I suppose that if nothing else is running then a path might be available... otherwise paths are at a premium on most main lines, so none available for test trains.
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LNER disruption due to damaged pantographs - 16/04 - Any information on what's happened?
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Mentor wasn't available. NMT likely on it's normal run. Does it run 7 days a week?
My memory may be playing tricks but I can remember the bemused looks on passengers' faces as it pulled in.
bramling
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I don’t think the Pacer made London. Leeds to Doncaster perhaps? I remember a 321/9 making King’s Cross, and a 317 also made York.
Didn't 365s make it up north as well?
bramling
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I don’t think so. 365540 and 541 did do a trip to York in the early days as a publicity run by WAGN. I suspect that was part of their plan to run further north of Peterborough, which never came to fruition, perhaps fortuitously as we’d now probably have a London Midland style operation with short trains stuffed full of people travelling to and from places like Newark on dirt-cheap advances!
noddingdonkey
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But in the circumstances of every 91 running through that line becoming a demic it's worth sacrificing something to free up a path to find the cause of the issue quickly before the whole fleet is out of use?
Peter Mugridge
Veteran Member
All three 321/9s ran to King's Cross - I have pictures of them there on that occasion.
But what if by the time you were due to travel the disruption had largely stopped.
My situation. I had advance LNER tickets. It was for the last train of the day. I became aware of the disruption and so was a little worried.
When I looked at the LNER and NR sites it said you could travel earlier or later, it said you could delay till tomorrow, it said tickets could be used on certain other TOC services, it advised against travelling today.
So I changed my plans and decided to travel earlier with some minor inconvenience to stand a better chance of getting home.
By the time I was traveling the disruption had largely disappeared, delays of 15 mins only. Should I therefore have waited at the departure station to go on the trains I had advance tickets on. I could not be sure the trains would actually run because they had not left Kings Cross. The websites no longer said travel earlier or later (or maybe that was a figment of my wishful thinking) but the other messages were still there.
I continued with my earlier journey, having set off early on the non LNER part.
The train conductor said I could not travel on the earlier train because my booked train had not been cancelled. None of the websites included a proviso “provided your particular train is cancelled”. It seems a bit of a nonsense. So if I decided to travel the next day, but my train wasn’t actually cancelled, I would have problems the next day. Do you have to keep your plans under review?
Anyway, he didn’t charge me extra but gave me a warning for next time.
Confused.
Highlandspring
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That happens when a defect still can’t be found after extensive cab patrolling and ground/high level inspections; certainly not in the first 24hrs anyway. They ran MENTOR up to Scotland a couple of years ago to look for a problem somewhere between Lanark and Glasgow Central, which it did eventually find after weeks of patrolling had failed. Things like this happen more frequently than you’d imagine (every few months) but usually the problem is located quickly by a combination of cross-checking where vehicles with damaged pans have been and targetted cab patrols or manual inspections. The trouble is that on an intensively trafficked line by the time damaged pan heads start showing up you’ve potentially already had many trains affected. Hitachi nearly ran out of spare pan heads for the class 385s within the space of 48hrs at the tail end of last year because of a similar issue which was traced to a damaged section insulator.
wensley
Established Member
Both NMT and MENTOR were requested today but the former was well out of the way on its usual circuit and the latter stopped for routine maintenance.
It doesn't prove your point, though. Someone can't hold a view or an idea about something and have the answers to fix it - that's not what is needed! Could you imagine if a patient went into a doctor and suggested that? "My hip is hurting, I think it needs replacing" - granted, it might do, but doesn't mean the patient has to know how to do it, what differentials there could be for treatment and what conservative treatment is available prior to having a replacement done. Just because someone makes a suggestion, doesn't mean they HAVE to have an answer for it.
SteveOfTheStow
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The problem with most of these situations though is that 'what can be done' throws up fairly obvious solutions, but the cost is impractical. Could you have an extra 9 NMTs dotted around the country to deploy at short notice? Yes. And most in the railway industry would probably love that - it'd make their lives easier. Ask a passenger and they'd probably agree that it 'should be done'. Now follow up by asking them if they're willing to pay an extra 1% on their ticket prices forever (number pulled out of thin air) to pay for those trains (and their maintenance) and the staff for them. Ahhhh, now the passenger says no, they think tickets cost too much already.
So that's where the engineers come in - they use their knowledge to work out how to squeeze the available resources (money, time and people) to get the best value output by designing better solutions, like pan cameras.
malc-c
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Is there any update on where the fault was and (presumably) has been fixed as trains appear to be running Ok this morning
Similar situation - should I have waited to see if the 1930 was cancelled, or book a hotel so I have accommodation for the evening? I phoned LNER at 1430, and their advice was to not travel, even via other means and to delay repay for the ticket and then recoup my hotel costs. I don’t think some people understand the situation beyond the trains being disrupted or cancelled - what impact does that have on the passenger?
swt_passenger
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A disconnected dropper is pretty much an instantaneous failure, I don’t see any of the above monitoring systems detecting it in advance.
You don't need an account to see most tweets.
Would be helpful to describe this term a little more.
Surprising that somewhat established members don't seem to remember this:
It's the 'Mobile Electrical Network Testing, Observation and Recording' coach that Network Rail use to survey overhead lines. Although the 'New Measurement Train' does a lot more.
https://www.google.com/search?q=network+rail+mentor
hexagon789
Veteran Member
Mobile Electrical Network Testing, Observation and Recording.
A test coach converted from a Mk1 (possibly a BSK?)
I think it has been displaced by a newer Mk3 vehicle but was used until a few years ago.
Spartacus
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It's still used but it's currently out for scheduled maintenance.
Not being logged in is only one reason why someone may not be able to view them
So who's paying that - presumably Network Rail if it was faulty overheads, but would a TOC have to pay if one of their pantographs took down the overhead wires?
(Edited to say pantograph and not photograph)
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swt_passenger
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Yes there is an analysis of cause, it’s why all new EMUs (since 379s IIRC) have pantograph illumination and video recording for use post incident.
westcoaster
Established Member
Very interesting! Thank you.
The simple fact is that if you’re advised not to travel on that date. You make other plans. If you stay in a hotel that night it’ll be covered. If you go home the next day your ticket is valid. If you use other TOCs trains the next day you’re covered (any costs incurred will be refunded). If you decide to travel, any additional costs are covered. For all the negative points we can say about LNER from vast experience in these situations where there is serious disruption they don’t faff about, they do actually have the customer as a priority. Of coursed YMMV as there will be exceptions where they haven’t got it quite right but it’s unlikely they’re going to refuse someone a room in premier inn king’s Cross. Just because things improved towards the end of service.
Simples - stop taking photographs!
Surprised no one has thought of that to be honest
(My phone doesn't recognise the existence of the word pantograph apparently)
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