Major landslide between Haddenham and Bicester update thread

[Vanmanyo]

Well, it looks as though Chiltern and Network Rail have done a pretty good job of minimizing delays, and they've managed to open then line slightly earlier than expected, allowing for a full timetable to be deployed today. Hopefully the landslide has been resolved now for a decent length of the future!

 

[BanburyBlue]

After being caught on a delayed Lapworth - Marylebone train on Thursday eve due to this, the return tonight was even worse.

Went from Paddington and changed at Reading and Leamington as Chiltern’s updated journey planner recommended. Connection at Reading almost missed due to a late running GWR train, sprinted like a madman along with a dozen other people and just caught it. Got off at Leamington and waited for the 16:06 Leamington to Moor Street Chiltern local along with many other people. It simply didn’t arrive. No announcement, disappeared from the board. After 15 mins we gave up and walked into the main station to try and find some staff to ask what was going on to be told ‘those trains aren’t running today due to the emergency timetable’. Well why on earth was it not removed from the timetable like the other cancelled chiltern trains then? Why was no announcement made to the visible group of people waiting?

Then a chiltern staff member told me the train was on platform 4 waiting (it was clearly a purple and orange WMR train which was the Nuneaton train), then he told me to get the Bicester - Birmingham train instead (which didn’t stop at Lapworth…). Then he told me I’d need a taxi as there would be no Leamington to Lapworth trains today (at this point I realised that he was a moron who knew nothing so was reluctant to believe this statement either).

After he went into the office to ‘order me my taxi’, his voice boomed over the announcement that the next train would now make additional stops at Lapworth and Hatton. The 25 or so school children who travelled from Warwick to Lapworth were I’m sure equally as glad about my intervention.

But this begs the question; if Chiltern had indeed cancelled all of the Leamington - Birmingham locals and thus devoided Hatton and Lapworth of service; why weren’t those trains taken out of the timetable and the additional stops on the Bicester trains put in at last night for the duration of today? Why did it take me to point this out to staff at 16:15 for someone to realise that this needed doing?

I appreciate that unforeseen line blockages are a headache and will cause disruption, but someone at Chiltern seems to have completely dropped the ball on this one not realising this, and the fact that their own station staff don’t appear to know the calling patterns nor even the colour of their own trains is pretty shocking.

I think Chiltern comms on this were really bad. I was travelling from Banbury to Birmingham last Thursday and Friday, and couldn't work out what was going in at all. I was lucky, in that normally I check Chiltern's website mid-afternoon as I've been caught out before with line problems, so stopped work and hot-footed to Moor Street, and managed to catch a train back to Banbury. But all Thursday evening was trying to work out what the Chiltern emergency timetable was going to be on the Friday. In the end I gave up, and bought a more expensive ticket and went via New Street instead. When I booked my Friday ticket, at about 22.00 on Thursday, NRE was showing ALL Chiltern trains as cancelled.

 

[dooton]

I think Chiltern comms on this were really bad. I was travelling from Banbury to Birmingham last Thursday and Friday, and couldn't work out what was going in at all. I was lucky, in that normally I check Chiltern's website mid-afternoon as I've been caught out before with line problems, so stopped work and hot-footed to Moor Street, and managed to catch a train back to Banbury. But all Thursday evening was trying to work out what the Chiltern emergency timetable was going to be on the Friday. In the end I gave up, and bought a more expensive ticket and went via New Street instead. When I booked my Friday ticket, at about 22.00 on Thursday, NRE was showing ALL Chiltern trains as cancelled.

Appreciating that none of this is the passengers issue, but the problem is the railway is not geared for these kinds of very short term changes. On thursday night a timetable had to be written with drivers and train managers allocated. This then had to be manually added to the systems NR use, however not all information sources picked up the changes (i.e trainline). Same had to happen Friday and Saturday nights.

Usually Train planners have weeks and months to build a Timeable, this was essentially been handled by control with staff working overnight to ensure a service could run.

This is an issue across the industry to processes and systems are not designed for these super short notice changes.

 

[centraluser]

More photos from CML Network Rail here: https://x.com/NetworkRailCML/status/1746637005457334681?s=20

Complete mess this morning as the emergency timetable wasn't uploaded properly to online planners which were showing original data. Also CIS screens at stations showing normal timetabled trains which obviously didn't turn up.

The vast majority of cancelled trains for Monday were deleted from the public facing industry system (Darwin) on Sunday. Unfortunately there appears to have been a technical problem which meant that the deleted trains were not syncronised properly with the screens at stations. Net result, online systems seemed to have been broadly correct yesterday (not 100%), while screens at stations had the correct emergency TT trains and buses and also the usual timetabled trains overlaid on top, which then had to be individually cancelled / removed manually. This caused mass confusion for everyone and was really quite a rubbish situation for everyone at stations.

 

[Vanmanyo]

however not all information sources picked up the changes (i.e trainline).

Another reason not to use trainline..

 

[Bletchleyite]

Another reason not to use trainline..

Which is used by several TOC apps. So avoiding Trainline isn't necessarily avoiding Trainline.

I half recall Chiltern is one such app.

 

[Dan G]

Well, it looks as though Chiltern and Network Rail have done a pretty good job of minimizing delays, and they've managed to open then line slightly earlier than expected, allowing for a full timetable to be deployed today. Hopefully the landslide has been resolved now for a decent length of the future!

Very impressive job by NR and their contractors. Looking at the earlier photos I thought they were going to overrun!

 

[BanburyBlue]

Appreciating that none of this is the passengers issue, but the problem is the railway is not geared for these kinds of very short term changes. On thursday night a timetable had to be written with drivers and train managers allocated. This then had to be manually added to the systems NR use, however not all information sources picked up the changes (i.e trainline). Same had to happen Friday and Saturday nights.

Usually Train planners have weeks and months to build a Timeable, this was essentially been handled by control with staff working overnight to ensure a service could run.

This is an issue across the industry to processes and systems are not designed for these super short notice changes.

Totally understand, and shudder to think what was going on behind the scenes, but as a customer facing organisation, surely keeping customers informed is an important part of all this?

I also would have thought that organisations like railway companies, would have Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery plans in place, to guide what should happen in these scenarios?

 

[BlueLeanie]

Just reading through this, wondering why it wasn't possible for Chiltern to run an Up service with a reversal at Oxford when one line remained open between Bicester and Banbury on the Chiltern line that could be used for the down?

 

[The Planner]

Just reading through this, wondering why it wasn't possible for Chiltern to run an Up service with a reversal at Oxford when one line remained open between Bicester and Banbury on the Chiltern line that could be used for the down?

If the Landslide was between Bicester and Haddenham, how would that have helped?

 

[12LDA28C]

Yes but that is implemented with a full train plan by a planning department with a timetable file sent to Network Rail. Over a weekend there may not have planners to arrange this (normally Monday - Friday workers) which means it’s likely controllers had to do this and then work through the original timetable manually whilst also adding new trains. This can only be done reliably from the early morning of the relevant day.

It is then possible with a clear list to sort everything for the rest of the day, if the team hasn’t been overwhelmed with continuously trying to firefight the current days issues. Over the weekend is always more difficult due to resource availability.

Indeed. Chiltern only have a small planning department and unsurprisingly they're not on call 24/7 just in case a major infrastructure failure requires a completely new train plan to be produced in a matter of hours and then changed again at zero notice dependent on Network Rail's appraisal of the situation and associated blocks / full closure of the line as required.

Just reading through this, wondering why it wasn't possible for Chiltern to run an Up service with a reversal at Oxford when one line remained open between Bicester and Banbury on the Chiltern line that could be used for the down?

What do you mean? The only way an Up service would reverse at Oxford is if it travelled from Banbury via Heyford to Oxford. Whilst that would have provided an alternative route between Birmingham and London, only Banbury drivers sign via Heyford so it may well have proved rather difficult to resource.

 

[Vanmanyo]

Just reading through this, wondering why it wasn't possible for Chiltern to run an Up service with a reversal at Oxford when one line remained open between Bicester and Banbury on the Chiltern line that could be used for the down?

The landslide happened after the Bicester junction so that would be useless! Although yes they are trained on that section so would be useful if a landslide happens between Banbury and Bicester

 

[12LDA28C]

The landslide happened after the Bicester junction so that would be useless! Although yes they are trained on that section so would be useful if a landslide happens between Banbury and Bicester

As explained above, less than a fifth of all Chiltern drivers sign Banbury - Oxford via Heyford.