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

[Bald Rick]

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 wouldn’t have normal signalling though - you’d have to shift signals and track circuits. Also the engineerin* trains for repair might struggle to reach site…

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

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.

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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.

Spot on the industry is really letting itself down here when there are some obvious rail alternatives via Reading or via Portsmouth however extended at least shows an attempt to support passengers who need to get from A to B.

 

[moley]

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.

Answer my own question, 3Y88 has done just that.

 

[Renternolonger]

I travel on this route every week from Folkestone West to Exeter Central via Honiton on a Super Off-Peak Return with a network railcard (£60.70). I see that ticket acceptance isn't in place. Would I be advised to go via Paddington and then change at Reading and Basingstoke instead? I could either go into Waterloo East or to St Pancras and then Paddington. The difficulty for me is the BR restrictions on that ticket, will they still apply when a service like this is disrupted. Will I indeed even be able to buy that ticket? Still quite a newbie here so apologies if this should go in the fares and ticketing part of the forum.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

You wouldn’t have normal signalling though - you’d have to shift signals and track circuits. Also the engineerin* trains for repair might struggle to reach site…

I did something similar near Feltham when a a bridge over a river partly failed a decade or so ago albeit onto a redundant foration that used to run into the marshalling yard. If you can pick locations that are clear of signal sighting distances you wouldn't need to change anything on the track circuit and to keep limits of deviation down just stick a 20ESR over the affected area.

Its only worth doing if the earthworks solution is going to take longer than a week to sort as you would need 18-24hrs possession to implement it.

 

[Hophead]

indeed, and isn't the hourly Southern service from Victoria to Southampton equally valid?

It might well be, but the route is currently blocked due to flooding near Swanwick. Even when it is not, the Southern service via the Arun Valley is extremely unreliable - I would refer to it not as "hourly", but "irregular".

 

[PedroHav]

Good luck with the Southern Victoria - Southampton service. Today they're either cancelled or turning round short of Southampton. Unfortunately nothing unusual. That service is unreliable n

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Good luck with the Southern Victoria - Southampton service. Today they're either cancelled or turning round short of Southampton. Unfortunately nothing unusual. That service is unreliable n

Line shut due to flooding at Hamble.

 

[N0G83]

I travel on this route every week from Folkestone West to Exeter Central via Honiton on a Super Off-Peak Return with a network railcard (£60.70). I see that ticket acceptance isn't in place. Would I be advised to go via Paddington and then change at Reading and Basingstoke instead? I could either go into Waterloo East or to St Pancras and then Paddington. The difficulty for me is the BR restrictions on that ticket, will they still apply when a service like this is disrupted. Will I indeed even be able to buy that ticket? Still quite a newbie here so apologies if this should go in the fares and ticketing part of the forum.

You could Tweet the TOC’s social media Twitter a/c for ticket acceptance availability on your alternate route.

 

[yoyothehobo]

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.

I dont know the area, but if the track was widened from 2 to 4 by tacking the embankment on the side, its ripe for slippage.

The lack of sheet piling is likely due to cost and access etc... Cant do it all.

 

[fandroid]

Why is there no rail replacement bus ?

Where do you think they can get spare buses and drivers from on a weekday? Bus services all around are being cancelled due to driver shortages, and even without that those drivers and buses/weren't sitting around doing nothing waiting for a handy train disruption to occur.

 

[Bald Rick]

A

I did something similar near Feltham when a a bridge over a river partly failed a decade or so ago albeit onto a redundant foration that used to run into the marshalling yard. If you can pick locations that are clear of signal sighting distances you wouldn't need to change anything on the track circuit and to keep limits of deviation down just stick a 20ESR over the affected area.

Its only worth doing if the earthworks solution is going to take longer than a week to sort as you would need 18-24hrs possession to implement it.

Ah, ok, I misread and thought you meant for the whole way from Winchfield - Basingstoke.

It depends where signals / Track circuits are in relation to the slip.

 

[fandroid]

It used to be the case that tickets to London from Southampton westwards were valid on every route going, such as via Havant and Guildford or even via Brighton. Add in via Basingstoke and Reading and you've got a marvellous range of (slow) choices. The problem might be the SWR services west of Southampton still being chaotic.

 

[pompeyfan]

In the press photos the slip looks about 100m away from a down signal

A


Ah, ok, I misread and thought you meant for the whole way from Winchfield - Basingstoke.

It depends where signals / Track circuits are in relation to the slip.

 

[fandroid]

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.

See further up the thread. The memory there was of a similar failure back in the days of West Country class steam! The recent one referred to in the same stretch of line was a cutting side failure; quite a different beast entirely, as it was a failure of the original geology, not of material placed in an embankment. There have been embankment failures on the SWR network but those have been quite remote from this location.

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

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Has anyone been watching the train movements to see what sort of service is running anywhere between Woking and Weymouth and Salisbury?

 

[D6130]

A friend of mine is out videoing trains from an overbridge between Basingstoke and Hook this morning and he says it's really wierd watching the Up fast signals turn to red as a Down train approaches. He has been talking to a BBC South person at the site, who told him that there may be some drone footage of the slip on 'South Today' this evening.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Why is there no rail replacement bus ?

Bus companies are having to cancel their own scheduled services on a daily basis due to a shortage of drivers so very unlikely they’d be able to source buses - they don’t grow on a magic tree.

 

[fandroid]

RealTimeTrains indicates that there is an SWR service from Exeter on its way from Basingstoke to Reading platform 3. That sort of move should help passengers who are diverting via Reading in both directions

 

[Goldfish62]

You wouldn’t have normal signalling though - you’d have to shift signals and track circuits. Also the engineerin* trains for repair might struggle to reach site…

Slewing the track was something I thought of as well.

Around 15 years ago the River Crane culvert under the line between Feltham and Feltham junction collapsed due to heavy rain and it only took about a week to slew both track across into the old marshalling yard (now Feltham depot), ie not even existing trackbed, so normal services could be resumed while a new culvert was built. It really was a most impressive effort.

 

[Bald Rick]

Slewing the track was something I thought of as well.

Around 15 years ago the River Crane culvert under the line between Feltham and Feltham junction collapsed due to heavy rain and it only took about a week to slew both track across into the old marshalling yard (now Feltham depot), ie not even existing trackbed, so normal services could be resumed while a new culvert was built. It really was a most impressive effort.

See @Nicholas Lewis comments above - he did that !

 

[Edsmith]

I travel on this route every week from Folkestone West to Exeter Central via Honiton on a Super Off-Peak Return with a network railcard (£60.70). I see that ticket acceptance isn't in place. Would I be advised to go via Paddington and then change at Reading and Basingstoke instead? I could either go into Waterloo East or to St Pancras and then Paddington. The difficulty for me is the BR restrictions on that ticket, will they still apply when a service like this is disrupted. Will I indeed even be able to buy that ticket? Still quite a newbie here so apologies if this should go in the fares and ticketing part of the forum.

I do a similar journey from Kent to Exeter quite regularly and in situations like this it's difficult to get anyone to commit themselves about ticket acceptance via alternative routes. Obviously if Waterloo passengers were officially allowed to use Paddington services to Exeter then those trains would become over crowded and GWR passengers wouldn't be happy.

At the moment I suppose Waterloo to Reading and SWR from there to Exeter.

 

[Goldfish62]

See @Nicholas Lewis comments above - he did that !

Ah, great minds think alike!

 

[island]

Further issues this morning as "liquid mud" has flowed onto the line between Chertsey and Weybridge, been boiled by the 3rd rail, and caused a line block.

 

[Omnishambles]

Where do you think they can get spare buses and drivers from on a weekday? Bus services all around are being cancelled due to driver shortages, and even without that those drivers and buses/weren't sitting around doing nothing waiting for a handy train disruption to occur.

Even yesterday SWR were advertising disruption to rail replacement buses due to a nationwide driver shortage

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Further issues this morning as "liquid mud" has flowed onto the line between Chertsey and Weybridge, been boiled by the 3rd rail, and caused a line block.

NR Wessex tweeted this video of the steaming mud!

https://twitter.com/NetworkRailWssx/status/1614911991671394306

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

NR Wessex tweeted this video of the steaming mud!
https://twitter.com/NetworkRailWssx/status/1614911991671394306

That's one for the "wouldn't happen on OHLE" file.
But OHLE caught fire near Amsterdam recently...

 

[yoyothehobo]

That's one for the "wouldn't happen on OHLE" file.
But OHLE caught fire near Amsterdam recently...

If your mud is on your OLE you have a slightly bigger earthworks issue though!

 

[Goldfish62]

NR Wessex tweeted this video of the steaming mud!

https://twitter.com/NetworkRailWssx/status/1614911991671394306

"Disruption due to an erupting volcano on the line."

 

[Bald Rick]

That's one for the "wouldn't happen on OHLE" file.

True! OT, but there have been a spate of third rail issues this last week. Several displaced con rails, and various other problems.

 

[Deepgreen]

That's one for the "wouldn't happen on OHLE" file.
But OHLE caught fire near Amsterdam recently...

If a large landslip takes OHLE with it the restoration is far more time-consuming than third rail.