EC Yesterday

When things go wrong on the EC they get compounded, never improved

 

it's never East coast's fault. It's always Network rail. Or if they can't blame Network Rail, it's the fault of steam trains. Or Hedgehogs.

 

The sat am trains will have been busy due to people wanting to get through before engineering works, Peterbro v Leeds was also an early kick off and there was a big meet at Doncaster races. The internal emails said the replacement train came from Heaton depot. I know the southbound (0725?) from Aberdeen also failed at Doncaster, no idea if this was supposed to be the 15.22 off Peterbro.

 

two trains failing in one day, i guess this is what happens when you bring out a new timetable that requires you to work your stock way harder than it was ever intended....

 

Make that three as the 6:00 Newcastle to KX failed at Durham.

Some of the diagrams I have seen for the HST'S give them a long day. For example, Leeds to Aberdeen then Aberdeen to KX then KX back to Leeds! I am sure the Mallards are worked as hard, just don't seem to be able to come across there diagrams at all.

 

In the curent Railways Illustrated there's an article on just this subject, EC HST maintenance. Titled "The best train ever", which was perhaps tempting fate. Anyway, yes, some of the diagrams are pretty ambitious; Aberdeen- KX, then a round trip to Leeds, and then one more trip to Leeds, for instance. However do they find the time to clean the toilets?

 

Sure they used to do that before the timetable changes were brought in, so not much more has changed. However the increasing frequency of use of HSTs might be to blame for the failures.

 

I think the 15:22 from PBO was the HST from Aberdeen that terminated at Doncaster & all passengers transferred to the 225 I was on from Leeds which after being diesel dragged from Newark via Lincoln arrived in PBO around 16:10 (departure at 16:26 after the 67 was detached)

This 225 set was the late running 10:03 from Kings Cross - it arrived in Leeds at 12:55 & left promply again at 13:05 ! Crew & catering supplies were waiting on the platfrom & new reservations were already in place when I boarded as soon as the people arriving had got off.

There were a couple of cleaners cleaning the toilets as soon as the train arrived in Leeds - definitely the ones in 1st class anyway - I don't know about the rest of the train but they were moving quite quickly through the carriages.

 

I was on the 1658 from Newcastle to Kings Cross yesterday which was a 225 set. It had no reservations on but plenty of empty seats. The guard said that the original train broke down on the way to Edinburgh in the morning and the replacement train arrived too late to put them on before heading back south again. This must have been the train that started its journey at Peterborough.

 

That HST diagram is pretty much unchanged since electrification
There were much more intense diagrams, some were near to 1500 miles per day (five Edinburgh - Kings Cross trips)
The Mallards can now typically approach this, the mileage actually reduced due to their extension to Glasgow Central (which has almost all but ended)

 

FYI the 0725 from Aberdeen was terminated at Doncaster after a bird flew into and damaged the leading cab windscreen shortly after departing Edinburgh. The set was turned at Newcastle, however the set would not have been able to return north from London. There was no mechanical issue with that train.

A failure also covers a variety of things that could go wrong, alarms continually sounding in the cab that can't be cancelled, broken windscreens, plastic bags wrapped around the pantograph, horns stuck on etc. Out of all the services I've seen classed as a failure most of them are not issues which would prevent the train physically moving/stopping but it would prevent it from doing so safely. These issues don't really arise from sets being overworked they're just general issues which can and will crop up.

 

Was travelling on East Coast on Saturday to P’Boro and back from Leeds.

Obivously I’d gone down for the Leeds United away game down there, journey down was a not a problem. After the game got back to P’Boro station to find out that the 15.08 back to Leeds was cancelled. None of the East Coast staff knew anything about it! They had no reason at all for the cancellation and the customer service booth was closed!

We collared one East Coast woman who didn’t have a clue what was happening but suddenly shouted “That train over there is going to Leeds, RUN IT LEAVES ANY MINUTE!!!!” It wasn’t very professional but her shouting actually made us get a move on, running over the footbridge and boarding the 14.11 which had been delayed 20 minutes due to a train fault. If the train hadn’t broken down we wouldn’t have made it! An amazing stroke of luck.

There was engineering works going on somewhere between Grantham and Newark so we had a diversion via Lincoln but because of the nature of the diversion line the train was almost constantly having to stop at signals, it was so frustrating. To make matters worse, the buffet bar ran out of beer and cakes. We finally got back to Leeds at 17.50, a journey of over three hours!!

But given Leeds had won we were all in good spirits and piled into Wetherspoons at Leeds station. A strange but good day.

 

All rather poor excuses, but:

...far more serious!