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

[kristiang85]

Well I'm going to attempt Basingstoke to London this morning, via Reading. Hopefully I can get into work vaguely before lunchtime and in relative comfort... (although not a great start as Stagecoach have cancelled the half hourly bus from my village and the second one is already reading 10 mins late).

It's all very well for TOCs to say 'do not travel', but we do have work and lives to get on with...

 

[Edsmith]

Obviously the incident itself is beyond anyone's control, and operationally I'm sure everyone is doing what they can, but the ticket acceptance situation is a disgrace. They can't even get their story straight, twitter advises acceptance via Reading in response to specific queries but no mention at all of that on SWR site. In situations like this the railway, collectively, should just suspend all the restrictions and do what it can to help passengers out. Shame on them

My understanding is that is what normally happens during serious disruption, any restrictions on routes etc are suspended so that passengers can get to their destination by whatever is possible?

 

[brad465]

Are SWR and Avanti in some kind of grudge match over who is the worst operator in the UK at the moment?

 

[kristiang85]

Are SWR and Avanti in some kind of grudge match over who is the worst operator in the UK at the moment?

Aren't they both FirstGroup?

 

[Signal Head]

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…

Slew is proposed apparently. No reason why you would lose signalling or have to do a load of work to maintain it, just depends where the slews are.

 

[brad465]

Aren't they both FirstGroup?

FirstGroup own 70% in both companies yes, although the remaining 30% is MTR for SWR and Trentalia for Avanti IIRC.

 

[quartile]

My understanding is that is what normally happens during serious disruption, any restrictions on routes etc are suspended so that passengers can get to their destination by whatever is possible?

Looking at swr twitter today they are advising that taking gwr to exeter is a valid alternative route and Basingstoke and beyond via Reading and Paddington is allowed but the website doesn't mention this still.
Also driving to Alton line stations is now allowed for those with a Rail Replacement Car.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Jan 2023 ==

Are SWR and Avanti in some kind of grudge match over who is the worst operator in the UK at the moment?

SWR has had a new MD and COO over the last year both ex TfL and other TOCs. Will be interesting to see how they change things following this their first major incident.

 

[Kite159]

Complete lack of information about ticket acceptance on the website.

But that's what you get when SWR don't care, they will still get paid the same regardless if they carry 10 or 100 passengers.

 

[The Ham]

Complete lack of information about ticket acceptance on the website.

But that's what you get when SWR don't care, they will still get paid the same regardless if they carry 10 or 100 passengers.

To be fair to the TOC this is a failing of the contract, and something which should have be considered when the contacts were brought in.

Something like:

Wherever possible, whilst working within public health guidelines, the company should take every step possible to encourage fare paying passengers to use their or other train companies services.

With some measurable factor applied, so for example any TOC which had passenger use above what it was in the last quarter would get a bonus. Likewise any which was above the national average of pre Covid use would get a bonus. Finally any that performed well during a time of disruption (say) ensuring that over 85% of expected passengers were still carried by rail or rail replacement buses for over 90% of their journey.

Of course, we should be grateful that what we have is works beating (please ignore the fact that it's not specified which world which is being talking about) and go about our lives basking in just how great or Tory government is.

 

[WessexEclectic]

Absolutely right, the (lack of) information available on the website is a disgrace.

Would never have happened under BR. Oh, wait...

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Slew is proposed apparently. No reason why you would lose signalling or have to do a load of work to maintain it, just depends where the slews are.

The country end slew back in looks like it might have to be beyond the magnet for BE387 so signal alignment maybe an issue but presumably could be managed with a low speed ESR

 

[Renternolonger]

Presumably you would prefer to travel via Newbury rather than Bristol, which makes this statement even less helpful.

Come to think of it, from a total railway perspective this is crazy: sending you to change at Reading and Basingstoke must be guaranteeing eligibility for a delay repay claim, whereas ticket acceptance via Newbury would at least not be reclaimable.
Though of course real money isn't at stake here: SWR can claim from NR and the whole thing is underwritten by DfT

So long since I used that route that I forgot Bristol wasn't included. I meant Reading/Taunton/Tiverton. I'll ask them on twitter again.

 

[Signal Head]

The country end slew back in looks like it might have to be beyond the magnet for BE387 so signal alignment maybe an issue but presumably could be managed with a low speed ESR

Slue is going to bypass existing 387 AWS and signal, with a temporary signal of some description being provided.

 

[swt_passenger]

Slue is going to bypass existing 387 AWS and signal, with a temporary signal of some description being provided.

I suppose if there’s now been a decision to slue the down fast line over, does it presumably mean that this is going to take weeks rather than days to fix? Are there any new estimates about overall timescales?

 

[Mike Machin]

Bearing in mind the need to construct a completely new access road able to carry the weight of construction equipment over saturated fields, the felling of a number of large trees and the magnitude of the work required I would imagine that we could be looking at a case months rather than weeks.

 

[Brush 4]

Yes, a very minor plus is that a gap in the tree tunnel will be opened up, providing a rare view point. Pleasant countryside along there, near the A30.

 

[swt_passenger]

Bearing in mind the need to construct a completely new access road able to carry the weight of construction equipment over saturated fields, the felling of a number of large trees and the magnitude of the work required I would imagine that we could be looking at a case months rather than weeks.

I agree. When these things happen initial estimates always seem to be surprisingly optimistic.

There was an embankment failure on the Romsey line just east of Salisbury Salisbury in fairly recent memory, that took a while to fix, about 6 weeks IIRC in early 2020?

 

[Signal Head]

I suppose if there’s now been a decision to slue the down fast line over, does it presumably mean that this is going to take weeks rather than days to fix? Are there any new estimates about overall timescales?

I've not heard anything, but it looked fairly obvious from the state of it that it wasn't going to be a case of chuck a bit of ballast in and run a tamper through it.

Won't they need to assess the stability of the rest of the embankment in the slip area and the immediately adjacent sections, in case there's another bit on the verge of letting go?

 

[swt_passenger]

Won't they need to assess the stability of the rest of the embankment in the slip area and the immediately adjacent sections, in case there's another bit on the verge of letting go?

You’d have to think so, it’s unlikely there’s going to be an obvious or definite position where the fault lines just stop…

 

[Ant1966]

My understanding is that is what normally happens during serious disruption, any restrictions on routes etc are suspended so that passengers can get to their destination by whatever is possible?

I think it is, in general. My experience of Railway staff on the front line is that they are pragmatic and helpful in these cases. But even if this is de facto what happens, if it doesnt actually say so on the website then you always have that doubt in the back of your mind. More importantly, how are the general public supposed to know what to do, what's allowed and what isn't?

 

[Renternolonger]

So long since I used that route that I forgot Bristol wasn't included. I meant Reading/Taunton/Tiverton. I'll ask them on twitter again.

They said that's OK on twitter:

Hi, yes there is ticket acceptance between Exeter to Paddington route.

 

[alistairlees]

They said that's OK on twitter:

Hi, yes there is ticket acceptance between Exeter to Paddington route.

Exeter to London is valid via Bristol TM then either Bristol Parkway, or Bath Spa...

 

[nw1]

Bearing in mind the need to construct a completely new access road able to carry the weight of construction equipment over saturated fields, the felling of a number of large trees and the magnitude of the work required I would imagine that we could be looking at a case months rather than weeks.

I'm glad I don't use this line for London commuting!

To have a busy commuter route such as this closed for so long must be just about unprecedented in modern times. I'm not sure what they will do long term: no direct service between London and Southampton for months is really quite a serious situation. Do GWR have any spare capacity to increase the service between Paddington and Reading? Could they run a fast Paddington-Reading-Basingstoke using IETs?

 

[moley]

Has an IET ever been to Basingstoke?

 

[WizCastro197]

Has an IET ever been to Basingstoke?

Is it even cleared to go there?

 

[ANDREW_D_WEBB]

Is it even cleared to go there?

Trans Pennine ones have. They ran to Eastleigh via London, Reading and Basingstoke for attention at the Works.

 

[zwk500]

Trans Pennine ones have. They ran to Eastleigh via London, Reading and Basingstoke for attention at the Works.

There's no mention of them having clearance in the Sectional Appendix available publicly, did they have temporary authority or have they just been added late? (Also, because of the strange way the system works TPE's class 397 clearance won't necessarily automatically clear GWR's Class 800s.)

 

[43096]

There's no mention of them having clearance in the Sectional Appendix available publicly, did they have temporary authority or have they just been added late? (Also, because of the strange way the system works TPE's class 397 clearance won't necessarily automatically clear GWR's Class 800s.)

Class 397 isn’t an IET, so won’t have the same clearance as an 800 or 802.

 

[route101]

Has an IET ever been to Basingstoke?

GWR ones on diverts?

 

[swt_passenger]

Trans Pennine ones have. They ran to Eastleigh via London, Reading and Basingstoke for attention at the Works.

Also LNER…

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Jan 2023 ==

GWR ones on diverts?

I don’t believe they’ve ever covered Westbury to Basingstoke yet, and that route section was never down for clearance under the IEP project.