Derailment between Hersham & Walton on Thames (04/03)

[infobleep]

The 21.00 has always called at Godalming. All down fasts after the evening peak did.

I'd forgotten this.

I note that some early morning trains from or via Woking are cancelled or diverted.

I'm not surprised by this.

The 04:30 iz running via Stains and stopping additionally there and as it is a one off service, they have a rail replacement bus running from 03:56 to Clapham Junction, stopping at Surbtion and Wimbledon.

Actually this is the case all week.

The 04:54 Basingstoke to London Waterloo is terminating at Woking. As is the 05:14 Guildford to London Waterloo service. That is new.

The 05:43 Woking to Waterloo servuce is the first up passenger service to run through the Walton on Thames area.

 

[Murray J]

Might be their normal route.

I live on the Cobham line & we regularly see trains for Portsmouth Harbour. I’ve checked on RTT a few months ago and they run fast to Guildford.

No, these were unscheduled diversions, showed on RTT as no report over the area it diverted from.

 

[Mike_L_Surrey]

No, these were unscheduled diversions, showed on RTT as no report over the area it diverted yesterday was from.

Thanks Murray

There certainly were a LOT of diversions. Normally it’s just the occasional class 444 as used on Portsmouth Harbour trains but lots of class 450’s yesterday .

I'd forgotten this.

I note that some early morning trains from or via Woking are cancelled or diverted.

I'm not surprised by this.

The 04:30 iz running via Stains and stopping additionally there and as it is a one off service, they have a rail replacement bus running from 03:56 to Clapham Junction, stopping at Surbtion and Wimbledon.

Actually this is the case all week.

The 04:54 Basingstoke to London Waterloo is terminating at Woking. As is the 05:14 Guildford to London Waterloo service. That is new.

The 05:43 Woking to Waterloo servuce is the first up passenger service to run through the Walton on Thames area.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a delay to all services passing through Walton this morning.

I write that because I live on the Cobham line and there’s been a ballast train idling just outside our back garden (less than 50 metres from house to railway line) for last 30 minutes ,so naturally I got up to investigate.

It’s just returned in direction of Surbiton so can now get some sleep

I’m guessing that work is currently in progress at Walton and this is just a ‘spare’ .

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Mediocre service? SWR aside from when major faults on the network have a relatively low level of cancellations compared to many TOCs.

Thats fair assessment and this morning service start up is good but yesterday services on many routes were mediocre especially Bournemouth to Weymouth. In the past SW were very adept in dealing with severe perturbation and they need to look under the bonnet and understand what needs to change.

 

[Clarence Yard]

Possibly....I'm not certain to be honest. It may be that they have not be cleared for the Guildford New Line simply because no one has yet requested a test run, thinking that they would never have to run that way.

You don’t clear lines like that these days. The kinematic envelope of the vehicle has to be run against the infrastructure records model (D gauge is the usual comparison tool) and then if there are any exceedances, they have to be individually cleared. When that is done and you have an updated SOC (Statement of Compatability) for that class on your part of the network, you can then run a test train.

It is impossible to get clearance these days if a step board runs anywhere near or under a coper so the door opening issue doesn’t now occur in getting clearance. However, if you want to stop anywhere, assuring yourself of the train/passenger interface is key. You want to be able to open your doors in the right place and make sure there isn’t a huge step up or down before you even start evaluating the disabled access issues to or from that platform.

 

[Undaunted]

There was understandably much discussion yesterday about the lack of services between Weymouth and Woking and I wonder whether one complication for those who were trying to plan a service was a route knowledge imbalance between the east and west ends of the route. Whereas both Weymouth and Bournemouth depots sign the route to Waterloo, Woking crews go no further west than Basingstoke and Basingstoke crews no further west than Southampton. Even Northam crews only go to Poole. Starting up a Woking - Bournemouth/Weymouth shuttle would have been nearly impossible from the east end as intermediate crew changes (drivers and guards) would have been necessary. When there is a need to implement an ad-hoc service, a fundamental requirement is to try to keep drivers, guards and stock together, otherwise you risk trains being abandoned at awkward places (such as Southampton) - a situation which can rapidly get out of control.

So a Woking to Bournemouth/Weymouth shuttle would have had to have been resourced largely from Bournemouth and Weymouth depots, and ideally on an out and back basis such that it was clear from the outset not only what driver, guard and stock were doing for the outward leg, but also for the return leg too. This is something that is very difficult to do in real time, and if the WICC was short-staffed yesterday, even harder. I have a lot of sympathy for their predicament!

If I can be allowed one reference to the 'old days', in the 1970s and 1980s Woking crews used to have route knowledge to Bournemouth, Basingstoke crews had route knowledge to Poole (with some having special traffic route knowledge to Weymouth) and Eastleigh crews had route knowledge to Weymouth. Having crews at the eastern end of the route able to venture at least as far as Bournemouth might have helped yesterday, although I think it would still have been difficult to organise a robust replacement service quickly.

 

[cygnus44]

Back in BR days many excursions ran from London division of western region to many out of region places including Devon all along the south coast to as far as Kent from London to Reading. It seamed like trains and drivers could go anywhere ,now nothing moves for hours or even days when disruption happens. So now it appears stock can not go off. the route it works and drivers and guards have to remain on routes they learned. Back in BR days I believe an inspector with route knowledge traveled with the train off route feel free to correct me if wrong. So this is how the railway has progressed into the twenty first century. How long before steam returns to the railway

 

[RJ]

According to staff here at Southampton, nothing is being provided.

Seems a struggle to get rail replacement in general these days, especially during the week or at short-notice

100% there are operators with spare vehicles and drivers who could have covered Surbiton to Woking at short notice if it passed their viability tests.

In other parts of the south of England bus operators will pull out all of the stops to dispatch as many vehicles as they can spare to cover emergency rail replacement.

 

[davethebus002@]

That doesn't explain why a Bournemouth to Weymouth service couldn't be sourced yesterday as it could have run with Bournemouth and Weymouth crews there were 3 hour gaps there yesterday I wonder what all the crews booking on at those 2 depots actually did yesterday.

 

[Deepgreen]

I noticed that many news outlets were reporting the derailment yesterday as a "track fault", which is true to an extent but surely the newsworthy element was the derailment?! Track faults are usually things like broken rails and track circuit failures.

 

[nlogax]

100% there are operators with spare vehicles and drivers who could have covered Surbiton to Woking at short notice if it passed their viability tests.

In other parts of the south of England bus operators will pull out all of the stops to dispatch as many vehicles as they can spare to cover emergency rail replacement.

In my previous experience rail replacements between Surbiton and Woking have seemed a bit.. scrappy, including the pre-arranged ones as part of engineering weekends. I'm reminded of one Saturday and turning up at Surbs for a Woking replacement service only to find what appeared to be BA crew buses apparently brought in from Heathrow.

 

[Deepgreen]

100% there are operators with spare vehicles and drivers who could have covered Surbiton to Woking at short notice if it passed their viability tests.

In other parts of the south of England bus operators will pull out all of the stops to dispatch as many vehicles as they can spare to cover emergency rail replacement.

For a plethora of reasons the railway is becoming ever more constrained in what rail services it can provide during disruption - crewing, stock route availability and spare stock availability being the prime ones. If rolling stock technical disparity continues to increase, so will the length and severity of disruptions. The availability of buses is also a big factor in providing any sort of transport function.

 

[43096]

For a plethora of reasons the railway is becoming ever more constrained in what rail services it can provide during disruption - crewing, stock route availability and spare stock availability being the prime ones. If rolling stock technical disparity continues to increase, so will the length and severity of disruptions. The availability of buses is also a big factor in providing any sort of transport function.

Yet we keep being told that there are contingency plans for when there are route closures. I would expect SWR to have such a plan for a key piece of route such as Surbiton to Woking.

Although such contingency plans seem to increasingly be “give up, shut the service down and tell the paying punters not to travel”.

 

[dosxuk]

Back in BR days many excursions ran from London division of western region to many out of region places including Devon all along the south coast to as far as Kent from London to Reading. It seamed like trains and drivers could go anywhere ,now nothing moves for hours or even days when disruption happens. So now it appears stock can not go off. the route it works and drivers and guards have to remain on routes they learned. Back in BR days I believe an inspector with route knowledge traveled with the train off route feel free to correct me if wrong. So this is how the railway has progressed into the twenty first century. How long before steam returns to the railway

You're comparing the ability to get the odd planned train to a random location on the network to changing a entire routes in the immediate aftermath of an incident. Even ignoring all the capacity constraints that exist today, those are two different levels of proposition.

 

[Somewhere]

There was understandably much discussion yesterday about the lack of services between Weymouth and Woking and I wonder whether one complication for those who were trying to plan a service was a route knowledge imbalance between the east and west ends of the route. Whereas both Weymouth and Bournemouth depots sign the route to Waterloo, Woking crews go no further west than Basingstoke and Basingstoke crews no further west than Southampton. Even Northam crews only go to Poole. Starting up a Woking - Bournemouth/Weymouth shuttle would have been nearly impossible from the east end as intermediate crew changes (drivers and guards) would have been necessary. When there is a need to implement an ad-hoc service, a fundamental requirement is to try to keep drivers, guards and stock together, otherwise you risk trains being abandoned at awkward places (such as Southampton) - a situation which can rapidly get out of control.

So a Woking to Bournemouth/Weymouth shuttle would have had to have been resourced largely from Bournemouth and Weymouth depots, and ideally on an out and back basis such that it was clear from the outset not only what driver, guard and stock were doing for the outward leg, but also for the return leg too. This is something that is very difficult to do in real time, and if the WICC was short-staffed yesterday, even harder. I have a lot of sympathy for their predicament!

If I can be allowed one reference to the 'old days', in the 1970s and 1980s Woking crews used to have route knowledge to Bournemouth, Basingstoke crews had route knowledge to Poole (with some having special traffic route knowledge to Weymouth) and Eastleigh crews had route knowledge to Weymouth. Having crews at the eastern end of the route able to venture at least as far as Bournemouth might have helped yesterday, although I think it would still have been difficult to organise a robust replacement service quickly.

If crews had more extensive route knowledge, it would lead to more disruption on a daily basis, as crews would be booked work all over the place to keep the knowledge current. Therefore disruption would constantly spread from one area to another whenever anything happened

 

[quartile]

Many people do travel to intermediate destinations not just Waterloo. It wasn't possible yesterday to even run an hourly Basingstoke-Woking shuttle.
I'm lucky in Farnborough that I have Frimley and the North Downs line as alternatives, responses like this will just push people to buy that extra car for their family.

Whereas both Weymouth and Bournemouth depots sign the route to Waterloo

Would be interesting to see what a duty looks like for some of those depots. Are there duties for Weymouth drivers that are one round trip to Waterloo or is that outside the parameters. If that's the case you would have thought it possible to run a shorter trip to Woking

If the Sunday only Woking to Waterloo via Staines service ran all week that would have provided much needed continuity yesterday.

 

[QueensCurve]

If it's true that it was doing 90mph I am incredibly impressed at how well the outcome has been. Pure luck or is it testament to the design of the Desiros?

There is the precedent of the 2016 derailment in Watford Slow Tunnel. That unit also remained upright.

 

[Big Jumby 74]

Yet we keep being told that there are contingency plans for when there are route closures.

A number of basic contingency plans have been (were) in place for years, such as pulling the Hampton Courts and running a shuttle between there and Surbiton over the Down line (just to mention one very simple example), but as the years passed there was an increasing pressure from on high, to work up 'off the shelf' contingency plans for every possible event - something that is quite frankly impossible - the Controllers did/do a brilliant job on many occasions, and get little thanks for it, and the planners, who, surprisingly had a full time job anyway, had scant time or resources to work up a whole host of contingencies, although both functions did work together as and when needed.
One thing that gets forgotten (off the shelf contingency plan wise), is that as soon as a base timetable changes, then everything else (timings, stock, crews) has to be updated. The planning side is designed for that purpose. If you then have heaven knows how many contingency plans doing the rounds, then they also have to be updated at every TT change. Staff wise, the industry just does not have the people, in numbers or experience to do that. It would require a complete new office structure - lets call it the Contingency Plan Department - to be set up, in addition to the Planners and Controllers, for such an avenue to be taken seriously. Say no more!

Whilst there are some instances yesterday (eg: Basingstoke to Woking) where something could/should have been done, not to mention local connectivity down in Dorset as touched on above, one aspect that has been to the fore over the last decade or two in such circumstances, is the thought that whilst a limited service could be provided from, say Bournemouth to Woking, everyone wanting to travel London bound, will head for those services advertised, and then they get to Woking, and get chucked off. If there is no further forward transport (due to 'the incident') or very limited, may be one train per hour round Chertsey etc, then there is a real risk of mass overcrowding at Woking, with the inherent subsequent risk of disorder and breaches of the peace, so it may be deemed safer all round to issue a 'don't travel order'. Having received an amount of 'extreme' verbal abuse from a passenger who was entirely focussed on himself and his desire to get to London, didn't give a damn about 'my excuses' (when I had just stepped in one occasion to assist colleagues at my local station), I can fully understand this. The date I refer to in this regard was 12-12-88, and I will never forget that 'spat'.

 

[D6130]

The date I refer to in this regard was 12-12-88, and I will never forget that 'spat'.

Hmmm....a lot more disruption on the SWD that day, although I suspect that it was handled rather better than it would have been nowadays.

 

[TrainBoy98]

I noticed that many news outlets were reporting the derailment yesterday as a "track fault", which is true to an extent but surely the newsworthy element was the derailment?! Track faults are usually things like broken rails and track circuit failures.

Station staff Southampton end of the line were simply saying "operational issue" and not much else. Maybe that or "track fault" causes less panic than "derailment"?

 

[quartile]

The other thing they could have done is cancelled trains earlier.
I held off going to Farnborough station when I saw the incident happened - then they advertised a 10:32 train to Waterloo, this wasn't cancelled until well past 10. I and several others turned up to the station to find it had belatedly been cancelled. Some had been there earlier but returned when they saw that they were advertising trains as running.

Likewise this morning short notice cancellation on the 8:18 - following train at 8:32 only 4 car and left behinds.

 

[Deepgreen]

Yet we keep being told that there are contingency plans for when there are route closures. I would expect SWR to have such a plan for a key piece of route such as Surbiton to Woking.

Although such contingency plans seem to increasingly be “give up, shut the service down and tell the paying punters not to travel”.

Indeed, but I have long since stopped believing that either these plans exists or that they are readily implemented. I think the combination of the various route clearance issues for different stocks, crew clearance for those routes and lack of stock availbility in the first place makes such contingency plans harder and harder to implement. It is all too easy to give up and either put a skeletal bus service in (or none at all) and/or just tell people not to travel.

 

[6Gman]

Back in BR days many excursions ran from London division of western region to many out of region places including Devon all along the south coast to as far as Kent from London to Reading. It seamed like trains and drivers could go anywhere ,now nothing moves for hours or even days when disruption happens. So now it appears stock can not go off. the route it works and drivers and guards have to remain on routes they learned. Back in BR days I believe an inspector with route knowledge traveled with the train off route feel free to correct me if wrong. So this is how the railway has progressed into the twenty first century. How long before steam returns to the railway

I do not know what period of BR days you are referring to but it certainly wasn't my experience. Yes, there was broader route knowledge because staff tended to work a wider range of services but excursions to places staff didn't normally go would require crew changes or route conductors, which were much more readily available then than now for various reasons.

Yes, a Traction Inspector could act as a route conductor but so could any driver who signed the route.

Where TIs came into their own was where NO drivers signed a route (yes, it could happen - for example on a line which was out of use but had a weedkiller visit once a year).

And steam is unlikely to return ...

 

[ollie_hunt1660]

So

I shall look forward to travelling this evening from London. I note they haven't put on any kind of bus acceptance with any bus operators.

I also noticed that a train departing Guildford on time at 06:55 , the 06:15 London Waterloo to Portsmouth Habour service had all its stops cancelled between Guildford and Petersfield, except for Haslemere. It got to Haselmare 9 minutes early. I guess they were expecting it to be held up more as it diverted via the Cobham line. It must have got very lucky.

Realtime Trains | 2P09 0615 London Waterloo to Portsmouth Harbour | 04/03/2024

Real-time train running information for 2P09 0615 departure from London Waterloo to Portsmouth Harbour on 04/03/2024. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

Here is a screenshot from National Rail Enquiries app.
View attachment 153616

The first train to depart south from Godalming was at 08:26. That was the 07:34 service.

At least they didn't run this service fast to make up lost time.


Was that due to staff needed being stuck towards London?

interestingly I was on that train from Havant and it was still advertising bdh and hls on the NR app even though it skipped them

 

[ComUtoR]

It seamed like trains and drivers could go anywhere

Often without route knowledge.

and drivers and guards have to remain on routes they learned.

Thankfully, knowing where you are going, what speed the line is, and which route indicator you can take is seen as somewhat of a priority.

Back in BR days

They would have phoned the local to see if anyone was available and generally sober. Someone may have been called in, got paid 12hrs for it.

I believe an inspector with route knowledge traveled with the train off route feel free to correct me if wrong.

Sometimes the Guard or the Secondman would drive.

So this is how the railway has progressed into the twenty first century.

Thankfully

How long before steam returns to the railway

Hopefully never.


BR was not as great as people like to remember. They were notoriously bad with delays, cancellations, and trains had a terrible reputation.

 

[Falcon1200]

Contingency Plans are absolutely marvellous; As long as the disruptive event occurs immediately after the close of service, allowing Control to plan, organise and advertise the amended plan before trains start running! Once the service has started, with trains already en route towards the blockage, and with some probably trapped too, it is a very different matter. And as well as trying to arrange a service of sorts, Controllers will also be busy dealing with the incident itself.

 

[Big Jumby 74]

Contingency Plans are absolutely marvellous; As long as the disruptive event occurs immediately after the close of service, allowing Control to plan, organise and advertise the amended plan before trains start running! Once the service has started, with trains already en route towards the blockage, and with some probably trapped too, it is a very different matter. And as well as trying to arrange a service of sorts, Controllers will also be busy dealing with the incident itself.

I started to write an explanation to that effect a short while ago, but got bogged down with detail (as I often do, with the best of intensions) so, thank you, much appreciated.

 

[ANDREW_D_WEBB]

In my previous experience rail replacements between Surbiton and Woking have seemed a bit.. scrappy, including the pre-arranged ones as part of engineering weekends. I'm reminded of one Saturday and turning up at Surbs for a Woking replacement service only to find what appeared to be BA crew buses apparently brought in from Heathrow.

The 'BA crew buses' are operated under contract by BM Coaches who presumably had some spare at the weekend to use on rail replacement. The last three weekends have seen replacement bus services over this stretch of line which have included an Imperial College Inter Campus Shuttle bus (operated by Commonwealth Coaches) and a Bath Road Industrial Estate shuttle from Slough (operated by Stewarts) as well as Stagecoach buses extolling the joys of Basingstoke. It is simply a case of SWR sourcing from a range of operators who are happy to earn money on vehicles which would otherwise stayed in the yard for the weekend.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Contingency Plans are absolutely marvellous; As long as the disruptive event occurs immediately after the close of service, allowing Control to plan, organise and advertise the amended plan before trains start running! Once the service has started, with trains already en route towards the blockage, and with some probably trapped too, it is a very different matter. And as well as trying to arrange a service of sorts, Controllers will also be busy dealing with the incident itself.

Contingency plans should be pre-prepared thats the point of them and they certainly used to exist for all reasonable scenarios. So yesterdays incident should have had an off the shelf response. They are never likely to delivery anything like the normal service but a target 1tph should be practical on all routes that have at least a timetable 2tph but that never happened between Bournemouth to Weymouth.

 

[DMckduck97]

Back in BR days many excursions ran from London division of western region to many out of region places including Devon all along the south coast to as far as Kent from London to Reading. It seamed like trains and drivers could go anywhere ,now nothing moves for hours or even days when disruption happens. So now it appears stock can not go off. the route it works and drivers and guards have to remain on routes they learned. Back in BR days I believe an inspector with route knowledge traveled with the train off route feel free to correct me if wrong. So this is how the railway has progressed into the twenty first century. How long before steam returns to the railway

Whether you like or not, the current setup around route knowledge is purely for safety and I'd say its proven to make a massive difference.

Back in the old BR days who knows what kind of incidents they were covering up.