London Overground Major Disruption - 11/01/2018

ModernRailways · 11 Jan 2018

There's no service between Stratford to Richmond/Clapham Junction and Highbury & Islington to West Croydon/Clapham Junction/Crystal Palace/New Cross.

Apparently this is due to extra safety checks on the trains. A quick look around and I can't see any mention as to why or what's gone wrong to cause such a massive round of disruption. Essentially the entire Overground is at a stand because of this.

RailUK Forums

class303 · 11 Jan 2018

Yes. All overground trains showing as cancelled at Highbury and Islington.

class303 · 11 Jan 2018

DC line overground from Euston (same stock) does appear to be running though. Overground services from Liverpool St unaffected.

Skoodle · 11 Jan 2018

It seems was only affecting the 378 fleet. Watford DC and NLL are now slowly starting up, there's a couple of trains running.

LAX54 · 11 Jan 2018

Think they found a fault with a unit, and all the others were checked before being allowing them into service

SPADTrap · 11 Jan 2018

Brake calliper was found on a track inspection at Shoreditch and it was obviously not know what unit it was from.

AlanFry1 · 11 Jan 2018

southern, tfl, thameslink, greater Anglia, tfl rail, south western, first great western, London midland, (basically all operators) accepting tickets - this must be bad - I had to detour my journey too massive overcrowding st Highbury. Hopefully not the end for 378s

oversteer · 11 Jan 2018

According to BBC, parts of a brake caliper found on the track - the whole Class 378 fleet has been taken out of service for safety checks

“No service Stratford to Richmond/Clapham Junction and Highbury & Islington to West Croydon/Clapham Junction/Crystal Palace/New Cross due to a shortage of trains caused by extra safety inspections. tickets accepted on LU, C2C, Southeastern, SW Trains, Thameslink, Greater Anglia.”

No ETA on resumption of service.
Sounds bad!

trainmania100 · 11 Jan 2018

I guess each unit will need very close inspection
Will be a bad day if they get through every unit and say the broken unit hasn't been found..

FOH · 11 Jan 2018

Not an engineer but why is it so important to ground a fleet until checked? Surely there is redundancy like most systems for a single brake?

Domh245 · 11 Jan 2018

FOH said:
Not an engineer but why is it so important to ground a fleet until checked? Surely there is redundancy like most systems for a single brake?

There is redundancy in the form of other brakes, although that axle will only have 1 instead of 2 friction brakes working now. But just because you've found one caliper on one particular night, doesn't mean that only one has come off. Additionally it may have come off as a result of incorrect installation in which case all is well, but if there is something more severe at play, then you can't send out trains knowing that there is a chance that the brakes will fail

Skoodle · 11 Jan 2018

FOH said:
Not an engineer but why is it so important to ground a fleet until checked? Surely there is redundancy like most systems for a single brake?

Would you drive your car knowing that a brake caliper had fallen off? It's ok, you've got 3 on the other wheels. There's redundancy.

MG11 · 11 Jan 2018

WhiteHartLane said:
southern, tfl, thameslink, greater Anglia, tfl rail, south western, first great western, London midland, (basically all operators) accepting tickets - this must be bad - I had to detour my journey too massive overcrowding st Highbury. Hopefully not the end for 378s

I wouldn't have thought such modern units would be scrapped, unless there was a structural defect.

FOH · 11 Jan 2018

Skoodle said:
Would you drive your car knowing that a brake caliper had fallen off? It's ok, you've got 3 on the other wheels. There's redundancy.

Thanks Domh for your explanation, makes a lot of sense.
As for would I drive it, yes I guess I would , albeit down to Kwik Fit, knowing that the braking performance might be affected.

DelW · 11 Jan 2018

WhiteHartLane said:
Hopefully not the end for 378s

MG11 said:
I wouldn't have thought such modern units would be scrapped, unless there was a structural defect.

Unless the braking system of the 378s is different from other Bombardier Electrostar EMUs, of which there are several hundred in service some of which date back nearly 20 years, it's surely much more likely to be maintenance issue rather than a design or manufacturing flaw.

Clip · 11 Jan 2018

FOH said:
Thanks Domh for your explanation, makes a lot of sense.
As for would I drive it, yes I guess I would , albeit down to Kwik Fit, knowing that the braking performance might be affected.

Well they have decided to kind of do the same by keeping them in the depot till they can do a check on the trains to find which one it came off and to make sure the others on other trains don't come off either.

SWT_USER · 11 Jan 2018

It's fairly standard for Bomabardier stuff to have bits fall off isn't it?

Bletchleyite · 11 Jan 2018

SWT_USER said:
It's fairly standard for Bomabardier stuff to have bits fall off isn't it?

oversteer · 11 Jan 2018

FOH said:
Thanks Domh for your explanation, makes a lot of sense.
As for would I drive it, yes I guess I would , albeit down to Kwik Fit, knowing that the braking performance might be affected.

If a brake caliper ever falls off your car, please don’t drive it. Get it recovered to a garage

AM9 · 11 Jan 2018

Clip said:
Well they have decided to kind of do the same by keeping them in the depot till they can do a check on the trains to find which one it came off and to make sure the others on other trains don't come off either.

... and even if the braking system on a train missing one caliper isn't a braking safety issue, the next one that fell off could lodge itself somewhere dangerous like a points frog or bridge the third rail to earth. Although slightly different, just look at when a 1992 tube on the central had a motor drop causing a derailment. The first incident went unreported with no follow-up action. Had the motor held until it's next inspection, maybe somebody would have said "don't panic, the trains have got another 31* working motors!".
* - or however many a full compliment minus 1 is.

Geezertronic · 11 Jan 2018

FOH said:
Thanks Domh for your explanation, makes a lot of sense.
As for would I drive it, yes I guess I would , albeit down to Kwik Fit, knowing that the braking performance might be affected.

I had a brake left-side failure on the front of my Classic Mini once and it caused me to go into a spin as the braking force was only applied to the right wheel which caused the tank track effect of dragging the car to the right which was quite scary even at 40mph. So good luck driving a car with a corner caliper out :rolleyes:

theageofthetra · 11 Jan 2018

Silly question but the track workers who found it would have been unlikely to know what sort of unit the caliper was from so is there any possibility it could have come off a NR engineering vehicle?

Elecman · 11 Jan 2018

Presumably a quick check with the TOC fleet engineer identified what stock it was off

tsr · 11 Jan 2018

Also the fact that very little runs on the ELL (through the affected area) apart from 378s - any other stock on the route would be easy to trace and eliminate.

D235 Apapa · 11 Jan 2018

Reminds me of that time (a few years ago.....!) when the Southern's Merchant Navy's were all withdrawn temporarily as a precaution (axle fault, I think???, was found on one), which needed an input of Black 5's, V2's, even the odd Brittania I believe amongst others just to cover the service. Can't ever be too careful with such matters. As said above (cars) remember looking at a second hand motor on behalf of a friend some years back, only to find the split pins from the front brake pad retaining bolts missing, on BOTH sides! A very small item, but could end in a very bad way...

3141 · 11 Jan 2018

Skoodle said:
Would you drive your car knowing that a brake caliper had fallen off? It's ok, you've got 3 on the other wheels. There's redundancy.

Not my car which has 4 wheels, but if I had a car with 40 wheels I might consider driving it with only 39 brake calipers.

Fincra5 · 11 Jan 2018

At the end of the day, if one Caliper falls off, then so could the others. I'm not surprised London Overground took the safe choice and examined the units.

Starmill · 12 Jan 2018

Sorry to be pedantic but LOROL no longer operate trains! This is the drawback of using the legal names of companies - and why it's generally best avoided.

London Overground Major Disruption - 11/01/2018

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