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LNER disruption due to damaged pantographs - 16/04 - Any information on what's happened?

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Bayum

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From the horse's mouth, aka, LNER website:

Alternative travel advice for LNER customers:

LNER customers may use their tickets on:

  • CrossCountry between Newcastle and Leeds and also between Doncaster and Sheffield
  • East Midlands Trains services between London St Pancras International and Sheffield
  • Grand Central on the 11:27 service from London Kings Cross to York
  • Great Northern and Thameslink between London Kings Cross and Peterborough
  • Hull Trains via any reasonable route
  • Northern services between Sheffield and Doncaster / Leeds
  • TransPennine Express between Newcastle / Leeds and Manchester Piccadilly
  • Virgin Trains via any reasonable route
Thank you. I was looking on the disruption page thinking any other information would be there.
 
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londonmidland

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Will they allow that if people have been told not to travel today? It isn’t the end of the world if I have to stay down in London another day, I’m just not certain what I should be doing!

From NRE:

LNER customers may use their tickets on:
  • East Midlands Trains services between London St Pancras International and Sheffield.
  • CrossCountry between Newcastle and Leeds and also between Doncaster and Sheffield
  • Northern services between Sheffield and Doncaster / Leeds
  • TransPennine Express between Newcastle / Leeds and Manchester Piccadilly
 

Bayum

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So I’ve just phoned them and they advised staying in London, even with the alternative travel arrangements in place. Hotel costs can be recouped as well which is good for me!
 

Crossover

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Feel for the LNER twitter/customer facing teams, they seem to be indulging in some gallows humor though as indicated by this response to an armchair expert (well, I laughed anyway)
https://twitter.com/LNER/status/1118100776499519488?s=09

For the benefit of those who don't venture onto Twitter:

Charlie97293274 - "They should have checked the overhead electrics at Kings Cross before the day even began. That should be a prisedure done before the first train of the day"
LNER: 'Replying to Charlie97293274 - "Thanks for your help. ^CM"'
 

Bayum

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Still plenty of EC service running on that section which usually isn't that busy.
Well, I mentioned that to the person I spoke to, and she suggested I stay down here, regardless of the alternative travel arrangements.
 

hwl

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Well, I mentioned that to the person I spoke to, and she suggested I stay down here, regardless of the alternative travel arrangements.
The problem is very much going to be capacity out of London rather than further north.
 
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ForTheLoveOf

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BBC news website has just uploaded a report https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-47949037

And they use an image of an HST (43296) !!
Probably the first LNER stock image they came across. It amuses me but I don't judge the news for getting stuff like this wrong (which isn't necessarily obvious to an outsider). It would be more serious if they showed a picture of a GNER train, for example, as that's something that anyone could get right even without insider knowledge.
 

LNW-GW Joint

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BR used to use an image of a Class 87 in publicity (eg timetable leaflets) for inter-city services in the 1970s, even when the services were on the then-diesel ECML and GWML.
There was also a period when a Deltic image was used for the same purpose.
They were the images the railway wanted to project at the time (along with the slogan "this is the age of the train").
 

bramling

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For the benefit of those who don't venture onto Twitter:

Charlie97293274 - "They should have checked the overhead electrics at Kings Cross before the day even began. That should be a prisedure done before the first train of the day"
LNER: 'Replying to Charlie97293274 - "Thanks for your help. ^CM"'

Some idiot nine to fiver who probably doesn’t realise there are trains running virtually through the night on this route, not to mention freight trains.

Always makes me laugh when people come out with stuff like “there should be a plan” or “there should be a procedure”, but don’t go as far as to suggest what this might involve.
 

tsr

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Some suggestion now of a dropper round the contact wire at St Neots. Should be fixed shortly but unsure if this will solve the problem.

Some idiot nine to fiver who probably doesn’t realise there are trains running virtually through the night on this route, not to mention freight trains.

Always makes me laugh when people come out with stuff like “there should be a plan” or “there should be a procedure”, but don’t go as far as to suggest what this might involve.

To quote their Twitter bio:
I am a train fanatic from Somerset England. My YouTube channel is Hillyford Junction

:lol:
 

Bayum

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Some idiot nine to fiver who probably doesn’t realise there are trains running virtually through the night on this route, not to mention freight trains.

Always makes me laugh when people come out with stuff like “there should be a plan” or “there should be a procedure”, but don’t go as far as to suggest what this might involve.
But, in fairness, should there not be something to prevent this happening AND identifying a problem before 16 LNER + x GTR pantographs are damaged?
 

800001

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But, in fairness, should there not be something to prevent this happening AND identifying a problem before 16 LNER + x GTR pantographs are damaged?

Where had the 16 lner come from? 9 was the total.
 

AndrewE

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But, in fairness, should there not be something to prevent this happening AND identifying a problem before 16 LNER + x GTR pantographs are damaged?
A driver has said here (if I remember correctly) that OLE contact wire deficiencies generally stick out like a sore thumb - but I suppose that only applies if it's not at a spot where the driver is focussing on a signal. I would think that "Report anything you spot" is quite a good "something!"
I can't think of anything else that would be remotely cost-effective, except perhaps having retired OLE men (or other trained volunteers) with a mobile phone cab-riding a train every hour or two just watching...
 

800001

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Did someone not say it was 16 OOU?

15 x 91s put of action throughout the day, but several of those were pre planned maintenance/exams etx.
I belive the figure caused by OHL issue was potentially 9, granted still a large figure to be out of use caused by 1 rogue dropper wire.
 

bramling

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I’m not an engineer.

I think this proves my point. People are very good to suggest that “something should be done”, but not quite so good at making feasible suggestions for what that something should be.

To be fair, this isn’t something which happens often, so one could quite reasonably conclude that existing arrangements are adequate.

No doubt there will be an internal investigation, with any lessons learned.
 

LNW-GW Joint

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Don't they have 91s which can monitor the OHL? Some 390s and I think all 80x can.
Then there's test coach Mentor which is for testing the OHL, and the NR New Measurement Train can do it as well.
 

alangla

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A driver has said here (if I remember correctly) that OLE contact wire deficiencies generally stick out like a sore thumb - but I suppose that only applies if it's not at a spot where the driver is focussing on a signal. I would think that "Report anything you spot" is quite a good "something!"
I can't think of anything else that would be remotely cost-effective, except perhaps having retired OLE men (or other trained volunteers) with a mobile phone cab-riding a train every hour or two just watching...
Computer vision is becoming more affordable & widely used for spotting power line (as in National Grid type) and track defects, plus pan-cams are much more common on new stock. Continuous OHLE monitoring by all trains may not be unrealistic any more.
As an aside, I think I read something that said that the computer vision on the NMT was good enough to spot a missing Pandrol clip at 125mph, is that correct?
 

hwl

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Computer vision is becoming more affordable & widely used for spotting power line (as in National Grid type) and track defects, plus pan-cams are much more common on new stock. Continuous OHLE monitoring by all trains may not be unrealistic any more.
As an aside, I think I read something that said that the computer vision on the NMT was good enough to spot a missing Pandrol clip at 125mph, is that correct?
On plain line yes.

All passenger stock bar the 365s will soon have Pan cams, but they are currently only useful for post analysis.
 

noddingdonkey

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Certainly in circumstances such as these I'm surprised they didn't draft in the NMT or other test train with OHLE checking capability. Can only assume nothing was sufficiently close by.
 

TUC

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I do remember the day when GNER had to pull their entire electric set out of use for safety checks. One alternative train set they obtained was a Pacer to run Leeds-Kings Cross.
 

Darandio

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I do remember the day when GNER had to pull their entire electric set out of use for safety checks. One alternative train set they obtained was a Pacer to run Leeds-Kings Cross.

A Pacer? Really? I know they got hold of a Class 321 but not a Pacer.
 
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