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Heat related issues (25 July 2019 and subsequent days)

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TravellingPhil

TravellingPhil

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Just read on Twitter that the wires that have come down at Soho in Birmingham have actually fallen onto the tram tracks below which is why the Metro is also suspended? The Metro wires are actually OK.

If true, that's very unlucky.

Would have thought that would also stop the Snow Hill lines too.

It might just be that Network Rail want the Metro wires turned off so they can work safely. People do tend to fabricate situations on Twitter.
 
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JB_B

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Saint66 said:
MML unable to get ticket acceptance on either ECML or WCML due to issues on both. Blanket advice of do not travel as you would expect.
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Obviously that's good advice re 'do not travel' but I think that's very disappointing re ticket acceptance.

I fully understand the desire to defend one's own patch when you have little or no capacity to work with but today it seems all operators are effectively in the same boat. Passengers should be able to make use of whatever rail capacity remains to get home any way they can without having to worry about what is says on their ticket.
 
L

LowLevel

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JB_B said:
Obviously that's good advice re 'do not travel' but I think that's very disappointing re ticket acceptance.

I fully understand the desire to defend one's own patch when you have little or no capacity to work with but today it seems all operators are effectively in the same boat. Passengers should be able to make use of whatever rail capacity remains to get home any way they can without having to worry about what is says on their ticket.
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It's not so much defending it, it's the fact these lines are also knackered so there's no point sending people to clutter up random terminals.
 
D

Dave1987

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ChiefPlanner said:
Every case is different for various and obvious reasons. The industry is a heck of a lot more aware of the issues than in the past. There will no doubt be a review on this one , I know - I have chaired a few o them when we did not perform as well as we should have , in the past.
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Decision making for incidents is still far far too convoluted. I’ve heard of people not wanting to make a decision just in case it was the wrong one.
 
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gavin

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danpick said:
1E16 1300 Edinburgh - Kings Cross sat down at Retford, KGX Thunderbird being sent to rescue it. 1F87 1559 Peterborough - Newcastle at a stand at Peterborough having had wires come down on it.
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The wires must have just fallen down themselves as 1F87 is a HST current stuck on the bridge over the River Nene
 
underbank

underbank

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Dave1987 said:
Decision making for incidents is still far far too convoluted. I’ve heard of people not wanting to make a decision just in case it was the wrong one.
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Same with the emergency services. Seems it has to be "by committee" now regardless of how urgent the decision needs to be.
 
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gavin

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1E14 Waverly to Kings X is going to be evacuated with passengers most likely walking along to P'Boro station
 
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87015

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Euston is ok infrastructure wise, slows only to North Wembley and blanket 90mph but short on trains and particuarly LNR ones.
 
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godfreycomplex

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JB_B said:
Obviously that's good advice re 'do not travel' but I think that's very disappointing re ticket acceptance.

I fully understand the desire to defend one's own patch when you have little or no capacity to work with but today it seems all operators are effectively in the same boat. Passengers should be able to make use of whatever rail capacity remains to get home any way they can without having to worry about what is says on their ticket.
Click to expand...
It is entirely entirely understandable that people are frustrated and it’s a horrible situation for sure but in situations like this overcrowding is highly noticeable at each terminus (let alone on the trains themselves). Imagine sending a full concourse at St Pancras to Euston and Kings Cross - overcrowding becomes a big issue very quickly, and with (at best) very few trains running there’s no ready alleviation to that overcrowding. In severe disruption such as this the only justification for the lack of ticket acceptance is the heavy risk of overcrowding. One need only look up the thread to see the risk of being stranded on an averagely loaded train in conditions such as today’s. Sending a train out crush loaded with a trapping outside of a station with no power likely is as (to an extent) risky as sending a train out with a ticking bomb with a lit fuse. Admittedly conditions at major termini at present are beyond acceptable as they are, which is why we don’t want to exacerbate them.
Essentially we wish we could take people on other routes and get them home, but as things stand at the minute it’s not safe, so we can’t.
 
Bromley boy

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bramling said:
Or for it to be one’s once-a-year week of early turns. I had a lovely journey in (at, er, 0440), and the journey home wasn’t too bad - albeit it could be seen the job was in the early stages of going up the wall.

Surprisingly, from my observations there were quite a few family day outs to London in progress. Bet a few of these may be regretting it now.

Still, what was predicted by various people on here proved to be bang on the money.
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A good day to drive to and from work!!!

It was only ever going to go one way today. It seems like the industry as a whole did a pretty good job at getting the message out.

Obviously that’s no help to those who had commitments which meant they had to travel but has hopefully thinned out the numbers somewhat.
 
T

TheManOnThe172

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JB_B said:
Obviously that's good advice re 'do not travel' but I think that's very disappointing re ticket acceptance.

I fully understand the desire to defend one's own patch when you have little or no capacity to work with but today it seems all operators are effectively in the same boat. Passengers should be able to make use of whatever rail capacity remains to get home any way they can without having to worry about what is says on their ticket.
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If TOCs are serious about wanting people not to travel, then they need to make a clear (and prompt) promise that tickets will be honoured on following day(s). At 0700 this morning, National Rail showed disruptions to many TOCs but only Hull trains was shown as allowing different-day travel. XC took 30 minutes to answer my tweet at 1000 (to say Yes, they would honour Thur tickets on Friday) - and were at that point planning "shortly" to put this information onto their website. Not really good enough.
 
causton

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My normal commute home would have been from Birmingham to Milton Keynes Central.

From the looks of it, the last direct service was at 12:54 and then there was nothing until a VT just left at 17:31!!!

So glad I worked from home today...
 
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JB_B

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godfreycomplex said:
It is entirely entirely understandable that people are frustrated and it’s a horrible situation for sure but in situations like this overcrowding is highly noticeable at each terminus (let alone on the trains themselves). Imagine sending a full concourse at St Pancras to Euston and Kings Cross - overcrowding becomes a big issue very quickly, and with (at best) very few trains running there’s no ready alleviation to that overcrowding. In severe disruption such as this the only justification for the lack of ticket acceptance is the heavy risk of overcrowding. One need only look up the thread to see the risk of being stranded on an averagely loaded train in conditions such as today’s. Sending a train out crush loaded with a trapping outside of a station with no power likely is as (to an extent) risky as sending a train out with a ticking bomb with a lit fuse. Admittedly conditions at major termini at present are beyond acceptable as they are, which is why we don’t want to exacerbate them.
Essentially we wish we could take people on other routes and get them home, but as things stand at the minute it’s not safe, so we can’t.
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OK, I understand that ticket acceptance has a double aspect.

A.) Removing artificial (commercial) constraints on flows by allowing passengers to ignore routeing and/or operator restrictions.

and

B.) Potentially signalling to passengers that an alternative route is available (when in practice it might not be.)

A. Overall, will usually result in a more efficient use of whatever resources remain.

but

B. Might exacerbate an already bad situation locally ( e.g. at an overcrowded London terminal.)


Given the much better availability of information (that everywhere is broken) I'd have guessed that huge crowds wouldn't be rushing between terminals if ticket acceptance is announced but I could well be wrong. Balancing those isn't a job I'd like to have.


Anyhow, my sympathy goes to all passengers and staff caught in today's troubles.
 
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bramling

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Dave1987 said:
Decision making for incidents is still far far too convoluted. I’ve heard of people not wanting to make a decision just in case it was the wrong one.
Click to expand...

That’s human nature, but it doesn’t help that the railway industry seems to be blessed with a large number of armchair experts who think they know best. The nature of the beast is that sometimes a decision will turn out with hindsight not to have been the optimal one, one simply can’t get it perfectly right all the time. It’s no surprise with this culture that people are often wary of making a decision.
 
tsr

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ChiefPlanner said:
Every case is different for various and obvious reasons. The industry is a heck of a lot more aware of the issues than in the past. There will no doubt be a review on this one , I know - I have chaired a few o them when we did not perform as well as we should have , in the past.
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Spot on - some of the evacuations even today have been much quicker than others (the evacuation of 9K39 has been particularly entertaining - reports of just one person onboard!).

I think emergency response performance today around the major cities has been pretty much as good as resources have allowed, given the extreme circumstances. A lot of people have been very uncomfortable or stranded, but so far, it doesn't seem that there's much evidence that the industry could have worked any more quickly. VT were "well on the way" with the process of arranging rescue trains for the Euston/Camden incident within less than 5 minutes of the issue having occurred.

bramling said:
Surprisingly, from my observations there were quite a few family day outs to London in progress. Bet a few of these may be regretting it now.
Click to expand...

Some people just won't listen, or have no idea that it's a good idea to check before travelling. Still a bonkers idea to voluntarily go into London today, though.

vinnym70 said:
Few thunderstorms into the evening as well and I'd guess all bets for tomorrow are looking dicey.
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Yes, that's my concern as well. I doubt much of this will be fully fixed before tomorrow morning's peak if the weather worsens and staff can't work at height.

LowLevel said:
It's all going completely wrong all over - definitely a case of avoid if possible. Traincrews now refusing to work on trains with failed/no air con as on board temperatures are over 40 degrees. GA 170s all stood down as they're unable to cope with the heat (always been an issue with this class of unit).

I've been working on a class 156 this afternoon and I feel physically sick.
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I sympathise. Turbostars are grim places for train crew on a summer's day. But it does seem most fleets are affected. Some of the 700s - meant to have been tested for the most extreme weather conditions - are getting so warm that people are being physically sick.

louis97 said:
Fires were still burning when I was evacuated about 25-30 minutes ago.
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I was told the fires were being extinguished at about that point. Evidently it was a slower process than originally thought possible!
 
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londonboi198o5

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JB_B said:
Obviously that's good advice re 'do not travel' but I think that's very disappointing re ticket acceptance.

I fully understand the desire to defend one's own patch when you have little or no capacity to work with but today it seems all operators are effectively in the same boat. Passengers should be able to make use of whatever rail capacity remains to get home any way they can without having to worry about what is says on their ticket.
Click to expand...


So what do you impose train companies do with regard to ticket acceptance giving majority of lines are at a stand still. Do you expect companies to pass there passengers to another station for them to then pass onto a mother station and so on due to them having little to no service at present. A ticket acceptance can only be put in place if the toc accepting tickets has a service to run. But difficult when majority of services are distrusted already
 
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The Rattler

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I feel a very fortunate. Got the 1430 from Kings Cross to Peterborough. Arrived in Peterborough at just before 4. The 1559 to Newcastle was sat on platform 5, and was an HST.

Walked past David Horne on the foot bridge, great to see him in the thick of things. Free water being handed out at the station and St Johns ambulance on standby.

On driving home I could see a mark 4 set and a hull trains set stationary just to the north of the station

I hope things start to improve and safe travels all and a huge shout out to those trying to put it back together
 
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sharpley

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On a positive note, thankyou to the EMT guard on the Lincoln - Leicester service this afternoon handing out free bottles of water to all passengers. Much appreciated as the 158 unit we were on was like an oven.

Good luck to anyone stranded due to all the problems.
 
Tom B

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To some extent, I'd assume that (irrespective of ticket acceptance) the likelihood is that many guards would be too busy dealing with problems, or simply not up to doing a check on a packed hot train??
 
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