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Wires Down At Hest Bank

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Mag_seven

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Whilst I appreciate it’s no magical solution, crew knowledge of the Settle & Carlisle route certainly would’ve helped during today’s disruption

Completely agree but we all know that ship sailed long ago - today's private operators are not interested in retaining such things as diversionary route knowledge or standby locos to drag.
 
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Deepgreen

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There has been much discussion previously about the relative merits of OHLE and third rail electrification and it's been said by informed people that the two are fairly similar in their frequency of failure. However, my gut feeling is that this balance has shifted dramatically of late to OHLE having been far more frail. Is it simply that the OHLE failures have been more dramatic? I'm obviously not advocating juice rails over the Northern fells, by the way!
 

gazzaa2

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Too risky to travel these days any real distance in UK via train if there's going to be any kind of extreme weather. On the WCML alone over the last 6 months it's ground to a halt by the heat last summer, rain in the autumn with line floods and now wind in the winter. We haven't even really had frost/ice/snow etc.
 

underbank

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There has been much discussion previously about the relative merits of OHLE and third rail electrification and it's been said by informed people that the two are fairly similar in their frequency of failure. However, my gut feeling is that this balance has shifted dramatically of late to OHLE having been far more frail. Is it simply that the OHLE failures have been more dramatic? I'm obviously not advocating juice rails over the Northern fells, by the way!

We've had three OHLE incidents close to Lancaster in the past few months - at least 2, perhaps all 3 mid morning. Each time, very long waits for the passengers to be rescued and put onto RRB, and the line closed for the rest of the day, reopening next morning. That doesn't sound normal nor acceptable. I wonder whether there is some particular reason for so many incidents so close together (first two were almost in exactly the same location).
 

underbank

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Too risky to travel these days any real distance in UK via train if there's going to be any kind of extreme weather. On the WCML alone over the last 6 months it's ground to a halt by the heat last summer, rain in the autumn and now wind in the winter. We haven't even really had frost/ice/snow etc.

Not sure weather played any part today - pretty moderate weather this morning around Hest Bank, light wind, no rain, etc. The previous incident just South of Lancaster was also on a pretty average/dry kind of day if I remember rightly. Certainly weren't any storms or unusually high winds this morning.
 

CaptainHaddock

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Anyone know if Avanti are running between Carlisle and Glasgow? NRES only mentions Northbound trains terminating at Preston with buses on to Carlisle.
 

LeylandLen

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Anyone know if Avanti are running between Carlisle and Glasgow? NRES only mentions Northbound trains terminating at Preston with buses on to Carlisle.

There seems to be Avanti and TPE running Carlisle Glasgow/Edinburgh tonight . All VSTP ( very short term plan) Next to Edinburgh is 2106

The Highlander sleeper to Inverness/Aberdeen/Fort William is running via ECML
 

Class195

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Noting that there have been several previous threads about (emergency) rail replacement buses at Preston would you care to expand on this point?

(I am sure that many rail staff have worked very hard to get arrangements up and running as quickly as possible but customer perspectives are always helpful. Thankfully my days of suddenly having to deal with thousands of delayed customers after a power supply problem are long behind me. It isn't easy.)

Sending coaches half-full off to Lancaster and then a full train load arrive and have to wait nearly an hour for the next one to materialise.

I understand that it's short notice but why send an RRB away with only 20 people on it.

I got this information from the driver of mine who had to do two headcounts to make sure he was absolutely full before offering apologies to those left behind.

Not best practice.
 

pnepaul

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Further to my earlier post
I was on the 11.09 from Crewe to Edinburgh. We arrived in Preston at just after 12noon. Several coaches arrived after about 35-40mins. I joined the queue which to be honest ( and to my surprise) was not too long. Once the destinations were sorted, Avanti staff came down the queue asking if people were going to Lancaster, there were not too many takers. With hindsight, is it possible they were faced with the dilemma of either sending half-empty coaches to Lancaster straight away, or waiting at Preston for an hour or so while other trains arrived??
As I was going to Carlisle I missed the first coaches as they were full, but as I mentioned another coach arrived and we were away by around 14.00 ( nor 13.15 as i mentioned old age is catching me up lol) .

It is also worth noting that quite a number took up the option of travelling to York ( with Northern trains) and then on to Edinburgh. When i saw the queue for that I decided the coach was the best option!
 

Scotrail314209

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Personally I think the WCML needs some serious upgrading to the OHLE. It seems to be happening a bit more often, puts the ECML to shame.
 
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Been at Lancaster all day giving a helping hand to the staff there. I arrived on the first of the shuttles.

Hourly shuttle service running between Preston & Lancaster leaving Preston at xx15 and Lancaster at xx45. Very busy all day! Trains from Leeds & Barrow terminated at Carnforth, trains from Scotland terminated at Carlisle and trains from the South terminated at Preston. The Windermere branch had a unit stuck on it shuttling for the day.

Bit of a farce with the buses with control telling the coordinator one thing and drivers another. We had an AWFUL LOT of buses heading to Preston, despite there being the train but hardly anything heading north. Logic would've dictated to run a bus between Carnforth and Lancaster for the day to accommodate all Furness and Leeds passengers with the other buses doing Preston - Lancaster - Oxenholme - Penrith - Carlisle. We had a lot of thankfully very patient passengers waiting for a non-existent bus to Carnforth for an onward Furness service whilst bus after bus kept going to Preston. At one point, we had 3 buses and the shuttle train all about to set off to Preston at the same time with passengers sat waiting to go north!
 

bengley

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A 350 had an ADD (automatic dropping device) activation between Hest Bank and Carnforth early yesterday morning but the fault was suspected to be with the train's pantograph and as such the line was not closed. I do wonder whether there was a defect with the OLE which damaged the pantograph which just by sheer luck didn't affect any more trains until the one which brought the wires down.
 

a_c_skinner

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Traksy has both southbound sleepers stopped at Carnforth (0715) with times looking plausibly correct plus a Barrow to Airport train at platform, again with the times looking realistic. (Edit: Lowland sleeper just on the move 291 late at Carnforth N Jn.)
 

Zooty

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A 350 had an ADD (automatic dropping device) activation between Hest Bank and Carnforth early yesterday morning but the fault was suspected to be with the train's pantograph and as such the line was not closed. I do wonder whether there was a defect with the OLE which damaged the pantograph which just by sheer luck didn't affect any more trains until the one which brought the wires down.
I did wonder if there might be a connection.

Stranded 1M10 now gone and southbound open.
 

underbank

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Personally I think the WCML needs some serious upgrading to the OHLE. It seems to be happening a bit more often, puts the ECML to shame.

What are the usual timescales for replacement/refurbishment? The OHLE at Hest Bank was re-done only around 15 years ago as the gantries were replaced (used to be those single ones, and now are the full width ones). So it's not as if they were still the original infrastructure from the 70s.
 

dave59

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Been at Lancaster all day giving a helping hand to the staff there. I arrived on the first of the shuttles.

Hourly shuttle service running between Preston & Lancaster leaving Preston at xx15 and Lancaster at xx45. Very busy all day! Trains from Leeds & Barrow terminated at Carnforth, trains from Scotland terminated at Carlisle and trains from the South terminated at Preston. The Windermere branch had a unit stuck on it shuttling for the day.

Bit of a farce with the buses with control telling the coordinator one thing and drivers another. We had an AWFUL LOT of buses heading to Preston, despite there being the train but hardly anything heading north. Logic would've dictated to run a bus between Carnforth and Lancaster for the day to accommodate all Furness and Leeds passengers with the other buses doing Preston - Lancaster - Oxenholme - Penrith - Carlisle. We had a lot of thankfully very patient passengers waiting for a non-existent bus to Carnforth for an onward Furness service whilst bus after bus kept going to Preston. At one point, we had 3 buses and the shuttle train all about to set off to Preston at the same time with passengers sat waiting to go north!

What's with this pre-occupation with buses? If there's a "shuttle" between Preston and Lancaster why couldn't there be a shuttle between Oxenholme and Carlisle?
 

30907

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What's with this pre-occupation with buses? If there's a "shuttle" between Preston and Lancaster why couldn't there be a shuttle between Oxenholme and Carlisle?
It would only be of use to Lakes passengers as you can't use OXH for a major RRB job, so very low priority (sorry!).
 

Beebman

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What are the usual timescales for replacement/refurbishment? The OHLE at Hest Bank was re-done only around 15 years ago as the gantries were replaced (used to be those single ones, and now are the full width ones). So it's not as if they were still the original infrastructure from the 70s.

Looking at the photo of the damage posted yesterday on the National Rail site it appears to be where the single line to Bare Lane diverges and runs parallel to the WCML for some distance. The photo shows a headspan structure and the sagging contact wire appears to be the run-off wire which runs for a short distance along the Bare Lane line. My guess is that the point of damage is where the Bare Lane line connects to the down WCML.
 

Meerkat

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It would only be of use to Lakes passengers as you can't use OXH for a major RRB job, so very low priority (sorry!).
Seems a good reason to improve road access to Oxenholme - shorter RRBs and better use as a Parkway.
 

Carlisle

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It would only be of use to Lakes passengers as you can't use OXH for a major RRB job, so very low priority (sorry!).
There’s been numerous weekend engineering closures throughout the last 20 years where all northbound passengers have needed to change onto busses there for onward transport to Penrith & Carlisle
 
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