Tree stops Glasgow - London trains in Lockerbie area (30/06)

cadder toad · Tuesday at 08:51

This happened yesterday 30/6/25.

"Avanti West Coast confirmed services north and south of the border have been suspended due to damage to overhead wires between Lockerbie and Carlisle."

Do not travel warning after tree blocks West Coast Main Line

Avanti West Coast and TransPennine Express have advised people not to travel between Scotland and England.

www.bbc.co.uk

How did passengers make their journey after the line was blocked at Lockerbie/Beattock by a fallen tree? Were Avanti passengers sent via Kilmarnock to Carlisle, or via the East Coast, or simply expected to travel today instead?

Transpennine advertised ticket acceptance via the East Coast.

The reason I'm interested is that I'm travelling Avanti later this week. On this forum, I constantly read of passengers stranded by Avanti, and this makes me doubt whether travelling by train can be relied upon.

RailUK Forums

DarloRich · Tuesday at 08:55

a mixture of all options I assume - although i noted when at Crewe yesterday that trains were not running north of Preston so Carlisle wont have helped much!

hexagon789 · Tuesday at 09:15

DarloRich said:
a mixture of all options I assume - although i noted when at Crewe yesterday that trains were not running north of Preston so Carlisle wont have helped much!

12 Avanti services did manage Preston/Carlisle plus two to/from Penrith.

cadder toad said:
This happened yesterday 30/6/25. How did passengers make their journey after the line was blocked at Lockerbie/Beattock by a fallen tree? We're Avanti passengers sent via Kilmarnock to Carlisle, or via the East Coast. Or simply expected to travel today instead? Trans pennine advertised ticket acceptance via the East Coast.

Initially no ticket acceptance due to a PHBT at Northallerton severely disrupting ECML services.

Later the usual acceptance with LNER, LUMO, TPE, XC, EMR, Northern and ScotRail on select routes was implemented.

Unusually ticket acceptance with ScotRail via the Glasgow and South Western route from Carlisle via Dumfries was implemented. This is unusual in my experience, the last time we had a similar incident it wasn't in place.

However, with ticket acceptance I'm place via Dumfries the local ScotRail workings were overcrowded with some regular travellers posting on X that they were unable to board. I saw one post saying ScotRail should've put on replacement buses and another that they shouldn't have allowed all the passengers from the cancelled trains on!

You just can't win sometimes!

DarloRich · Tuesday at 09:25

hexagon789 said:
12 Avanti services did manage Preston/Carlisle plus two to/from Penrith.

fair enough - there were non beyond Preston on the boards at Crewe whilst i was there.

smtglasgow · Tuesday at 09:32

For whatever reason there didn’t appear to be any replacement buses between Glasgow & Carlisle – or if there were it was very limited. TPE certainly advised there was no alternative transport arranged. I know sourcing coaches can be problematic these days, but the Scottish schools are on holiday now and I doubt every coach driver is in Benidorm, so seemed very poor. Presumably some of the people arriving in Carlisle has an expectation that there would be a way to reach Glasgow – I wonder if Scotrail accepting passengers was the only way to clear the crowds?

Don’t want to relitigate the ‘Avanti abandoning the northern WCML’ debate, but we now seen to be at the stage where we just have to accept that there will be several days a year where we get no service.

43055 · Tuesday at 09:48

DarloRich said:
fair enough - there were non beyond Preston on the boards at Crewe whilst i was there.

RTT shows the Glasgow fasts going through to Carlisle about every 2 hours from lunchtime which are the ones which run non stop to Warrington from London. Almost everything else terminated at Preston.

smtglasgow said:
For whatever reason there didn’t appear to be any replacement buses between Glasgow & Carlisle – or if there were it was very limited. TPE certainly advised there was no alternative transport arranged. I know sourcing coaches can be problematic these days, but the Scottish schools are on holiday now and I doubt every coach driver is in Benidorm, so seemed very poor. Presumably some of the people arriving in Carlisle has an expectation that there would be a way to reach Glasgow – I wonder if Scotrail accepting passengers was the only way to clear the crowds?

Don’t want to relitigate the ‘Avanti abandoning the northern WCML’ debate, but we now seen to be at the stage where we just have to accept that there will be several days a year where we get no service.

Given what I have read before about Avanti north of Preston in disruption, yesterday's 2 hourly service was probably quite good for them.

38Cto15E · Tuesday at 09:57

There are two vast woodyards next to the WCML just north of Lockerbie, involve their help if required.

D1537 · Tuesday at 10:49

There were a lot of problems on the ECML yesterday which were exacerbated by the issue of Avanti passengers using it.

I made my usual morning commute from Northallerton to Durham; no problem going north, as my train left about half an hour before that poor person stepped out in front of 1E01.

Arriving back at Durham for 1E12 (1100 Edinburgh-KX) I looked at RTT and saw that 1E11 Aberdeen-KX had been cancelled at Edinburgh, presumably due to crewing issues from the problems in the morning. I overheard LNER staff saying that 1E12 was "at capacity" and mentioning people from Avanti services (1E12 would have been the next LNER departure after the 1006 Edinburgh-Euston, I noted) so I walked down to the front and ended up standing in a first-class vestibule which was fine.

At Darlington and Northallerton the train lost time because people were literally struggling to get into the train. A number of people walked past where I was standing and sat in the few remaining FC seats "because I'm not standing all the way to London" - I decided not to get into that discussion as my journey was only half an hour! I suggested to some people who joined me in the vestibule at Darlington that they detrain at York and get on the 1402 York-King's Cross instead, whether they did I don't know.

Carlisle · Tuesday at 11:25

Not too surprising given June’s been pretty wet & blustery up here so soft ground & trees in full leaf .

The Planner · Tuesday at 11:27

38Cto15E said:
There are two vast woodyards next to the WCML just north of Lockerbie, involve their help if required.

Will only take 10 minutes to get them trained up to be on track etc...

DarloRich · Tuesday at 13:17

38Cto15E said:
There are two vast woodyards next to the WCML just north of Lockerbie, involve their help if required.

can they string up OHLE?

Class83 · Tuesday at 13:58

DarloRich said:
can they string up OHLE?

Probably not, might be more effective to send them out proactively to cut every tree which is higher than it is away from the track to avoid this happening again though.

QueensCurve · Tuesday at 15:36

cadder toad said:
This happened yesterday 30/6/25. How did passengers make their journey after the line was blocked at Lockerbie/Beattock by a fallen tree? We're Avanti passengers sent via Kilmarnock to Carlisle, or via the East Coast. Or simply expected to travel today instead? Trans pennine advertised ticket acceptance via the East Coast.

How were the Penrith terminators handled\/ Did they use the facing Xover on the way in or the trailing Xover on their way out?

Edit: From RTT they appear to have terminated in Platform 2 asnd crossed over on their way out.

ruaival · Tuesday at 21:28

At Manchester Piccadilly yesterday West Coast travellers were advised to use East Coast or wait until following day with "Do Not Travel to Glasgow" warning for those chancing it as far as Carlisle.

RPI · Tuesday at 21:40

QueensCurve said:
How were the Penrith terminators handled\/ Did they use the facing Xover on the way in or the trailing Xover on their way out?

Edit: From RTT they appear to have terminated in Platform 2 asnd crossed over on their way out.

I caught the 07:48 TPE which started at Penrith, everyone boarded on the North bound platform, the set then shunted northwards out of the station (I assume past a signal), then the driver changed ends and we went back through the same platform non stop and crossed to the up line!

cadder toad · Tuesday at 21:52

I'm paying particular attention as I'm travelling in a few days time. Thanks for all your responses which are reassuring. The Avanti web page didn't give any options that would let people travel on 30th. It seems that on-the-ground-on-the-day then options to travel were possible.

The Planner · Tuesday at 22:35

RPI said:
I caught the 07:48 TPE which started at Penrith, everyone boarded on the North bound platform, the set then shunted northwards out of the station (I assume past a signal), then the driver changed ends and we went back through the same platform non stop and crossed to the up line!

There is a neutral section to the south, needs a run up.

driver9000 · Wednesday at 00:17

The Planner said:
There is a neutral section to the south, needs a run up.

The neutral section is to the north of Penrith station. The next one to the south is at Great Strickland. As RPI correctly assumed there is a ground signal just to the north of the station on the Down line which the train set behind to start back south through the crossover at Penrith Middle.

JDAWC · Wednesday at 13:16

The Planner said:
There is a neutral section to the south, needs a run up.

The train would've shunted behind CE214 ground signal in order to cross back over at Penrith Middle Jcn as @driver9000 said. The Neutral Section is just north of Penrith after the 105/120EPS speed board. The warning board for the Neutral Section is just after Penrith Middle, around 300ish yards from CE213 Banner Repeater just before Penrith Station, you may have confused these two points.

Penrith Middle can't be traversed from DF to UM heading Northbound as CE189, the signal before Penrith Middle, is a 4-aspect signal with no junction indicators or position light. Hence why trains had to go into platform 2, shunt North behind CE214 and come back through the same platform in order to cross from the DF to UM heading Southbound.

The same move can also happen in the opposite direction, a train coming from the North into Platform 1 and then shunts out behind CE202 Ground Signal and then after a change of ends crosses over from the UM to DF into Platform 2 at Penrith. Trains can terminate at Penrith in both the Up and Down direction, never known of it happening with trains going south however.

driver9000 · Wednesday at 15:32

JDAWC said:
The same move can also happen in the opposite direction, a train coming from the North into Platform 1 and then shunts out behind CE202 Ground Signal and then after a change of ends crosses over from the UM to DF into Platform 2 at Penrith. Trains can terminate at Penrith in both the Up and Down direction, never known of it happening with trains going south however.

It has happened Up to Down in the last 6 months with a Pendolino.

JDAWC · Wednesday at 16:21

driver9000 said:
It has happened Up to Down in the last 6 months with a Pendolino.

Ahh I see. I figured it must’ve happened but just not to my knowledge. Have you ever done it in either direction?

voyagerdude220 · Wednesday at 16:49

driver9000 said:
It has happened Up to Down in the last 6 months with a Pendolino.

It looks like a Pendolino did the shunt on Monday.

Realtime Trains | 1M08 0902 Penrith North Lakes to London Euston | 30/06/2025

Real-time train running information for 1M08 0902 departure from Penrith North Lakes to London Euston on 30/06/2025. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

09:02 from Penrith to London Euston. (It's previous working was unable to get to Carlisle due to a Freight allegedly blocking points, preventing access to other platforms)

driver9000 · Wednesday at 17:23

JDAWC said:
Ahh I see. I figured it must’ve happened but just not to my knowledge. Have you ever done it in either direction?

No, Penrith Middle is still a required cross over!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Wednesday at 17:24 ==

voyagerdude220 said:
It looks like a Pendolino did the shunt on Monday.

I was thinking of earlier in the year but yes it looks like the shunt was done on Monday too although that looks like it was Down to Up rather than Up to Down. On Monday a freight got caught by the Southwaite HABD and was stopped to be examined.

Rail Ranger · Wednesday at 18:04

HABD means Hot Axle Box Detector.

Bikeman78 · Friday at 10:53

hexagon789 said:
However, with ticket acceptance I'm place via Dumfries the local ScotRail workings were overcrowded with some regular travellers posting on X that they were unable to board. I saw one post saying ScotRail should've put on replacement buses and another that they shouldn't have allowed all the passengers from the cancelled trains on!

What is the maximum train length via Dumfries? I guess it's four car, and most trains are already that long.

Class83 · Friday at 13:58

Bikeman78 said:
What is the maximum train length via Dumfries? I guess it's four car, and most trains are already that long.

It's more likely that Scotrail simply don't have diesel rolling stock spare, Avanti no longer have Voyagers so there simply aren't any more carriages to send that way.

Lytham Local · Friday at 14:04

Bikeman78 said:
What is the maximum train length via Dumfries? I guess it's four car, and most trains are already that long.

I've been in a 9 car Pendo drag via Dumfries. Stopped at Kilmarnock only, but I can't remember if anyone got off or not. Doubtful.

QueensCurve · Friday at 14:39

Lytham Local said:
I've been in a 9 car Pendo drag via Dumfries. Stopped at Kilmarnock only, but I can't remember if anyone got off or not. Doubtful.

Pleasantly surprised they still do that.

The Planner · Friday at 14:41

QueensCurve said:
Pleasantly surprised they still do that.

They don't

Bikeman78 · Friday at 14:42

Class83 said:
It's more likely that Scotrail simply don't have diesel rolling stock spare, Avanti no longer have Voyagers so there simply aren't any more carriages to send that way.

I meant what is the platform length. I'm aware that longer trains have diverted that way. As you say, the class 156 is rather tightly diagrammed though there might be scope to juggle things around on the day.

Tree stops Glasgow - London trains in Lockerbie area (30/06)

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