Berks and Hants shut Newbury-Westbury due to fire?

[317362]

Hello, just wondered what the story was here, National Rail has as a 'several fiires between Bedwyn and Pewsey' but an empty stone train seems to have been sat on the down line at Hungerford area since lunchtime.

Result either way:nothing between Newbury and Westbury.

 

[hexagon789]

Hello, just wondered what the story was here, National Rail has as a 'several fiires between Bedwyn and Pewsey' but an empty stone train seems to have been sat on the down line at Hungerford area since lunchtime.

Result either way:nothing between Newbury and Westbury.

At least four separate fires; reputedly 7A40 has dragging brakes.

 

[317362]

Thank you. 7A40 Merehead-Hanwell is currently in Hungerford loop.

Made it there +300 at 1512, delay accumulated between Bedwyn-Hungerford.

387170 has now lost power at Thatcham and is being rebooted

Fun day on the Newbury line.

387170 restarted, extra stops put in on 1C89 at Kintbury and Bedwyn, an ecs 165 seemed to then have issue at Hungerford further delaying, and then door release issue on 1C89 at Kintbury. Bit of an adventure.

Line does appear to be reopened both ways though

 

[fandroid]

The fires and the delays/cancellations notwithstanding I travelled from Basingstoke to Hungerford yesterday. I deliberately picked the 11.01 Exeter train from Reading as it involved no changes at Newbury. In researching this journey I was appalled to discover that the routine connection time at Newbury for passengers going to one of the three stations to Bedwyn is 20 minutes! It's bad enough having to change at all, but an enforced 20 thumb-twiddle at Newbury is outrageous. I bet they wished electrification never happened!

For the record, due to the delays later on concerning the return journey, my friend gave me a lift to Newbury, from where I caught a bus (which was spot on time).

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

Realities of timetabling I’m afraid. Not having a west-facing bay platform at Newbury doesn’t help. It wasn’t electrification per-se, but the removal of 800 sets off the Paddington-Bedwyn diagrams (at DfT instruction) meaning that the hourly through service had to be truncated at Newbury.

In a remotely sane world, the wires would have originally gone through to Bedwyn reversing siding. What we‘ve ended up with is a result of bi-mode trains being seen as a panacea allowing the job to be left half-done.

 

[Ashley Hill]

Used to be two west end bays at Newbury.

 

[317362]

7A40 was changed to 6A40 but still in loop, unsure if it has a loco on it still, but usually described changes to WGNS if loop is full of those only.

Will go and have a nose later.

I'll not say anything about the Bedwyn shuttle here, but I think 'sub optimal' covers it off. For another thread.

 

[Chingy]

7A40 was changed to 6A40 but still in loop, unsure if it has a loco on it still, but usually described changes to WGNS if loop is full of those only.

I can confirm the two loco’s are still present on the front of the train.

Affected wagon has been fitted with skates for a potential 10mph move to Theale where it will be shunted out & dumped there.

Not sure when this will happen though.

 

[Taunton]

It was indeed a waste using an 800 just for Paddington to Bedwyn, and it shouldn't have taken the DfT to identify that. And if the electrification project team had not squandered the original budget it would have been completed as planned. That wasn't the DfT's fault either. Likewise who decided to get rid of the west end bays at Newbury.

 

[Ashley Hill]

Likewise who decided to get rid of the west end bays at Newbury

Technically they were made redundant with the closure of the Lambourne branch and the D,N & S line, though the D,N & S bay existed until resignalling in the 1970s.

 

[Benjwri]

And if the electrification project team had not squandered the original budget it would have been completed as planned.

I don’t think squandering was the right word, there were a significant amount of failings which led to the overrun and most people involved take blame for that, many of whom weren’t involved in the project itself but rather investigatory work done under a separate contract.

The DfT certainly isn’t free of blame.

 

[317362]

For completeness, 8Z40 made it in a slow presume skated trip to Theale Yeoman sidings in the early hours, Hungerford loop now shows WGNS so some left there.


The WGNS left in siding still have 1xFreightliner green 66 up top, about half way along loop, now shows in describers as 0F66

8/7/24.Last update, loop now clear, a further class 8 worked out to Theale this morning.