Woking - Basingstoke (near Hook) landslip (15/01/23)

[FuzzyDuck]

Bugger. I'm planning to travel from Basingstoke to Waterloo on Monday (and also Friday), I haven't done this journey for a couple of months! Looks like I might be going via Reading. If I have to do that I might as well go to Paddington, as it's quicker.

 

[Jrocks]

Looks like they are uploading the Timetable as we speak - the first few services out of Exeter tomorrow morning have been diverted via Reading which is good.

 

[BenS123]

Services on the SWML are also being affected by a track circuit failure at Sway, due to flooding, adding to the disruption

We have been informed that there is a track circuit failure at Sway due to flooding of the line. Due to the track circuit failure and the flooding, the lines through Sway station, all lines are blocked between Brockenhurst and Bournemouth.

Live Train Times & Travel Information | South Western Railway

Our journey planner provides live train times and train disruption information. Plan your journey and check for changes that might affect your journey

www.southwesternrailway.com

 

[The Ham]

As the landslip is the London side of Hook, would it have been possible to run shuttle services to Farnborough/Fleet/Winchfield (to/from London) and Hook (to/from Basingstoke) on the down show.

There's a lot of kids who use the train for private schools at Farnborough and colleges at Farnborough and Basingstoke, for many it would be easier to get to the other station (even from Fleet those heading to Basingstoke would be passing close to Hook when driving). Whilst many may just drive their kids the whole way for a lot (especially those with other kids) would find it a lot easier if they could only need to get their kids to the other station.

There'll also be those who would get to Hook to get to London via Reading.

Even those who drive are likely to find that the local roads are much busier than normal.

 

[pompeyfan]

Looks like a lot of the network is under water again as well as the land slip at Hook, good luck to all the staff involved today.

 

[Brush 4]

There seems to be a long history of landslips near Hook. This was 1935. There was a big slip circa 1961 I believe

Train wrecked by landslide in Hampshire . Hundreds of tons of earth and rock , believed to have been loosened by the heavy rains , which crashed down to the railway line completely wrecked a milk train near Winchfield , between Fleet and Hook , Hamps

Download this stock image: Train wrecked by landslide in Hampshire . Hundreds of tons of earth and rock , believed to have been loosened by the heavy rains , which crashed down to the railway line completely wrecked a milk train near Winchfield , between Fleet and Hook , Hampshire . All tracks...

www.alamy.com

 

[HamworthyGoods]

this is a screen capture from video above shows reasonable support

View attachment 127077

should be good for a 5ESR if the rest of the embankment is stable. Once the stabilisations works are complete will obviously have to be shut to restore the US.

No there is a kink in both conductor rail and track on the Down Fast from the early stages before the embankment under the Down Slow totally fell away.

 

[yoyothehobo]

Looks like quite a nasty one that.

The failure plane will be daylighting in the 6 foot, but you now have a near vertical face adjacent to the line on the right so you have no support on that rail either.

These arent always easy to fix either, you need to find out where/why that failure is occurring at that depth and prevent it happening again. You could do an excavate and replace but that doesnt mean you have solved the problem. This is the sort of location where you need substantial toe weight/sheet piles and then rebuild the embankment. Not a quick process by any means. Thats a lot to get that up and running next weekend!

 

[kristiang85]

I know flooding is beyond control of TOCs/NR, but SWR don't seem too bothered about helping people out here - wouldn't it be reasonable to allow ticket acceptance on GWR, especially are they are the same group? (This response to someone querying travelling on the Portsmouth route today)

https://twitter.com/SW_Help/status/1614575816918138880?t=iNJVGV5YiGU8DdDV2nbRQw&s=19

As we have passengers not to travel we don't have ticket acceptance in place; apologies

 

[duncanp]

I know flooding is beyond control of TOCs/NR, but SWR don't seem too bothered about helping people out here - wouldn't it be reasonable to allow ticket acceptance on GWR, especially are they are the same group? (This response to someone querying travelling on the Portsmouth route today)

https://twitter.com/SW_Help/status/1614575816918138880?t=iNJVGV5YiGU8DdDV2nbRQw&s=19

So in that quote from Twitter, someone needed to get home from Waterloo to Wareham.

The advice was not to travel, and to claim a refund on the ticket.

What is someone who is in London but lives in Wareham supposed to do then?

Just pay ££££ for a hotel and meals in London for days on end until Network Rail can get round to repairing the damage, or SWR can condescend to arrange ticket acceptance on the obvious alternative route from Paddington via Reading and Basingstoke.

Indeed, travelling from Paddington via Reading and Basingstoke to places like Winchester, Southampton... etc is a permitted route according to the ATOC routing guide, so the customer should have been advised of that in the Twitter response.

 

[30907]

So in that quote from Twitter, someone needed to get home from Waterloo to Wareham.

The advice was not to travel, and to claim a refund on the ticket.

What is someone who is in London but lives in Wareham supposed to do then?

Just pay ££££ for a hotel and meals in London for days on end until Network Rail can get round to repairing the damage, or SWR can condescend to arrange ticket acceptance on the obvious alternative route from Paddington via Reading and Basingstoke.

Indeed, travelling from Paddington via Reading and Basingstoke to places like Winchester, Southampton... etc is a permitted route according to the ATOC routing guide, so the customer should have been advised of that in the Twitter response.

Twitter is pretty useless at times - especially when the Bournemouths were running via Havant yesterday anyway!
SWR journey check is likewise pretty useless ATM - though TBF with flooding all over Hampshire it's not entirely their fault, and the initial timetable plan for this morning hasn't worked (apart from the diversions to Reading).
It would appear that the 0630 Waterloo-Weymouth has been held at Woking for ages and is now at Farnborough; the 0805 is heading the same way.
So the summary "no trains at Fleet/Winchfield/Hook" looks to be exactly what is planned with Down trains over the UF - once it is made to work!

Edit: at 0935, may have spoken too soon...

 

[fandroid]

There was a lot of luck there for the railway yesterday. A landslip on a busy line. It happened on Sunday while there was an engineering possession. Think if it had happened at around 5pm on a weekday. An embankment slipping away is not so easily seen by drivers in either direction as debris in a cutting, and after dark?

Is there any remote monitoring that would have detected that?

 

[duncanp]

Twitter is pretty useless at times - especially when the Bournemouths were running via Havant yesterday anyway!
SWR journey check is likewise pretty useless ATM - though TBF with flooding all over Hampshire it's not entirely their fault, and the initial timetable plan for this morning hasn't worked (apart from the diversions to Reading).
It would appear that the 0630 Waterloo-Weymouth has been held at Woking for ages and is now at Farnborough; the 0805 is heading the same way.
So the summary "no trains at Fleet/Winchfield/Hook" looks to be exactly what is planned with Down trains over the UF - once it is made to work!

Surely trains towards London could stop at Hook, Winchfield and Fleet.

That way, passengers for those stations couls travel to Basingstoke and then double back.

Whilst this is not ideal, it is better than nothing.

Or does SWR simply not care about people travelling from those stations.

 

[pompeyfan]

I wouldn’t be surprised if SWR actually bid for the timetable they ran on Saturday just gone, but with the 1Wxx that ran through making use of SLW via BSK rather than via Havant. Would substantially reduce workload for all involved behind the scenes. All alterations today are having to be done manually for each and every train.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Jan 2023 ==

Surely trains towards London could stop at Hook, Winchfield and Fleet.

That way, passengers for those stations couls travel to Basingstoke and then double back.

Whilst this is not ideal, it is better than nothing.

Or does SWR simply not care about people travelling from those stations.

Surely the 1tph that is running booked route would already be absolutely wedged, let alone calling at those stations and causing a potentially dangerous situation from overcrowding?

There was a lot of luck there for the railway yesterday. A landslip on a busy line. It happened on Sunday while there was an engineering possession. Think if it had happened at around 5pm on a weekday. An embankment slipping away is not so easily seen by drivers in either direction as debris in a cutting, and after dark?

Is there any remote monitoring that would have detected that?

I believe the land slip was actually found Saturday by a train exiting the possession however more fell away over the course of Sunday.

 

[fandroid]

Bugger. I'm planning to travel from Basingstoke to Waterloo on Monday (and also Friday), I haven't done this journey for a couple of months! Looks like I might be going via Reading. If I have to do that I might as well go to Paddington, as it's quicker.

Definitely don't go on the Reading to Waterloo route, as you'll have aged several years by the time you get to London. As it happens, via Reading to Paddington (as a London Terminal) is a permitted route from Basingstoke and at the moment "Any Permitted" day returns are actually cheaper than those via Woking.

 

[Taunton]

Looks like quite a nasty one that.

The failure plane will be daylighting in the 6 foot, but you now have a near vertical face adjacent to the line on the right so you have no support on that rail either.

These arent always easy to fix either, you need to find out where/why that failure is occurring at that depth and prevent it happening again. You could do an excavate and replace but that doesnt mean you have solved the problem. This is the sort of location where you need substantial toe weight/sheet piles and then rebuild the embankment. Not a quick process by any means. Thats a lot to get that up and running next weekend!

Judging by the continuing failures here, long term, one wonders why they have not done substantial sheet piling all along here a generation ago. It seems a basic instability from the initial construction, which here would have been the 4-tracking somewhere around 1900. One wonders if the failure is between the original and the widening earthworks.

 

[stuartl]

Should have been on 09:22 to London from Bournmouth.Told to get NatExpress ticket and claim rail ticket back. First bus with spaces is 11:15 !

 

[duncanp]

Surely the 1tph that is running booked route would already be absolutely wedged, let alone calling at those stations and causing a potentially dangerous situation from overcrowding?

So what are those pesky nuisances who live in Hook, Winchfield and Fleet who want to travel supposed to do?

Rail replacement bus service? - you must be having a laugh.

SWR have the cheek to suggest "...if you would prefer to use local buses...", but that there will be no ticket acceptance.

The existing Stagecoach bus service 7 between Fleet and Aldershot runs every 2 hours, and service 10 between Fleet and Farnborough is hourly, so that is hardly much help.

Eff off and stop bothering us, seems to be the attitude of SWR.

 

[moley]

So pedant point… in some of these cases, there is no need to put ticket acceptance in place if it’s already a valid route.

But it’s probably too much to ask of a Twitter team to know what more unusual routes already are valid and which aren’t.

 

[duncanp]

So pedant point… in some of these cases, there is no need to put ticket acceptance in place if it’s already a valid route.

But it’s probably too much to ask of a Twitter team to know what more unusual routes already are valid and which aren’t.

I don't see why it is too much to ask of a Twitter team.

This is the sort of information they should have to hand, so that they can advise people in the event of disruption.

 

[pompeyfan]

So what are those pesky nuisances who live in Hook, Winchfield and Fleet who want to travel supposed to do?

Rail replacement bus service? - you must be having a laugh.

SWR have the cheek to suggest "...if you would prefer to use local buses...", but that there will be no ticket acceptance.

The existing Stagecoach bus service 7 between Fleet and Aldershot runs every 2 hours, and service 10 between Fleet and Farnborough is hourly, so that is hardly much help.

Eff off and stop bothering us, seems to be the attitude of SWR.

I’m open to hear a suggestion as to how those stations get a service. What comes up must come down though so there has to be capacity and route knowledge to prevent stock and crew becoming trapped East of the slip. The Weymouth services would be broadly okay, so potentially you could have 2 (exceptionally busy to the point of being unable to board) trains per hour Eastbound only.

Stock shortages are apparently being compounded by Northam depot being closed since Thursday daytime with units now running out of exam miles.

If you were in control what would you do to ensure those reasonably unimportant stations get a service without adversely affecting the rest of the network?

 

[swt_passenger]

this is a screen capture from video above shows reasonable support



should be good for a 5ESR if the rest of the embankment is stable. Once the stabilisations works are complete will obviously have to be shut to restore the US.

Do you mean “to restore the DS”? The US and UF are in use.

Both down lines are currently blocked “NOGO” west of Farnborough.

 

[Brush 4]

Interesting similarity between this and the new West of England flooding thread, in terms of TOC's just abandoning passengers. From useless to hopeless soon, pointless.

 

[duncanp]

Interesting similarity between this and the new West of England flooding thread, in terms of TOC's just abandoning passengers. From useless to hopeless soon, pointless.

It is rather like Avanti terminating a London - Glasgow train at Preston, and providing no alternative means of getting passengers to their destination.

Or telling them to get a taxi at their own expense and claim the money back, and then refusing the refund because the passenger "..didn't seek prior authorisation...".

 

[zwk500]

As the landslip is the London side of Hook, would it have been possible to run shuttle services to Farnborough/Fleet/Winchfield (to/from London) and Hook (to/from Basingstoke) on the down show.

There's a lot of kids who use the train for private schools at Farnborough and colleges at Farnborough and Basingstoke, for many it would be easier to get to the other station (even from Fleet those heading to Basingstoke would be passing close to Hook when driving). Whilst many may just drive their kids the whole way for a lot (especially those with other kids) would find it a lot easier if they could only need to get their kids to the other station.

There'll also be those who would get to Hook to get to London via Reading.

Even those who drive are likely to find that the local roads are much busier than normal.

Hook to Basingstoke would be unlikely because of the lack of protection travelling wrong road towards the landslip site. In theory Woking to Winchfield might be possible, but it massively increases the signaller workload at a time when they're busy dealing with Wrong-road running on the Up Fast, as well as the problems with unsignalled moves at Woking jn.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Hook to Basingstoke would be unlikely because of the lack of protection travelling wrong road towards the landslip site. In theory Woking to Winchfield might be possible, but it massively increases the signaller workload at a time when they're busy dealing with Wrong-road running on the Up Fast, as well as the problems with unsignalled moves at Woking jn.

If this is going to take longer than a week then take UF oou from Basigstoke to Winchfield slew the DF onto UF formation around slip site then at least you have normal signalling.

 

[Robertj21a]

So what are those pesky nuisances who live in Hook, Winchfield and Fleet who want to travel supposed to do?

Rail replacement bus service? - you must be having a laugh.

SWR have the cheek to suggest "...if you would prefer to use local buses...", but that there will be no ticket acceptance.

The existing Stagecoach bus service 7 between Fleet and Aldershot runs every 2 hours, and service 10 between Fleet and Farnborough is hourly, so that is hardly much help.

Eff off and stop bothering us, seems to be the attitude of SWR.

Why is there no rail replacement bus ?

 

[alastair]

So in that quote from Twitter, someone needed to get home from Waterloo to Wareham.

The advice was not to travel, and to claim a refund on the ticket.

What is someone who is in London but lives in Wareham supposed to do then?

Just pay ££££ for a hotel and meals in London for days on end until Network Rail can get round to repairing the damage, or SWR can condescend to arrange ticket acceptance on the obvious alternative route from Paddington via Reading and Basingstoke.

Indeed, travelling from Paddington via Reading and Basingstoke to places like Winchester, Southampton... etc is a permitted route according to the ATOC routing guide, so the customer should have been advised of that in the Twitter response.

indeed, and is'nt the hourly Southern service from Victoria to Southampton equally valid?

 

[Lifelong]

I think many of us SWR users have got to the stage of wondering just what is wrong with the organisation. For clarity - and in fairness - those trying operationally to schedule and run the trains today are not at fault - and most fair minded people would say that. But the wider organisation? How is the copy and paste below from the page on the website the best comms the company can provide? Why is there not a 'if you are travelling from X you can also use these routes and your ticket will be valid. If you use these routes at present your ticket isn't valid but you can claim a refund etc etc etc'. Just something to actually assist passengers (like actually a number of the posts on this thread would do). Even 'full information on alternative routes will be published at (eg) X o'clock today'. Nothing, just the garbage below.

Further Information
If you would prefer to use local buses to continue your journey please check Traveline (http://www.traveline.info/) - South Western Railway tickets are not valid on local buses unless stated above.

Have you been delayed? Please see https://www.southwesternrailway.com/contact-and-help/refunds-and-compensation for our compensation policy.

If you would like to make a comment about your experience with us today, please call us on 0345 6000 650 or see https://www.southwesternrailway.com/contact-and-help/contact-us for other ways to contact us.

 

[moley]

If this is going to take longer than a week then take UF oou from Basigstoke to Winchfield slew the DF onto UF formation around slip site then at least you have normal signalling.

You’d get a fairly thin but reliable service if there was a way to get from Farnborough P2/DS or DF onto the UF without the need for a double shunt via P1.

Is there any reason the services need to can’t come straight down the DF to stop beyond Farnborough, reverse to P1 then unload passengers? At the moment every train is a topping first at Farnborough P2.

I’m presuming that it’s only one train country bound on the UF between Farnborough and Basingstoke at any time so limiting to 2tph max.