Reasons for cancellations and delays

[Abpj17]

Being a Thameslink commuter, I'm used to the standard reasons for issues:

• congestion
• passenger action
• passenger being taken ill
• driver shortage
• train fault (including on an earlier service)/broken down train (sometimes involving doors)
• icy/dangerous track conditions

A less common one came through this morning I thought worth sharing:

• More trains than usual needing repairs at the same time

 

[GrimsbyPacer]

Congestion is interesting, Trans Pennine, East Midlands & Northern just leave people behind rather than cancel trains in my experience.

Driver Shortage is the biggest problem I've seen recently.
But I recall several freight train derailments, 'major' engineering works, landslides, flooding, swing bridge broken, all more than once causing week plus disruption.

 

[tsr]

Congestion is interesting, Trans Pennine, East Midlands & Northern just leave people behind rather than cancel trains in my experience.

"Congestion" in this case refers to trains being cancelled due to knock-on delays from other late-running services.

Thameslink routes would very rarely have cancelled trains due to high passenger numbers, though they have obviously been delayed by this on many an occasion.

 

[Abpj17]

Yeah - congestion in Thameslink is normally delays (5 - 15 minutes is pretty common in rush hour) and changes to calling patterns rather than out right cancellations. Doors still get closed on busy platforms - they just take longer to load and unload passengers.

 

[40129]

Think the classic one on LT used to be "Delays are occurring on the Circle line due to late running and extended intervals," always found that very helpful - not!

 

[backontrack]

The 18:00 train from Charing X to Plumstead yesterday was cancelled due to 'a member of staff being unavailable'.

 

[robbeech]

Northern Rail is a bit of a comedy show at the moment (if not most of the time) with their cancellations and amendments.
The usual suspects are Train Failure or as mentioned above "Waiting for a member of train crew". This is leading to more and more issues with cancellations and starting and terminating short.

Rob

 

[Gareth Marston]

Conductor refused to let the 1624 ATW from New St to Shrewsbury yesterday go forward due to overcrowding system recorded it as"unusually large flow of passengers" reality was it was 2 car instead of 4 so short formation.

Conductor told anyone who would listen it was because all the stock was in Cardiff for the Rugby he pulled the plug and waited till he had BtP back up before announcing it was cancelled.

The franchise agreement sees ATW only run the Sunday trains from Shropshire into West Midlands so Shrewsbury sidings were full of spare LM 170's and Cambrian mainline was closed for engineering work with units stuck at Machynlleth.

 

[Antman]

The 18:00 train from Charing X to Plumstead yesterday was cancelled due to 'a member of staff being unavailable'.

I wish I had a pound for every time I've heard that on southeastern

 

[DelayRepay]

Being a Thameslink commuter, I'm used to the standard reasons for issues:
[

A less common one came through this morning I thought worth sharing:

• More trains than usual needing repairs at the same time

It's not been a good day for them has it? Driver shortages, broken down trains, signal faults....

I suggest they add this to their list of reasons:

• The Gods do not like us at the moment

 

[northernchris]

Northern Rail is a bit of a comedy show at the moment (if not most of the time) with their cancellations and amendments.
The usual suspects are Train Failure or as mentioned above "Waiting for a member of train crew". This is leading to more and more issues with cancellations and starting and terminating short.

Rob

That's funny cos I don't think Northern do this enough. Some of their diagrams are quite tight, and with the exception of the 1651 Leeds-Manchester Victoria which frequently gets turned around at Rochdale (it only has 3 minutes before leaving Victoria to head back to Leeds) delays quite often snowball which then impacts on other routes as crew and units become displaced. There's another particular diagram at Leeds where the driver arrives from one service and departs on another 11 minutes later - the second service is prone to delays which also then delays the return working

 

[6Gman]

A XC service was once delayed at Leamington by a cat escaping from its basket and injuring a member of the train staff.

Beat that!

 

[PHILIPE]

Conductor refused to let the 1624 ATW from New St to Shrewsbury yesterday go forward due to overcrowding system recorded it as"unusually large flow of passengers" reality was it was 2 car instead of 4 so short formation.

Conductor told anyone who would listen it was because all the stock was in Cardiff for the Rugby he pulled the plug and waited till he had BtP back up before announcing it was cancelled.

The franchise agreement sees ATW only run the Sunday trains from Shropshire into West Midlands so Shrewsbury sidings were full of spare LM 170's and Cambrian mainline was closed for engineering work with units stuck at Machynlleth.

Told to catch the next one at 17 24 which was 4 cars. The 1624 should have been 4 cars but the other 2 wouldn't attach at Chester due some technical problem on the 13 31 departure so had to leave them behind.

 

[Gareth Marston]

Told to catch the next one at 17 24 which was 4 cars. The 1624 should have been 4 cars but the other 2 wouldn't attach at Chester due some technical problem on the 13 31 departure so had to leave them behind.

There's only 3 trains in Sunday evening peak from New St to Shrewsbury compared to 7 on a weekday, albeit theirs some trains from Wolves as well. By the time scouse had waited on his BTP minders before providing any information (1650 ish) there was no chance of getting to Wolves and changing in time we didn't even bother reckoning everybody else would try for the 1724. Had something to eat upstairs in Grand Central. We decided to get forward to Wolves and pick up 1824 ex New St there- got down on Platforms 4/5 at about 1755, vestibules full of standers on XC to Manchester Piccadily and LM to Liverpool Lime St. Got the local LM stopper off 4c that left with standers at 1808.

 

[theironroad]

Trespass, someone drugged or drunk walking off end of a platform
Trespass, people thinking its OK to walk alongside the track inside the railway boundary fence
People falling between platform and train
People lying down in front of train
People jumping in front of a moving train
People trying to cross between platforms in dc land and tripping on the juice rail
Passengers fighting on train
Passengers assaulting staff
Cattle,sheep,swans dogs,horses etc on the line

Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera as prof higgins may say....

 

[stu227]

This was nice from TfLRail last week:

"8:10 Liverpool Street to Shenfield due 08:53 will only stop at Ilford between Stratford & Romford due to planning issues"