It's past Hertford now, so potentially only another half hour or so.
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ECML/MML major power problems (09/08)
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Yes - my record is 16 hours and 20 minutes, the last half-hour involving being talked past six signals at danger. Not much point shouting for relief as there wouldn’t have been anyone to come out until the early turn drivers started booking on!
Just been having a quick flick through the LNER Twitter feed. Some understandably miffed passengers, but every credit to David Horne, LNER Managing Director, who - after what has to have been a bad day at the office to stay the least - is himself on social media responding to customers, offering to assist in expediting exceptional expense claims, etc.
In the grand scheme of things, it's going to make very little difference, but it's a refreshingly outstanding bit of customer service that you don't often see from senior managers at TOCs.
In the grand scheme of things, it's going to make very little difference, but it's a refreshingly outstanding bit of customer service that you don't often see from senior managers at TOCs.
It’s way outside the RAIBs remit, to those asking about a report. They report on incidents where there is safety learning for the industry. An issue of this magnitude it would be incredibly difficult to collate all of exactly what happened; never mind delve deeply to ascertain if there were any safety learning to be had.
4-SUB 4732
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We *did* have highly skilled drivers. Traction training used to be excellent and you could probably do a bit yourself before involving Three Bridges (Hornsey before that). Now, it’s extremely low-level traction knowledge and people wouldn’t necessarily know what to do. Absolute rubbish is that.
HSTEd
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The UK has historically had an extremely resilient grid because it was overengineered, with a large margin between peak projected demand and available generating plant, and multiple redundencies at pretty much every level of the transmission infrastructure.
All this started to die at privatisation, because this sort of margin and redundancy costs money and it's much cheaper not to bother.
Operational margin has been shrinking ever since, and the grid has had essetnially no major money spent on it since privatisation, because National Grid could live off the CEGB's engineering and pocket the renewals money.
The margin has now sunk low enough that we are starting to get major problems, and National Grid has started to panic over the fact they've run the grid infrastructure into the ground.
(Culturally the CEGB saw its primary job as being to ensure the lights stayed on, the current electricity industry has only one goal - and that is to make money by any means at their disposal)
Think they have been termed 'Outages' for some considerable time now, can't see an issue with it
Dren Ahmeti
Member
LNER ran some very late Northbound services (as expected):
1N36 2300 Kings Cross - York will be terminated at Doncaster...running 189 minutes late.
Expected arrival at Doncaster 0412
1N35 2200 Kings Cross - Newcastle...running 263 minutes late.
Expected arrival at Newcastle 0633
1D36 2333 London Kings Cross - Leeds...running 179 minutes late. Expected arrival at Leeds 0534
1N36 2300 Kings Cross - York will be terminated at Doncaster...running 189 minutes late.
Expected arrival at Doncaster 0412
1N35 2200 Kings Cross - Newcastle...running 263 minutes late.
Expected arrival at Newcastle 0633
1D36 2333 London Kings Cross - Leeds...running 179 minutes late. Expected arrival at Leeds 0534
theageofthetra
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Were any London Underground operations affected by this? I guess Overground was affected due to the power cut at Clapham Jct.
The Victoria Line was completely suspended for quite some time!
MadCommuter
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The BBC still haven't reported the fact that the reset systems on the 700s are the main reason of the extensive delays.
Must have been odd in Control, to find that all the 700s had come to a stand at exactly the same time, over a wide area !
If you put a computer in everything, you can more or less guarantee that it's going to be faulty.
Surreytraveller
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Didn't happen with all the third rail stuff
ashkeba
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You add a potential source of faults but also a powerful tool for diagnosing faults before they cause disruption. The 700s computers seem to cause fewer routine problems than the computers on the Mark-3-derived EMUs we used to suffer. Ever been on board during a "rolling reboot"?
ashkeba
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Be a bit worrying if DC frequency drifted low!
Because it has been rectified into something approximating DC by 12 pulse rectifier ( rough as) so the AC frequency doesn't matter to the trains.
See an excellent post on page 2/3.
Not as far as I'm aware.
Could they not just have a computer to disgnose faults, but not actually be relied on to run the train ?
hooverboy
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it's not the drivers fault!
All these new trains have very complex software systems that need programming and operating in exactly the correct sequence in order to get operational.
To boot, I would expect these software systems to be native(ie not windows), and so you're likely to have patches and additional software that needs installing manually
(for those PC minded will know what I mean where most windows add-ons will be run through an installshield wizard automatically when you load up an new piece of software- this won't generally be the case with a native OS or language)
If just one little section is missed out or not done in the right order then basically the whole system is shafted.Commissioning is fairly complex- don't even get me started on debugging.
You need an elementary level of IT/Computer science knowledge package thrown into your training.
could the operation be sped up?
possibly,using a different type of storage mechanism where the software's located may help.
i)if hard drive is Solid state ,move to nVME.
ii)if CPU is old, move to higher frequency/more cores/more threads.This needs lab testing first as some programmes will be timing sensitive.Open track is not really the place to learn the hard way about engine management or variable frequency drive problems.
iii)maybe possible to increase memory speeds if motherboard allows.
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Failed Unit
Established Member
I guess the investigation needs to cover why it took over 7 hours to shift all these failed 7xx. Yes the power fault was the cause but it shouldn’t take 7 hours to shift an EMU. Poor LNER taking a pasting because of yet more failed 7xx
bramling
Veteran Member
There were also quite a few problems with lifts. I’m not sure how widespread, but I know for definite a few people spent a little while stuck in a lift at Hampstead - which I believe was related to the power issues.
bramling
Veteran Member
As usual the 365s saved the day. I for one would have ended up spending the night in my office had it not been for them.
Walter Whigham
Member
Do we know how many failed units were awaiting specialist attention on track on (a) the lines out of Kings Cross/Moorgate and (b) on the MML?
hooverboy
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pretty simple.
30 minutes to (incorrectly) perform boot up sequence.
another 6 1/2 hours trying to diagnose what went wrong
bramling
Veteran Member
I think the issue of no openable windows is going to gain salience. The problem is that once summer ends the issue gets forgotten until the following year.
There should be a health and safety pack issued for anyone unfortunate enough to have to use a 700. Cushions to to make the seats bearable, breathing apparatus for when the air conditioning fails (it’s gutless enough even when working correctly), and a supply of bottled water and a makeshift toilet like used in caravans for the newly found issue that you might be stuck on the train for multiple hours if the trains electronics locks out.
30 were stranded but some of those rebooted eventually so less than 30...
23/7 split
Failed Unit
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There were at least 3 in the Hatfield station area including at Welwyn - Moorgate on the fast line. These were the reason for the massive delay on the 0952 Aberdeen - London service. I had heard about 23 on the great northern region but can’t validate this.
People were expecting the 717s to be the savour if the line but 313s are simple creatures. Easy to get going once the power is back. I wonder if a single type of train has ever caused to mainlines to collapse in this way before? Having a chuckle reading through the class 700 thread. “They will never fail one poster kept trying to convince us”.
Yes the grid cause the initial fail. Accept that. But the grid was totally restored by 1835. Shame the 700 are too complex for their own good.
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