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Thameslink meltdown 02/10

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TFN

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Wednesday's meltdown was understandable in my opinion as there was an incident.

However a broken down train in the core shouldn't take up until the next day to sort out in regards to delays as such. These things should be expected and anticipated.

I type this now as I just found out that my train to work has been cancelled with no reason given.
 
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Bald Rick

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I’m wondering why, can anyone advise me, it was over two hours after the defective train with a brake issue that necessitated the fire brigade to be called left Farringdon before the first service ran through the core?

There were trains going through the core (and past the failure) throughout, using the bidi signalling. Albeit not very many.

However to answer your question, I have heard that there was an issue with the brakes ‘locking on’ the failed unit, which meant the track behind it had to be examined for damage. This might explain why nothing ran for a while after it passed.
 

Hadders

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Not a good day on the GN side so far:

Departures from Stevenage to London:

0603 cancelled
0617 cancelled
0623 13 mins late
0632 on time
0640 on time
0647 cancelled
0649 12 mins late
0702 3 minutes late
0717 12 mins late
0720 22 mins late
0732 cancelled
0740 cancelled

Signalling problems and a broken down train apparently.
 

Surreytraveller

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There were trains going through the core (and past the failure) throughout, using the bidi signalling. Albeit not very many.

However to answer your question, I have heard that there was an issue with the brakes ‘locking on’ the failed unit, which meant the track behind it had to be examined for damage. This might explain why nothing ran for a while after it passed.
And I believe when using the bi-di, the maximum service that can operate is four trains an hour in each direction
 

Failed Unit

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Not a good day on the GN side so far:

Departures from Stevenage to London:

0603 cancelled
0617 cancelled
0623 13 mins late
0632 on time
0640 on time
0647 cancelled
0649 12 mins late
0702 3 minutes late
0717 12 mins late
0720 22 mins late
0732 cancelled
0740 cancelled

Signalling problems and a broken down train apparently.

Not looking good already as the age long problem if Horsham - Peterborough services blocking platforms at Finsbury Park and preventing London - Cambridge services passing is part of the GTR manage disruption plan today.

couple this with cancellations on the local route (failed 717s as normal)

lack of train crew (it is Friday so less drivers wanting the overtime)

It is going to be a bad day today as well.

What is annoying is GTR are attributing everything to the signalling problem. The 0721 London - Cambridge could have ran on time if they had told network rail they were about to block platform 7. They could have used 4. It is like yesterday when cancelling Moorgate branch services was down to over-running engineering works at Royston. Any network rail issue and GTR attributes everything to it as they have a get out of jail card and can claim more from them.
 

Lozzy0603

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When they rebuilt St Pancras low-level, presumably they always knew about the plan to build the Thameslink connector to the ECML. So why didn't they make low-level four platforms (possibly two islands) with the junction to the south? This would have allowed trains from either Midland or East Coast lines to either wait or terminate at St Pancras low level, potentially significantly reducing the impact of such a closure.
I realise the south end of St Pancras low level is very close to the old Kings Cross Thameslink, and on a tight curve but surely there could have been an engineering solution for this?
 

ijmad

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When they rebuilt St Pancras low-level, presumably they always knew about the plan to build the Thameslink connector to the ECML. So why didn't they make low-level four platforms (possibly two islands) with the junction to the south? This would have allowed trains from either Midland or East Coast lines to either wait or terminate at St Pancras low level, potentially significantly reducing the impact of such a closure.
I realise the south end of St Pancras low level is very close to the old Kings Cross Thameslink, and on a tight curve but surely there could have been an engineering solution for this?

Budget and space constraints, I've read.

The St Pancras area is a huge tangle underground as it is, and there are large sewers running under the station too, that would have to be moved / rerouted. Seems like it could have added hundreds of millions to an already tight budget. CTRL built the station box but it took another year for them to find the extra funds to fit it out.

There are a lot of things that would be nice. For example, three tracking the entire core or having four terminating platforms at Blackfriars. But everything has a price.
 
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richardjeeves

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I’m wondering why, can anyone advise me, it was over two hours after the defective train with a brake issue that necessitated the fire brigade to be called left Farringdon before the first service ran through the core?
I believe there was a separate fire alarm at Farringdon. I was on a met train (fast Chesham) pulling in when it went off. The LU station staff said the passengers in the platform should get on our train or evacuate.
 

Mojo

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I believe there was a separate fire alarm at Farringdon. I was on a met train (fast Chesham) pulling in when it went off. The LU station staff said the passengers in the platform should get on our train or evacuate.
The fire alarm was manually activated due to Thameslink reporting that one of their trains was on fire. This turned out to be the train with dragging brakes.

It was still some two and a bit hours after this train left Farringdon that TLRailUK ran their first train through Farringdon.
 

richardjeeves

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The fire alarm was manually activated due to Thameslink reporting that one of their trains was on fire. This turned out to be the train with dragging brakes.

It was still some two and a bit hours after this train left Farringdon that TLRailUK ran their first train through Farringdon.

Very true. We arrived into the west bound LU platform at 16:42 and they were just starting the evacuation of the station. There was a not in service 707 in the NB thameslink platform (and looked like it had been there a while).
 

Ianno87

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Budget and space constraints, I've read.

The St Pancras area is a huge tangle underground as it is, and there are large sewers running under the station too, that would have to be moved / rerouted. Seems like it could have added hundreds of millions to an already tight budget. CTRL built the station box but it took another year for them to find the extra funds to fit it out.

There are a lot of things that would be nice. For example, three tracking the entire core. But everything has a price.

All quite correct. Also, the Canal Tunnels are on an incredibly tight alignment to fit between the platforms at St. Pancras and the mouth of Copenhagen Tunnel...the extra length needed for turnouts etc. to fan into two extra platforms just doesn't fit.
 

BRblue

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The fire alarm was manually activated due to Thameslink reporting that one of their trains was on fire. This turned out to be the train with dragging brakes.

It was still some two and a bit hours after this train left Farringdon that TLRailUK ran their first train through Farringdon.
I believe not just a dragging brake but a locked up brake causing severe wheel flats. Because of this the track had to be thoroughly examined for any damage before any further trains could run.
In addition you cannot just restart a service like turning on a tap, as staff and stock will be displaced... unfortunately it's a gradual process that takes time.
 

Bald Rick

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When they rebuilt St Pancras low-level, presumably they always knew about the plan to build the Thameslink connector to the ECML. So why didn't they make low-level four platforms (possibly two islands) with the junction to the south? This would have allowed trains from either Midland or East Coast lines to either wait or terminate at St Pancras low level, potentially significantly reducing the impact of such a closure.
I realise the south end of St Pancras low level is very close to the old Kings Cross Thameslink, and on a tight curve but surely there could have been an engineering solution for this?

I’ve written the detail elsewhere on the forum previously. As @Ianno87 says, the main thing in the way is the laws of physics. In short:

* To have a 4 Platform station would need the junction to be north of the curve
* To get the necessary width to enable platforms of sufficient width, the platforms would have to be located several hundred metres north of where they are now
* This location is on a steep gradient (not allowed for new platforms) and would need significant land take above ground to build it (including homes and St Pancras church).
* to sort the gradient issue would have needed to build a new tunnel to the MML, potentially a new portal location.
* this location also shifts the tunnels to the ECML much further north, such that they couldn’t be brought to the surface until Holloway bank at best. That means a much longer tunnel and an extra portal (as the line configuration is different at that point).
* to do all of this would have required closing Thameslink for several years.

Finally, it would have made little difference to the impact of yesterday, or indeed any core closure.
 

whoosh

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With regards to contingency plans being thought through - the thing is, the normal timetable isn't running to the final plan at present. How Thameslink services should be run, is that a Driver works a service from end to end for the most part. This isn't happening with a significant number of services that run to/from the GN having a change of driver booked to take place at Finsbury Park - with mostly, them working the next train back in the other direction 20 minutes later. This is because route training has not been completed.
Any contingency plans drawn up when Thameslink was planned, have had to be altered (probably for the worse) to take into account the current situation, which Is different to how Thameslink should be working.

With regards to the train with a dragging brake in the core - the wheels would need to be examined to see if there were flats on the wheels and if there were, how bad. This would need the adjacent line blocking to check the wheels on that side of the train. Boom, there goes your 4 trains an hour on that line for the duration of getting the block put on, driver climbing down onto the track, walking on ballast to the affected coach, checking the wheels, walking back, climbing back onto the platform and getting the block taken off.
In addition, if the flats were deemed okay for the train to be moved, then a rotation test would need to be carried out, observing the wheels rotating round after the affected brakes were isolated.
Brakes - if it's the parking brake, this needs release pins to be pulled on both sides of the train. So we've got a lack of access on one side due to platforms and tunnel walls, and having to block traffic on the other.
You can see that the block on the adjacent line could be on for longer, or take place multiple times. I'm not at all surprised it took ages to sort out.
 

jon0844

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Was the contingency plan done assuming the Cambridge - Maidstone route is running.

Can't wait to turn up at Hatfield to get my Maidstone-bound train and find the inbound working is still stuck somewhere down in Kent!!
 

Failed Unit

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Can't wait to turn up at Hatfield to get my Maidstone-bound train and find the inbound working is still stuck somewhere down in Kent!!

I see the problem is they can’t react quickly enough. I know it is impossible to know how long an incident will take to fix. Let’s say a northbound train breaks down in the core. You have 10 trains heading north and 10 south. You keep send trains south you have nothing left in the north. You divert to Kings Cross immediately you disrupt through journeys for an incident that takes 5 mins to fix.

I agree judging by this week I am sure the Peterborough passengers are not happy. But we were disrupted by blocked platforms at kx.

At least us lower down have the Moorgate services. When the 717s are not breaking. ;)
 

bramling

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With regards to contingency plans being thought through - the thing is, the normal timetable isn't running to the final plan at present. How Thameslink services should be run, is that a Driver works a service from end to end for the most part. This isn't happening with a significant number of services that run to/from the GN having a change of driver booked to take place at Finsbury Park - with mostly, them working the next train back in the other direction 20 minutes later. This is because route training has not been completed.
Any contingency plans drawn up when Thameslink was planned, have had to be altered (probably for the worse) to take into account the current situation, which Is different to how Thameslink should be working.

Surely having a crew relief at Finsbury Park makes things *easier*. Assuming a southbound GN driver is booked to pick up a similar service back, that should make it easy to divert into KX and then renumber the service to what the driver would have taken north from Finsbury Park, with your 20 minutes even matching the time needed to run to KX and back. Likewise in the other direction the same happens but with the turnaround happening south of the river.

With the same driver being on the train from end to end you surely wind up with drivers being stuck on the wrong side of the river, which to me is even worse during a disruption where the core is unavailable. You also potentially lose the ability to turn a train short (not uncommon at present for stuff to go round at places like Hitchin, Letchworth, St Neots or Royston) which is generally less disruptive than missing stops.

The whole ThamesLink/ operation is an unreliable mess, the service on the GN side is too fragile to be depended upon. There’s nothing wrong with the idea of through services, but it should never have been 100% of the service for many destinations - especially places which have a half-hourly service and thus can’t readily work on the basis of “turn up at a random time and get the next available train”. Since May 2018 the level of disruption on GN has been unprecedented - in 30 years I’ve never known this level of disruption barring the Hatfield aftermath, not just the frequency of disruption but how badly things melt down when it does happen. All entirely predicted of course.
 
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AM9

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With regards to contingency plans being thought through - the thing is, the normal timetable isn't running to the final plan at present. How Thameslink services should be run, is that a Driver works a service from end to end for the most part. This isn't happening with a significant number of services that run to/from the GN having a change of driver booked to take place at Finsbury Park - with mostly, them working the next train back in the other direction 20 minutes later. This is because route training has not been completed.
Any contingency plans drawn up when Thameslink was planned, have had to be altered (probably for the worse) to take into account the current situation, which Is different to how Thameslink should be working.

With regards to the train with a dragging brake in the core - the wheels would need to be examined to see if there were flats on the wheels and if there were, how bad. This would need the adjacent line blocking to check the wheels on that side of the train. Boom, there goes your 4 trains an hour on that line for the duration of getting the block put on, driver climbing down onto the track, walking on ballast to the affected coach, checking the wheels, walking back, climbing back onto the platform and getting the block taken off.
In addition, if the flats were deemed okay for the train to be moved, then a rotation test would need to be carried out, observing the wheels rotating round after the affected brakes were isolated.
Brakes - if it's the parking brake, this needs release pins to be pulled on both sides of the train. So we've got a lack of access on one side due to platforms and tunnel walls, and having to block traffic on the other.
You can see that the block on the adjacent line could be on for longer, or take place multiple times. I'm not at all surprised it took ages to sort out.
If the faulty train was stranded in Farringdon station, there would also be 3rd rail to shutdown.
 
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BRX

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Budget and space constraints, I've read.

The St Pancras area is a huge tangle underground as it is, and there are large sewers running under the station too, that would have to be moved / rerouted. Seems like it could have added hundreds of millions to an already tight budget. CTRL built the station box but it took another year for them to find the extra funds to fit it out.

There are a lot of things that would be nice. For example, three tracking the entire core or having four terminating platforms at Blackfriars. But everything has a price.

There was a good LR article a few years back about an opportunity about to be missed:

https://www.londonreconnections.com/2012/blackfriars-safeguarding-the-future/

That building's now been demolished, I'm not sure what the redevelopment plans are but I'm guessing there will indeed be an opportunity missed.
 

Bald Rick

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BRX

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Opportunity for what? Platforms that couldn’t be made use of?ans would cost an absolute fortune? (See Blackfriars thread - that land is worth a fortune).
Have you read what they say in the LR article? Why could the platforms not be made use of?
 

Bald Rick

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Have you read what they say in the LR article? Why could the platforms not be made use of?


Yes I read it. The platforms can’t be made use of because there’s no spare paths to get any more trains there. The development was granted plannignages ago, and is worth a couple of billion quid.
 

BRX

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I thought there was potentially scope for increased frequency around the Wimbledon loop, plus the ability to terminate at Blackfriars would take some heat off the core and provide resilience in times of disruption.

It is of course a valuable site - but having the railway encroach on it at low level needn't preclude it being developed.

Obviously it's too late now, but it does seem like an opportunity missed to negotiate at the point where planning was being applied for.
 

Bald Rick

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I thought there was potentially scope for increased frequency around the Wimbledon loop, plus the ability to terminate at Blackfriars would take some heat off the core and provide resilience in times of disruption.

It is of course a valuable site - but having the railway encroach on it at low level needn't preclude it being developed.

Obviously it's too late now, but it does seem like an opportunity missed to negotiate at the point where planning was being applied for.

The land was sold - for nearly £700m - before planning was granted.

The extra trains round the loop can fit in the bays now. Indeed you can get more trains in the bays (12 an hour) than are actually planned in the end state timetable (8). You just can’t get the trains there.
 

Surreytraveller

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The land was sold - for nearly £700m - before planning was granted.

The extra trains round the loop can fit in the bays now. Indeed you can get more trains in the bays (12 an hour) than are actually planned in the end state timetable (8). You just can’t get the trains there.
I believe getting the trains through Herne Hill and Tulse Hill would be the issue, as there's the conflicts with all the SouthEastern trains to Victoria and the Southern trains to London Bridge
 

Bald Rick

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I believe getting the trains through Herne Hill and Tulse Hill would be the issue, as there's the conflicts with all the SouthEastern trains to Victoria and the Southern trains to London Bridge

No need to ‘believe’ it, as it’s fact!
 

richieb1971

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So many people on facebook getting trains to Sandy/MK from KX and Euston to get to Bedford via Taxi.

Surely this should be big time news I haven't heard a peep from the mainstream news about this. Its disgusting so many failures in a week. Passengers already forking out 5k a year on commuter tickets. I can only imagine the stress of getting to work and getting home again. Not for me, glad I'm not relying on railways for work. I'd rather change job and get a house down the road from it.
 

Bald Rick

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So many people on facebook getting trains to Sandy/MK from KX and Euston to get to Bedford via Taxi.

Surely this should be big time news I haven't heard a peep from the mainstream news about this. Its disgusting so many failures in a week. Passengers already forking out 5k a year on commuter tickets. I can only imagine the stress of getting to work and getting home again. Not for me, glad I'm not relying on railways for work. I'd rather change job and get a house down the road from it.

It has been an awful week. But in perspective, of my 10 trips this week:

3 were bang on time
2 were up to 3 minutes late
3 were up to 10 minutes late
2 involves using ‘plan B’, extending my journey by half an hour.

Now I’ll freely admit that I know how to work the system with real time trains and open train times maps etc, and that my experience was therefore probably better than most other passengers on the route this week. But I’ve lost a total of about an hour and a half this week, on a normal total door to door journey time of 14 hours.

However, given what has happened - 3 very different incidents in 3 different places - I put this down to coincidence of timing. Every rail network has bad spells, and it is unfortunate that Thameslink has had a bad week or so. But for most of the last year, I must say, performance had been very good. Certainly not ‘disgusting’.
 
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