Disruption at Manchester Piccadilly

[Andyh82]

Since about 14:45 this afternoon, services have been at a stand at Manchester Piccadilly due to trespassers on the railway

The overhead electricity has been switched off

 

[AMD]

Someone has gained access to the roof above platform 9 and not willingly come down, so the power to the overheads has been cut.

 

[GordonT]

Trains starting to be on the move again from around 1605.

 

[Andyh82]

I was on a service from Wigan which was paused for a while at Patricroft but was then able to proceed by overtaking a 323 by going round the back of Eccles to terminate at Oxford Road as booked

 

[GordonT]

Pax travelling from Preston to/from Blackpool North tend to feel the draught any time there is major disruption in Manchester or Liverpool on top of Northern's "normal" cancellations due to staff shortage.

 

[2T57]

Due to this incident, the 15:00 Temple Meads to Manchester Piccadilly called additionally at Bromsgrove where it was held for around 45 minutes in Platform 1. Some passengers changed at Bromsgrove for West Midlands Trains' services for Birmingham New Street.

 

[CaptainHaddock]

Currently marooned at Buxton. All the departures are showing as "on time" but all the arrivals are showing as "cancelled". What units exactly do Northern expect to form the "on time" departures???

 

[Class 466]

Sat in a queue of trains on the Castlefield corridor- oh, how I love transport up north.

 

[Falcon1200]

What units exactly do Northern expect to form the "on time" departures???

During an incident such as this every single member of on-duty operations staff, both Network Rail and the TOCs affected, will be utterly overwhelmed with barely enough time to blow their noses, never mind non-essential things such as a cup of tea.

 

[Bletchleyite]

During an incident such as this every single member of on-duty operations staff, both Network Rail and the TOCs affected, will be utterly overwhelmed with barely enough time to blow their noses, never mind non-essential things such as a cup of tea.

The question would more be why hasn't someone seen fit to link arrivals and departures of given trains in the CIS so they would automatically cross-populate inbound cancellations to outbound.

 

[Falcon1200]

The question would more be why hasn't someone seen fit to link arrivals and departures of given trains in the CIS so they would automatically cross-populate inbound cancellations to outbound.

Yes, that's how it should be, and is at some stations, but obviously not Buxton!

 

[Andyh82]

Looking at Avanti services, it’s interesting that as soon as this trespass incident started, Manchester services were stopped

One service heading north waited 45 minutes all the way back at Milton Keynes Central, one waited a similar time at Nuneaton

Two services didn’t even leave Euston and were cancelled throughout even though they’d have 2 hours before they’d be arriving in Manchester. As a result southbound services are still being cancelled many hours later.

 

[800001]

Looking at Avanti services, it’s interesting that as soon as this trespass incident started, Manchester services were stopped

One service heading north waited 45 minutes all the way back at Milton Keynes Central, one waited a similar time at Nuneaton

Two services didn’t even leave Euston and were cancelled throughout even though they’d have 2 hours before they’d be arriving in Manchester. As a result southbound services are still being cancelled many hours later.

Power turned off, how long will a situation go on etc?

They will start holding Avanti services in platforms on route, but you cant platform every service other stations became congested and other services would be unable to call.

If it went on for say 2 hours, that’s 6 Avanti on route with no route into Manchester, do they all services to keep departing Euston when they have no idea how long the line will be blocked.

Also, NWR sometimes place a block on services departing origin, it is not always the TOC that go for cancellations straight away.

The services held at Milton Keynes and Nuneaton if they had been allowed to continue north and Manchester remained blocked, what are you doing with those services, where are you then going to hold them etc?

Lots of what ifs etc that Avanti control and NWR have to work with, do they get everything right, of course not, but they do things for what they believe to be the right thing to do at the time.

 

[Andyh82]

I presume turning the power off at Piccadilly actually turns the power off over a much wider area

This Northern service had already left Piccadilly on its way to Hadfield but was stopped for 87 minutes at Guide Bridge. Some diesel Transpennine Express services were blocked in behind, with one terminating at Stalybridge as a result

Realtime Trains | 2G18 1433 Manchester Piccadilly to Hadfield | 07/09/2024

Real-time train running information for 2G18 1433 departure from Manchester Piccadilly to Hadfield on 07/09/2024. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

 

[LMS 4F]

Perhaps the question to be asked is how was this person able to access the roof in the first place? Surely all access points should be securely gated and locked, not least to comply with Health and Safety. I realise a very determined trespasser would be perhaps able to beat any system but most wouldn’t even try when faced with reasonable security.

 

[snookertam]

The question would more be why hasn't someone seen fit to link arrivals and departures of given trains in the CIS so they would automatically cross-populate inbound cancellations to outbound.

See the message you quoted. The staff dealing with it are overwhelmed.

 

[Toby268]

Looking at Avanti services, it’s interesting that as soon as this trespass incident started, Manchester services were stopped

One service heading north waited 45 minutes all the way back at Milton Keynes Central, one waited a similar time at Nuneaton

Two services didn’t even leave Euston and were cancelled throughout even though they’d have 2 hours before they’d be arriving in Manchester. As a result southbound services are still being cancelled many hours later.

Network rail put a block on all departures from Euston quickly into the incident and platformed all Manchester bound services asap. Stopped anything getting stranded in the middle of no where and congestion reaching other parts of the network too.

 

[6Gman]

Got caught up in this (Stockport-Crewe in 30 minutes became via Stoke in 110-ish) but consoled myself that at least I could delay repay.

Then discovered power went back on just after I left Stockport so if I'd waited ...

Ah well, an hour on Stoke station is always a pleasure!

 

[TUC]

See the message you quoted. The staff dealing with it are overwhelmed.

But this should be part of standard operating procedure in such an incident.

Isn't it more to do with, as ever, the railway being rather low grade when it comes to communication?

 

[bluenoxid]

See the message you quoted. The staff dealing with it are overwhelmed.

My impression of the post and what I think is the users background is that a computer programme should do this automatically and not rely on a person.

If a train has not arrived, it isn’t capable of operating a subsequent service out. I assume that much of it is down to the systems in place for operating trains through Buxton.

 

[Sunil_P]

Lucky me, left Piccadilly on the 1435 to Euston, no problems on departure.

 

[Bletchleyite]

See the message you quoted. The staff dealing with it are overwhelmed.

They were overwhelmed when the timetable was entered in the CIS months ago? Linking arrivals and departures should be standard.

 

[zwk500]

They were overwhelmed when the timetable was entered in the CIS months ago? Linking arrivals and departures should be standard.

And then there's a set swap or a step up and somebody has to go in and unlink them all.

 

[Bletchleyite]

And then there's a set swap or a step up and somebody has to go in and unlink them all.

Yep. Less work and better information than not doing it, though.

 

[CaptainHaddock]

My impression of the post and what I think is the users background is that a computer programme should do this automatically and not rely on a person.

If a train has not arrived, it isn’t capable of operating a subsequent service out. I assume that much of it is down to the systems in place for operating trains through Buxton.

Exactly! According to Real Time Trains nothing left Buxton between 1731 and 2114. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to get the 199 bus to Stockport at 1820 but only about 7 or 8 people joined me, meaning there must have been a good 20 to 30 people still waiting at Buxton station for an "on time" train that would never arrive.

 

[Falcon1200]

I presume turning the power off at Piccadilly actually turns the power off over a much wider area

It does; In an incident such as this an emergency switch off must be between neutral sections, until staff have attended, carried out manual switching (unless remote switching is available) and erected earths; Only then can the dead area be reduced. I am not familiar with the overhead line arrangements in Manchester, but in my area, turning off the power for an incident at for example my local station, Neilston, would affect Glasgow Central station and the main line out beyond Cambuslang.

 

[snookertam]

They were overwhelmed when the timetable was entered in the CIS months ago? Linking arrivals and departures should be standard.

No it shouldn’t because it makes far too many assumptions. I don’t think diagram information is typically uploaded into CIS anyway.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

According to Real Time Trains nothing left Buxton between 1731 and 2114.

Why couldn't any trains shuttle between Buxton and, say, Hazel Grove? Or was the issue complicated by displaced train crew?

 

[Bow Fell]

They were overwhelmed when the timetable was entered in the CIS months ago? Linking arrivals and departures should be standard.

No it shouldn’t because it makes far too many assumptions. I don’t think diagram information is typically uploaded into CIS anyway.

The timetable being entered in CIS ages ago has nothing to do with it. I can offer an explanation if you are happy to listen to it, having done the job for 8 years rather than just criticise staff without knowing how the systems work, I completely understand why you have to make out why all staff are lazy and should be replaced by robots. But let me explain first.

Arrivals and Departures are linked in CIS and they are called “associations” most operators have these, however some don’t. Northern have them enabled however not for all services.

Associations only work when there is a delay. That’s a system feature, nothing to do with Controllers input. However controllers can manually add and break associations

Let’s use the example of Buxton like here. Trains at Buxton will generally have a 52 minute turnaround. If there is a delay on the inbound service, CIS will automatically cascade the next workings delay by 3 minutes. So if a train was planning to arrive at Buxton 52 minutes late then automatically CIS would show the next working as departing 3 minutes late.

However, this doesn’t account for Traincrew PNB and this has to be manually inputted if the Traincrew are due PNB at Buxton then this automatic information is wrong. Therefore controllers would need to go into another program Tyrell which feeds Darwin which feeds CIS. Controllers would need to input a reason from a pre-select enter the headcode and apply a manual delay based on the Traincrew PNB. This then displays on CIS.

So that’s associations explained.

At the same time Controllers have to create a route disruption that’s the “Due to trespassers on the railway at Manchester Piccadilly, all lines are blocked” message which feeds the likes of JourneyCheck is disseminated to NRE, front line staff and to the media. For an incident like this clearly a CSL2 the core disruption message has to be updated every 20 minutes. That’s the principles set out by PIDD guidelines.

At the same time with I’d say within that disruption and the amount of trains involved then the Controller would have had to manually input around 50-100 trains into Tyrell cancel them using the pre-selected reason once they are cancelled this is fed to CIS/Darwin and appears on the departure boards. And that’s why yesterday so some services may not have been cancelled because it has to be done manually.

While all this is happening the Controllers phone is ringing non-stop no sooner do you put the phone down it rings again and again and again, so they are trying to get the information out, answer the phone, listen to conversations within the ROC for information to keep the Customer Info updated and cancellations updated.

And guess what like any other part of the railway, Control are under resourced and sometimes it may go unnoticed the job might just tick along but you may be in the chair for 12 hours and be lucky if you get to go for a break or go to the toilet or make a cuppa. We can’t just down tools and go for a break. You take your break if you get one around how the network is performing. Eating at your desk in between answering the phone and doing work it’s all normal. Some days the under-resourcing will go unnoticed but on days like yesterday it gets highlighted.

However, it’s a job I love, I’m passionate about and show a genuine interest. Improving customer info and having got to know the intricate details of each of the systems I’m a massive advocate of it and what we can do better. It’s a very rewarding job but can be a stressful job at times.

I’m sure there will be some clever responses about automation, and like anything else when it comes to the railway and automation we’ll just laugh.

 

[snookertam]

The timetable being entered in CIS ages ago has nothing to do with it. I can offer an explanation if you are happy to listen to it, having done the job for 8 years rather than just criticise staff without knowing how the systems work, I completely understand why you have to make out why all staff are lazy and should be replaced by robots. But let me explain first.

Im assuming you were responding to the post I had quoted as my post was attempting to defend control staff and the conditions they will work in during these incidents.