, 456s, 465s and 466s. All 313s, 318s, 320s, 321s and 323s.

I guess there are certainly areas of the country that are lucky enough to have all air conditioned stock!

Wtf? They'd damn better arrange mutual ticket acceptance with Avanti. It's a Monday morning, I need to get to work. 23 deg at 8am on Monday.

Indeed. It's clear which routes certain TOCs really aren't interested in running, as they give up the ghost at the slightest hint of trouble.

Bletchley to Bedford and St Albans Abbey are both self contained branches, operating at fairly low speeds. Leamington to Nuneaton is not that dissimilar, and has generous turnrounds at both ends. Speed restrictions shouldn't have any significant impact so why are all services simply being outright cancelled? They are going to have loads of traincrew sitting around in messrooms.

Similarly, why are they simply giving up the ghost on Trent Valley services rather than say terminating them at Rugby or Northampton, to at least provide local stations with a service?

There need to be sensible contingency plans on the shelf because at the moment, all that seems to be happening is that certain operators completely overreact whenever there's bad weather forecast.

By all means, reduce the service to allow recovery from the inevitable delays. But don't just leave whole lines unserved. How on earth can you expect people to rely on the railway when you repeatedly jump straight to that as your default response to bad weather?

I will be travelling for work on both days. But there's every chance that despite my journeys being along a mainline and normally having 4 different TOCs to choose from, there won't be any trains, or not at any useful times anyway. So there's a good chance I'll just have to drive or get a taxi.

 

[D1537]

(All?) Schools in Wales finished yesterday, so it's already summer holidays here.

I was confused to see news articles about schools contemplating sending kids home early, given that ours have already done so.

Scottish schools have been on holiday for a couple of weeks (they go back in mid-August)

A few English counties also finished yesterday (they go back the last week of August). They historically finish a week earlier due to traditional shut-down fortnight in local industries being the last 2 weeks of July. An example is Leicestershire.

 

[Scotrail12]

I'm on the 1130 on LNER from Kings Cross to Edinburgh. It's the last leg of a 2.5 week holiday and a week that I've spent on trains through France from Barcelona back to Scotland.

LNER are saying essential travel only, there will be less trains and the journey might take longer. What should I do? Stick with it or try and get my money back and travel another way?

 

[Pinus contorta]

Lots. All of the Sprinters (except the 158/159s but their A/C is so unreliable they may as well not have it). All 376s, 455s, 456s, 465s and 466s. All 313s, 318s, 320s, 321s and 323s.

I guess there are certainly areas of the country that are lucky enough to have all air conditioned stock!

Sometimes you can board a Sprinter and the heaters are churning out stale hot air even in the middle of summer. That won't be much fun on Tuesday if there is a signal failure somewhere and the train is stationary for any length of time.

 

[ainsworth74]

Sometimes you can board a Sprinter and the heaters are churning out stale hot air even in the middle of summer. That won't be much fun on Tuesday if there is a signal failure somewhere and the train is stationary for any length of time.

If they're doing that then, to my understanding, usually it's because there was a choice between the unit failing due to something important overheating or using the saloon heaters to take away more heat from the important bits under the floor. Same as you may have to use the car heater to try and draw more heat from the engine if it starts overheating. Cook yourself or cook the engine!

 

[westv]

In a way trains with bad air conditioning such as class 158 / 159 are worse than those without. At least trains without air conditions have windows that open

In the past I have had a number of years of commuting on trains with no air con and I know that when temps reach a certain point even a window that opens is next to useless.

 

[Pinus contorta]

If they're doing that then, to my understanding, usually it's because there was a choice between the unit failing due to something important overheating or using the saloon heaters to take away more heat from the important bits under the floor. Same as you may have to use the car heater to try and draw more heat from the engine if it starts overheating. Cook yourself or cook the engine!

Ah yes I hadn't thought of that.