Weather related disruption Leeds/York/Doncaster (27/07)

al78 · 27 Jul 2018

bramling said:
The industry coped pretty well with the snow in March too as I recall.

I'm sure the people that were stuck on trains in freezing conditions for hours will believe you. :rolleyes:

The fact is that whilst it is inevitable that severe weather conditions will cause disruption, it is debatable that a week of cold weather, or a summer thunderstorm really constitutes severe or extreme weather. Normally I expect the word "extreme" to be applied to weather that has greater than a 50 year return period, not weather that happens somewhere in the country nearly every year that the media then blow out of all proportion. If the railway regularly has problems with near normal annually occurring weather phenomenon, that to me suggests a problem with lack of robustness in the system.

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al78 · 27 Jul 2018

158756 said:
I agree with most of your post, but winter and spring saw around average rainfall in the north west, it's only taken the dry spell since May (still with more rain than the south) to dry out the moors and trigger the forthcoming hosepipe ban.

The south east has been bone dry since May, but before that it had been persistently dull and wet since the previous August (apart from the brief cold spell in late winter/early spring). The wet autumn and winter is the main reason the south east has not experienced widespread water restrictions yet.

noddingdonkey · 27 Jul 2018

One of those situations where it looks like a lot of eggs have been put in a York shaped basket.

I was waiting on P1 at Huddersfield for a Manchester service, and couldn't help but notice the old PSB. I assume that if this had happened a few months ago the stopper at least would still be running, if not tpe turning back at Huddersfield.

Station staff seemed not to be completely informed, leading to several announcements (manual) being made that no Manchester bound trains were running after a train had departed Leeds. This was queried with a member of platform staff who assured me that the info on RTT and Traksy that a service was on the way and currently at Dewsbury must be wrong, until i quoted the headcode and he went to check.

(I mention that as an issue with the system, rather than criticism of individual staff, who all were doing an incredible job in difficult circumstances)

mike57 · 27 Jul 2018

Wife dropped me in Malton this morning as she was going to York, she said the storm in York was the worst she had seen for a while, with a lot of cloud ground lightning ('fork' lightning), which is what does the damage.
I planned on getting the train home from Malton at 13:08, and wasn't hopeful, fully expected to be on the Coastliner, however a train to Man Vic was in the platform, and eventually that was terminated in Malton as progress into and beyond York wasn't possible, and it became the 13:08 to Scarborough, which left on time for the first time since 20th May!. Got to Seamer and 13:30 down the coast was shown as cancelled, but I knew the service from Hull had arrived on time in Scarborough, so I waited, and sure enough it turned up on time and I was home as planned at 14:00. (Unlike yesterday where it was yet again it was a taxi at TPE expense home)

To be honest its nearly impossible to protect any system against a direct hit, the currents and voltages will overwhelm any protection, not totally impossible I suppose, but the engineering would be that complex that it wouldn't be worth it. The other problem with lightning strikes is that it stresses components, which then fail after the system is restored. I was called to a factory in South Yorkshire some years ago, which had suffered a direct hit. Two systems which controlled the production line were fried, I replaced these, and rebooted several other systems, and got everything backup and running. Over the next week I was called in five or six times as other components which were weakened then failed. I suspect railway systems are similar.

I think railway companies miss a trick by not publishing an emergency timetable which they will attempt to follow in the event of disruption. OK I know every set of circumstances are different, but for example running the east ends of the TPE North network as shuttles, and trying to run a core York - Manchester service would ease things. A lot of the problem today at Malton, Seamer and Scarborough was lack of information, or worse still wrong information. People at Seamer waiting for the 13:30 to Hull were upset thinking it was cancelled, I told a few families to just wait as I was fairly sure it would appear, and it did.

dviner · 27 Jul 2018

Was York ROC or the IECC "taken out" by lightning, or is this just "lightning+major signalling issues = Network Rail shouldn't be allowed to run anything larger than an OO train set"?

61653 HTAFC · 27 Jul 2018

Something like a lightning strike (or heavy snow, or anything else) is beyond the control of the railway and most people understand that. It's also unrealistic to expect a fleet of coaches to be on standby for a once-a-decade disruption...

BUT, communication needs to be better. I was sat comfortably just a few minutes ago on what I thought was the slightly delayed TPE stopper from Leeds P13. The guard came on the PA and announced the service was cancelled, was very apologetic and gave instructions for Dewsbury, Huddersfield and Manchester passengers to go to P16 but nothing for those heading to the smaller stations (coincidentally those not operated by TPE). As I left, I asked the guard about Batley but he (understandably) didn't know what was happening. I may have been a bit short with him out of frustration so if that guard is a member of this site, please accept my sincere apologies for that. :oops:

The secondary A-Z departure boards at the bottom of the escalator to P12/13/14/15 have been removed so there was no information there either, with the standard departure boards being a mess with what was going on. Even if the old boards were there, there's no guarantee they'd be much use under the circumstances. Announcements at Leeds were limited and barely audible, so being in the staff-free desert that is everywhere that needs a bridge, there was not much anyone not in-the-know could do. Luckily I then noticed the ex-Hull service was in the Eastern end of P16 behind an Airport service which wasn't due out for a few minutes so I knew I had time to get a coffee from the Starbucks on the bridge before heading for the Hull to Piccadilly train.

Leeds station is an absolute nightmare when things go wrong, partly because of poor design but also because the announcements are infrequent and inaudible.

Once again on the railway, poor communication has made a bad (if unavoidable) situation way worse than it needed to be.

P.S. of note for those interested in such things, there was a rare use of platform 14 at Leeds by a 185 running to Hull: presumably a set that was turned at Leeds from the East due to the disruption.

Eric · 27 Jul 2018

Are the trains going to be running tomorrow?

Tracked · 27 Jul 2018

I made it from Bristol to Chesterfield on 3 trains today but was booked for just the one!

Coming into New Street just before 12 we were told the train (a 5-coach voyager) was cancelled north of New Street, but the next train north was from the same platform (9). That 4-coach train train came in, then had a problem and was cancelled, so we were moved to platform 1 to get another voyager north. Also packed, absolute mayhem. Looked like it was actually getting worse after we'd left as the other XC trains were being cancelled too.

Another Delay Repay claim on the way, they must be sick of me now :rolleyes:

TUC · 27 Jul 2018

chrisdmadd said:
Do me a favour, look at the northern map in Yorkshire and look at the LNER map in Yorkshire, (in the affected areas) then think about your comment.

i'm well aware of Northern's geography. If even they had secured enough coaches for one service an hour to cover routes with no equivalent bus service that would have been a start.

njamescouk · 27 Jul 2018

AM9 said:
fail to embody sufficient measures in a critical asset

Also seem to have created a huge single point of failure in the name of computerisation?

EveningStar · 27 Jul 2018

Had an 'extended' journey home today from Liverpool (actually started at Moorfields due to the Lime Street blockade), via a stop at Hebden Bridge, that involved some extended waiting at Manchester Victoria, Leeds and Newcastle. Some observations ...

Every member of staff that I spoke with was polite, realistic and helpful with the information they had at their disposal. Particular credit to a Northern guard at Manchester Victoria. Likewise, almost all passengers, with the exception of an arrogant drongo at York and a bit of trying to board while people were still trying to get off, were good natured and the general feeling was that lightning can cause bad things to happen. However, it was equally noticeable that there was a visible BTP presence at the stations and on trains, so good natured, or other trouble, was not being taken for granted.

Once trains started moving, it was obvious that stock out of position, particularly for Northern and TPE, was creating problems. In that, am grateful that TPE provided a double 185 on my trip from Leeds to Newcastle ... it would have been uncomfortable in the extreme otherwise.

One thought occurred to me and I notice reading here that I am not alone, is that perhaps there needs to be more thought as to building in resilience for operational critical infrastructure. Have a suspicion that the delay repay bill for today will concentrate some minds on future avoidance?

TUC · 27 Jul 2018

Bantamzen said:
It seems like a lot of people think it's poor that a lighting strike directly on equipment is handled so much better elsewhere than it is here. So I am going to ask, is this really true or just the usual "Typical Britain" comments that prevail whenever a weather related incident happens?

I don't know about anyone else, but I've been uncomfortably close to a lightning strike (less than 30 feet), and from what I saw huge surge of electricity hitting electrical circuits tends to play havoc with them. Perhaps, and it's just a suggestion people should wait to hear exactly what happened on the ground before going off on one?

I think it's more that too often the rail industry purely sees such matters purely as engineering issues and so, if the problem is being fixed, why should the public see it as anything other than 'job done'? In reality, as any other good business would say, making sure customers aŕe kept well informed and as reassured as possible is the other half of the task.

muz379 · 27 Jul 2018

TUC said:
i'm well aware of Northern's geography. If even they had secured enough coaches for one service an hour to cover routes with no equivalent bus service that would have been a start.

Signalling at leeds was restored after about 2 hours . Problems at york lasted much longer . Perhaps this information was known early on (ie that leeds signalling would be restored much earlier ) and this information informed "negotiations" between TOC's as to who had priority over replacement buses .

Of course once signalling is restored and infrastructure available to run it makes more sense to have control working towards recovering a rail service rather than trying to decide what lines to have RRB's running on .

TUC · 27 Jul 2018

muz379 said:
Of course once signalling is restored and infrastructure available to run it makes more sense to have control working towards recovering a rail service rather than trying to decide what lines to have RRB's running on .

I rsther suspect that TOCs have other staff who can sort coach hire out.

TUC · 27 Jul 2018

muz379 said:
Signalling at leeds was restored after about 2 hours . Problems at york lasted much longer . Perhaps this information was known early on (ie that leeds signalling would be restored much earlier ).

If so, it would have been another good thing to communicate well.

northernchris · 27 Jul 2018

61653 HTAFC said:
Leeds station is an absolute nightmare when things go wrong, partly because of poor design but also because the announcements are infrequent and inaudible.

Once again on the railway, poor communication has made a bad (if unavoidable) situation way worse than it needed to be.

P.S. of note for those interested in such things, there was a rare use of platform 14 at Leeds by a 185 running to Hull: presumably a set that was turned at Leeds from the East due to the disruption.

They really need to do something about those A-Z boards near the main barriers! You're right about the announcements, they are way too quiet although there were a lot of manual announcements today which seemed to be a bit louder.

I was really lucky on my journey as the train before I was intending on catching was late, which meant I arrived slightly earlier than intended, and it was a 5 car 158 with working air con too. Although the train was late there was no acknowledgement of this from the traincrew despite it having 2 conductors on board

bramling · 27 Jul 2018

AM9 said:
Is there anybody who knows that what we have been told won't happen? Of the climate change experts that aren't sponsored by the oil industry there are very few that deny recent weather extremes are nothing to do with climate change.

We may be coming to the end of the longest unbroken hot spell since 1976, the longest dry spell since records began in 1776 (the previous record was 1962) and this long dry spell started in the winter, which was the main reason for the moors in the north having such sustained burns (even if they were started by arsonists). This spell weather extremes is not just a "string of hot days, mainly in the south-east".

Yes, there could be another event like 2013-14 when the Somerset Levels were flooded. I wouldn't (and didn't) criticise the Environment Agency for the flood. I probably agree with you on the fact that flood plains flood, quite obvious really and when housing developers want to build on them, the local authority and the EA should stamp all over them. Dredging channels creates a false situation where it is still necessary to flood fields upstream to try and defeat nature (and the laws of gravity).

It depends on what you mean by 'recent weather'. The meterologists started alerting us way back in the '90s when questions were being asked about the storms and some other extremes that had occurred. Before then, the concept of global warming was largely discussed only between the more avid 'greens' and the scientists. The big mistake was calling it global warming which to many in the UK sounded like a welcome change to the dull weather that they always moaned about. It was a bit like HS2 being sold only for its time saving, the wrong way to put it.
As far budgetting for extremes goes, clearly it is difficult to justify spending money to insure our futures as the population has a very short horizon and memory on political promises. My original comment was regarding the protection of key infrastructure from (in this case) lightning strikes, and I would consider a ROC as very much 'key'. Protecting buildings from lightning discharge is not that difficult but must be done properly. I have been involved on the periphery of lightning protection of aircraft. That is a thin skinned vehicle with weight and power contraints. It's difficult but doable - even more difficult with Kevlar and other composite structures but is still done. A large permanent building on dry land with communications which now are largely fibre channels is considerably easier and it is inexcusable not to do it, IMO.

Even if it is true that there is a major change in trend - and I’m not disputing that it may be true, just that it’s still very much an if - within a few days if not weeks we’ll be back to more typical weather and the whole thing will be forgotten. There certainly won’t be massive pressure to spend money, especially in the current climate, on resilience for something which is nothing like a salient issue for most people.

Now if this year starts repeating itself year after year then that might be a different matter, although so far we’re only really looking at one lot of disruption due to a lightening strike plus some heat related speed restrictions, plus a few issues here and there due to air conditioning issues. Pretty insignificant compared to, for example, the amount of disruption needlessly caused by the Thameslink Programme!

johntea · 27 Jul 2018

With regards to fail over / redundancy / backup / resilience I work in IT and the amount of money I’ve seen spent over the years on whatever you want to call it for it not to work when the time calls is staggering!

In fact I remember one solution that was meant to replicate systems between buildings actually made things worse when a failure happened, which then took 3 weeks to sort out compared to a more simple system which would have taken about 3 days!

The problem is companies chuck these systems in based on the marketing they’ve been sold then never bother testing them on a regular basis so in the end they become about as useful as a chocolate fireguard

DarloRich · 27 Jul 2018

Got 1933 kings cross > Leeds. Left 2015. 1833 like last train from Stalingrad. Beer reserves exhausted. Send help.

Actually this train is late but running well. Loading is average. Air con on full ice box setting. Full food service for 1st and 2nd class. Wi-Fi working. Gaurd doing a great job on connections. Kx staff doing v good job on announcing trains as they came ready.

Good effort.

Ps. Send beer.

61653 HTAFC · 27 Jul 2018

northernchris said:
They really need to do something about those A-Z boards near the main barriers! You're right about the announcements, they are way too quiet although there were a lot of manual announcements today which seemed to be a bit louder.

I was really lucky on my journey as the train before I was intending on catching was late, which meant I arrived slightly earlier than intended, and it was a 5 car 158 with working air con too. Although the train was late there was no acknowledgement of this from the traincrew despite it having 2 conductors on board

The announcements I was referring to were both automated and manual, and it wasn't so much the volume that was the issue as the sound quality: very muffled and unclear especially in a station like Leeds with lots of noisy diesels. Admittedly due to my autism I have trouble filtering out background noise in order to focus on the sound I'm trying to listen to though.

Noting you mention a lack of apology from Northern staff, that seems like the polar opposite of TPE staff, who were falling over themselves to apologise and were very clear about delay repay. Then again other posters have been complimentary about Northern staff so it could just be the luck of the draw. The lack of an apology doesn't mean the staff don't care, it can't have been an easy day at work for any of them.

Wivenswold · 27 Jul 2018

There were warnings of severe weather posted by the Met Office 2 days in advance. They warned of travel disruption and got the areas to be affected absolutely spot on.

When a credible and official warning is made the rail companies should respond to that warning by passing the information on to customers on their websites and by mailing any online purchasers of tickets. If they were a bit quicker off the mark they could offer a full refund or travel on alternative days either side. That way most passengers would be able to decide for themselves whether to risk it or in the case of those who have to travel it would at least forewarn customers and give them a chance to prepare for a bad journey.

It's done sometimes if heavy snow is forecast but we are starting to see more and more violent weather events in the UK. If the industry can't afford to adapt to those changes, then at least it should try to work around them.

Crossover · 27 Jul 2018

dviner said:
Was York ROC or the IECC "taken out" by lightning, or is this just "lightning+major signalling issues = Network Rail shouldn't be allowed to run anything larger than an OO train set"?

Posted earlier in the thread (and I have seen elsewhere too) it was the IECC

Bornin1980s · 28 Jul 2018

Did thunder storms ever cause disruption in the days of steam?

ValleyLines142 · 28 Jul 2018

From 9.30am only three TPE services made it from Manchester Victoria to the airport, these being the 1739, the 2155 and the 2309 departures which were all at least fifteen minutes late.

I ended up catching the tram and saw the delights of Roundthorn and Benchill!

Crossover · 28 Jul 2018

Bornin1980s said:
Did thunder storms ever cause disruption in the days of steam?

The problems today I believe have mostly been lightning related, doing damage to the electronics. I would expect that "back in the day" with oil lamps and semaphores (and lower frequencies) I would imagine that such issues were less than they are with the electronics we now have

jon0844 · 28 Jul 2018

Spartacus said:
Someone else on here was talking about 3+hr delays travelling through Germany and an enforced overnight stay.

I bet Germany have many forums about trains and I somehow bet that there will be plenty of discussions about problems, rather than endless posts saying how great everything is there. Perhaps they just have an international rail section to talk about the problems in the UK!

al78 said:
I'm sure the people that were stuck on trains in freezing conditions for hours will believe you.

When it was freezing, I assume people dressed as required for when not on the train so I doubt they were as inconvenienced as being stuck on a train during one of the hottest days of the year (complete with the high humidity). It's usually easier to warm yourself up than cool yourself down.

45107 · 28 Jul 2018

TUC said:
i'm well aware of Northern's geography. If even they had secured enough coaches for one service an hour to cover routes with no equivalent bus service that would have been a start.

Out of interest, how many routes do Northern operate where there is no equivalent bus service ?
How many buses would be needed to do this ?
How quick can they get them when needed - are there drivers and vehicles available ?

theageofthetra · 28 Jul 2018

noddingdonkey said:
One of those situations where it looks like a lot of eggs have been put in a York shaped basket.

I was waiting on P1 at Huddersfield for a Manchester service, and couldn't help but notice the old PSB. I assume that if this had happened a few months ago the stopper at least would still be running, if not tpe turning back at Huddersfield.

Station staff seemed not to be completely informed, leading to several announcements (manual) being made that no Manchester bound trains were running after a train had departed Leeds. This was queried with a member of platform staff who assured me that the info on RTT and Traksy that a service was on the way and currently at Dewsbury must be wrong, until i quoted the headcode and he went to check.

(I mention that as an issue with the system, rather than criticism of individual staff, who all were doing an incredible job in difficult circumstances)

We will soon learn the benefits of this when the whole of SE London is in a TBROC shaped basket.

Robertj21a · 28 Jul 2018

TUC said:
i'm well aware of Northern's geography. If even they had secured enough coaches for one service an hour to cover routes with no equivalent bus service that would have been a start.

Probably 30-60 mins to realise the size of the problem
Another 30 mins ringing around bus/coach companies to see if vehicles and drivers available
Another hour (at least) before any vehicles arrive

None of this stuff is going to be quickly available. Nobody has resources left idle just in case the railways have a problem.

mike57 · 28 Jul 2018

And further storms last night have taken the line out between Bridlington and Hull no trains this morning, we had to drive to Hull, rather than get on a train to Hull at Bempton, looks like no trains till late morning at the earliest.

Weather related disruption Leeds/York/Doncaster (27/07)

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