WCML disruption near MKC 8/8

[Lrd]

Our guard/train manager on the 07:30 Birmingham - Euston today made a big thing of apologising for arriving 7 minutes late at Euston due to the disruption today, not something that I thought was entirely necessary as our arrival time was little different to what it is about 50% of the time!

Other than a slowing of pace where we diverted onto the slow lines between Wolverton and Bletchley, there was little hint of the service being affected at all

I was on a service from Brum - Euston today and we got held up in the Wolverton area, didn't switch to the fast lines though until after Leighton Buzzard. We lost about 10 minutes and the guard didn't apologize to us.

 

[ushawk]

4 of the Virgin Olympic extras have been cancelled tonight as well, with the 0200 Euston - Manchester making additional stops. All London Midlands will terminate at MKC as well.

I would assume then that a full block is being taken to repair the lines.

 

[Phil6219]

How has the freight fared through this?

I'm only asking since I'm hoping to go to Acton Bridge tomorrow and would rather not spend 16 hours on my own with no freight action...

Phil

 

[dvboy]

Can someone explain to me the complete procedure for alternative routes when this happens on the southern WCML? The time a suicide at Harrow blocked everything out of Euston in April 2010 I was sent home via Bedford and Bletchley, which makes sense to me. People for Watford were being sent up the Met, Rugby and beyond via Chiltern to Leamington or FGW to Reading and XC from there to Cov and beyond. All makes sense, as does Nuneaton via Leicester and Manchester via Sheffield. All good.

But what do they do for other stations? People for Hemel were being sent to Chesham... Aylesbury for Tring and Cheddington... Wellingborough for Northampton. They can't lay on buses for all of those - so what is the standard procedure? Have I correctly described it above?

Wellingborough for buses to Northampton is the usual suggestion from LM whenever something happens between there and Euston.
Perhaps there are regular local buses they can advise use of - they do this whenever there are problems on the Cross City line as they seem to have a good relationship with NX West Midlands.

Advice for anywhere else north of Rugby will be pretty much as per VT's advice: http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/passenger_services/maps/divroutes/VT_From_Euston.pdf

 

[oversteer]

And tonight.. Points failure near Wembley, LM service stuck

Looks like all up fast services are switching over to the slow

Just saw the pretendolino heading through the primrose hill slow tunnel...

 

[eMeS]

Do we know what the original problem was? Metal thieves making off with catenary weights? (Yes, I know the weights aren't made of lead, bronze, gold(!) etc.)

 

[Pumbaa]

And tonight.. Points failure near Wembley, LM service stuck

Looks like all up fast services are switching over to the slow

Just saw the pretendolino heading through the primrose hill slow tunnel...

Ah thats what it is. Spent 1hr30 standing in a bin on a 377 coming back from Clapham. Looked fairly chaotic everywhere.

 

[tsr]

Ah thats what it is. Spent 1hr30 standing in a bin on a 377 coming back from Clapham. Looked fairly chaotic everywhere.

Oh dear. Fortunately, I was using Virgin rather than Southern on the stretch between MKC and Central London today, and just missed the start of the disruption by a few minutes.

There was also a bit of an issue with the signalling north of Nuneaton affecting services coming into MKC and EUS. My train (1235 ex Chester) was at caution for a good few minutes. The TM was deeply apologetic, and made up for it by making amusing remarks about the "safe 125mph speed at which we shall overtake the cars on the M1 to your left".

(I suppose you could say you were lucky you weren't on the 377 that formed the delayed 1532 off VIC, as that suffered a broken windscreen somewhere, but that is incredibly off topic.)

 

[Whistler40145]

I don't know much about the workings of OHLE, but is it possible to isolate the power on the damaged line & provide power to the other lines or is the power switched off on all lines?

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Yes - initial power turn off is neutral section to next one , authorized staff can then pull section switches to break down the isolated sections , using earthing equipment etc. Very complicated and tricky , so adjacent lines can remain live and open.

 

[Whistler40145]

I presume that's what happens with OHLE isolations during Engineering Works so the required lines are energised.

 

[ole man]

They are called isolations and can be very complicated, cutting back and extending them are called superseeding isolations are are complex to nominated persons.
Try superseeding at paddington 3 times in a 7 hour possession