Delays on the Western

[lmsforever]

On the BBC News page reports of big delays towards the west after Didcot due to a broken signal between there and Swindon .The beeb as usual is not friendly toward NR reports of passengers in tears at Didcot etc but no  replacement buses would have thought some sort of diversion via Berks and Hants with reversals to regain Bristol any ideas why not?

[phil-b259]

National Rail enquires say that the diversionary route is closed for long planned track renewals.

[HillsideDepot]

The B&H was already closed due to engineering work, West Country trains were booked to run via Swindon, Thingley and Bradford Junctions to and from Westbury. 

 

Edit to add:
With Newbury - Westbury closed the planned replacement coach timetable there would more than likely use all the vehicles which might possibly have been available in an emergency had the B&H been open - the operators would be much the same for both lines. 

[Captain Kernow]

Where are the staff for Temporary Block Working, then? Robust contingency arrangements in the event of major engineering works of one route would, in my day, have seen additional rapid response staff deployed (or available at short notice on call) to ensure that the remaining route could be kept open.

 

I suppose it depends on where the failure was and how many points would need to be clipped up, but even so. I wonder whether anyone even attempted to implement TBW?

[caradoc]

National Rail Enquiries shows the problem as between Swindon and Didcot, so assuming from this that neither station was directly affected, Temporary Block Working (TBW) should have been a possibility. However in recent years, in Scotland Route anyway, providing staff for TBW was becoming much more difficult; At one time Permanent Way (PW) staff were used at the exits from TBW sections, therefore requiring only two Operations staff, for the entrances to each section, but very few if any PW staff are now passed out for this. As a result, if we needed TBW on the WCML south of Carstairs for example, we had to find four Operations staff, which meant sending people from Glasgow, with an inevitable time penalty in setting TBW up. 

[Southernman46]

You can't fill vital posts LOM's MOM's etc.. with graduates and still expect them to be practically useful when the railway goes wrong

[PaulRhB]

Where are the staff for Temporary Block Working, then? Robust contingency arrangements in the event of major engineering works of one route would, in my day, have seen additional rapid response staff deployed (or available at short notice on call) to ensure that the remaining route could be kept open.

 

I suppose it depends on where the failure was and how many points would need to be clipped up, but even so. I wonder whether anyone even attempted to implement TBW?

Staff Tim? But the experienced ones keep retiring

I'm one of few Signalmen still with pilotman, handsignalman and point competencies and all the increased safety requirements for regular use makes it very difficult to keep as they can't release us from the box. Certainly busy with all the diverted passengers tonight and most WoE services strengthened with an extra unit going West.

To be fair to the Western trying to find extra staff or buses on a Saturday evening is virtually impossible as most people have had a drink with it being bank holiday if they are off.

[bigP]

--

[SouthernMafia]

This was not a simple signal failure, there was a major technical fault with a signalling systems feed at Bourton. It kept tripping the system intermittently, resulting in numerous and unexpected Change of Aspects to various trains (one driver had two Cat B SPADs) The bidirectional reversible signalling simply could not be used.

 

To be fair to the Western trying to find extra staff or buses on a Saturday evening is virtually impossible as most people have had a drink with it being bank holiday if they are off.

TBW was implemented, but as Paul says it took so long to get everything set up (17 points to clip and scotch between Swindon and Challow) because of a lack of staff, that by the time it was helpful they were using the signals again. All available buses were in use, but because of the sheer volumes of people affected this proved ineffective.

 

 

If everything went wrong on the railway just in the week it would be much easier to manage the disruption.

 

Unfortunately with the B&H shut, HSS West of Didcot was effectively paralysed. Factor in crew displacement and working hours it can cause huge headaches to then recover the service once the line is open again.

[96701]

This was not a simple signal failure, there was a major technical fault with a signalling systems feed at Bourton. It kept tripping the system intermittently, resulting in numerous and unexpected Change of Aspects to various trains (one driver had two Cat B SPADs) The bidirectional reversible signalling simply could not be used.

 

 

TBW was implemented, but as Paul says it took so long to get everything set up (17 points to clip and scotch between Swindon and Challow) because of a lack of staff, that by the time it was helpful they were using the signals again. All available buses were in use, but because of the sheer volumes of people affected this proved ineffective.

 

 

If everything went wrong on the railway just in the week it would be much easier to manage the disruption.

 

Unfortunately with the B&H shut, HSS West of Didcot was effectively paralysed. Factor in crew displacement and working hours it can cause huge headaches to then recover the service once the line is open again.

Excellent explanation. I would like to meet the person who knows how railways work in times of perturbation.

[Gary H]

This was not a simple signal failure, there was a major technical fault with a signalling systems feed at Bourton. It kept tripping the system intermittently, resulting in numerous and unexpected Change of Aspects to various trains (one driver had two Cat B SPADs) The bidirectional reversible signalling simply could not be used.

 

 

TBW was implemented, but as Paul says it took so long to get everything set up (17 points to clip and scotch between Swindon and Challow) because of a lack of staff, that by the time it was helpful they were using the signals again. All available buses were in use, but because of the sheer volumes of people affected this proved ineffective.

 

 

If everything went wrong on the railway just in the week it would be much easier to manage the disruption.

 

Unfortunately with the B&H shut, HSS West of Didcot was effectively paralysed. Factor in crew displacement and working hours it can cause huge headaches to then recover the service once the line is open again.

Indeed it wasn't!

"A broken signal", if only!

For the low down on this failure, here's abit more info-  http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=18245.0

A control card was also brought down from Doncaster apparently!

[Banger Blue]

Excellent explanation. I would like to meet the person who knows how railways work in times of perturbation.

Get yourself over to www.railforums.co.uk

 

Packed full of 'experts' that 'know' exactly how a railway should be run!

[phil-b259]

Indeed it wasn't!

"A broken signal", if only!

For the low down on this failure, here's abit more info-  http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=18245.0

A control card was also brought down from Doncaster apparently!

 

While at Tauntion over the weekend I did wonder what was going on given modern compute based interlocking feature duplicated systems, diverse routing of data links and usually a more thought out approch to allocating assets to minimise the affected area should one fail (e.g. splitting the infrastructure into one interlocking for the 'fast' lines and another for the 'slows'). To lose such a big area is extremely rare and more usually links in with a major power failure (piling through a cable was questioned at one stage).

 

One failure mode I have seen (but cannot remember whether it was the interlocking or the train describer) was when one of the data links was going up and down so fast (i.e. failed - OK - failed - OK) that it actually caused both processors to crash.

 

I have no doubt some serious investigations will take place into this incident with the top brass at NR very much 'on the case' as it were. Not one of the railways finest days for sure - but as with all failures what went on will provide excellent material for future maintainers, designers, planners, etc in all disciplines in making sure it doesn't happen again. 

 

While I'm sure its not news to people on here this incident perhaps goes to show that railways are not the simple things the media and many passengers like to assume and you cannot simply adopt the same practices (treating failed signals as 'Give Way' signs, blindly following roadsigns / satnavs and skimping on rest breaks) to get round problems.

 

Thus while I obviously has much sympathy for passengers caught up in all this, my thoughts also go out to the staff involved, who will have no doubt been faced by emotional and quite possibly abusive passengers, a lack of resources (be it buses, diversionary railway routes, traincrew, response staff (who no doubt wanted to fix the problem but may have been unable to determine the fundamental cause for quite some time).

[Gary H]

Get yourself over to www.railforums.co.uk

 

Packed full of 'experts' that 'know' exactly how a railway should be run!

'LOL', il give that one a miss I think  BB.

[Captain Kernow]

Whilst it is certainly interesting and informative to understand more about what went wrong, and the extent of the area affected, it still boils down to the fact that, with the B&H closed for major renewals, additional staff should have been available to 'gold plate' the one remaining route, especially on a Bank Holiday weekend. When I was working, this sort of thing was very much up my street (although not that particular area), and one other thing I would have insisted on from the maintenance teams was that pre-weekend checks were done on all key items of infrastructure, 'double-checking' if you like, just to minimise the chances of missing something (OK, you can't spot everything in advance, I do understand that).

 

The other thing, as alluded to by Paul above, is the general shortage of qualified staff to implement emergency working like SLW or TBW. The inexorable reduction in staff numbers within NR in recent years, in both operations and maintenance posts, has had its effect and I came to the conclusion quite early on, when still at work, that the grown-ups in Swindon and elsewhere were simply happy to accept the significant disruption that this kind of incident can cause, because in the longer term, they are more concerned about meeting their annual financial budget targets and the reduced staff number targets for the following year, as set them by people even more grown-up than themselves. All in the interests of meeting ones objectives and trying to get a good appraisal score (not that that generally made a blind bit of difference to the percentage pay rise managers within NR got, or their annual bonuses, but one always - and naively - 'lived in hope'). That's one other aspect of NR that I'm now glad to be rid of.

[Captain Kernow]

The inexorable reduction in staff numbers within NR in recent years, in both operations and maintenance posts, has had its effect and I came to the conclusion quite early on, when still at work, that the grown-ups in Swindon and elsewhere were simply happy to accept the significant disruption that this kind of incident can cause, because in the longer term, they are more concerned about meeting their annual financial budget targets

There was a time approx some 15 years ago, which happened to be during Railtrack years (but that didn't have any bearing on this particular case), where operations managers on the Western were most definitely not happy to just accept delays when major incidents happened, and as a consequence, put additional MOM staff in place. I was personally responsible for instituting MOMs at both Plymouth, and later Taunton, where there had previously been none, and these good folk helped keep delays down when incidents happened on their respective patches, as otherwise operations response staff had to come from further afield.

 

Of course, these posts were eventually seen as 'fat' and were trimmed away (ie. abolished) by my successors, but at least it kept the wolf from the door in respect of other, possibly more critical, positions.

[The Stationmaster]

Excellent explanation. I would like to meet the person who knows how railways work in times of perturbation.

 

So would I as it seems to be a lost art!!

 

Having had my weekend well and truly shafted by this failure of almost brand new signalling kit it was interesting to be caught in the midst of it and watch/experience what was done.

It was incidentally explained to me that the problem in terms of signals dropping to red started at Uffington and spread both ways from there but perhaps the GWR person who told me that had either been told that himself or could more esasily recognise thought Uffington asa  location than Bourton - now realise from the GWr Incident Timeline that he was reading off that so it was indeed Uffington when I asked him if he knew what had failed.

 

But that is by-the-by.  Firstly I find it little short of amazing in this day and age that NR appear to have a signalling system on a relatively simple stretch of railway which cannot drop into through routes when there is a failure thus - at worst - leaving a  very localised problem to deal with at technician level - and a tech has to come from Doncaster????  Secondly I was rather surprised to be told by a GWR manager (unless he was wearing the wrong jacket and wasn't really a manager) that this has happened before 'we're used to it but it normally sorts itself very quickly' - interesting statement and I wonder if it was correct?  After all it's a new signalling system with new cable routes and equipment - not 40 years old

 

We then come to the matter of TBW (Temporary Block Working) and if you are looking - as we seem to be - to the section between Challow (incl) and Bourton (incl) or thereabouts there are several disparate locations where clipping up is needed and that will take time; assuming there is someone to do it.  Then you need a few folk (not many) out on the ground for TBW which to be honest on a Saturday afternoon shouldn't be the hardest task for NR with a lot of senior M-F operations staff who could be trained and qualified to do such jobs - all you then do is call them in (part of the job for railway operators of course - nothing novel about that) but taking PaulRhB's point they do need experience and training and not to be from 'just off the street' - at whatever level.

 

But accepting the difficulties of identifying and rectifying the fault itself and getting folk out on the ground there could at least have been an estimate of how long it would take to get TBW in operation (if at all - and I note it was).  That is basic railway operational work and all it needs is task to be identified and people to do it to be identified and then how long it would take to get them in position - that is again an utterly simple task albeit it might be hedged around with - 'it'll be 20 minutes if Fred isn't at football or 35 minutes if we find Charlie had a  drink at lunch time and can't do it' - with a few provisos and caveats an experienced ops manager who knows the job and knows the staff could put an estimate together fairly quickly and accurately (and that should obviously be the On Call Ops person - that's what they're there for - assuming NR actually have On Call ops people?).

 

Incidentally I may be old fashioned by having telecomms folk involved in safety critical signalling circuits doesn't sound quite right to my ears; I presume they're qualified in the relevant Rules & Regs regarding maintenance of signalling equipment?

 

Anyway back to the day of disaster.  basically GWR were left 100% in the dark about any estimated resump even resump with TBW so they couldn't give their passengers any sort of information at all about that and it meant dealing with things from the state they were in - i.e only available simple route westwards shutdown due to a simple signalling fault while the B&H was blocked by a planned bridge job over the whole weekend.  That of course posed big problems for just about everybody and revealed another weak link in the chain - how to advise passengers.  I was in conversation with a helpful GWR chap - taken off Reading barriers to assist and fortunately an ex-Guard of 23 years service but his knowledge was limited thus it was me advising West of England passengers (off the same cancelled train as me) to go to Basingstoke and the via Exeter on the 16.52 from there, it was me advising people going to Bath to go Basingstoke, Salisbury and the same for Bristol and South Wales; it was me advising passengers for Swindon that there might still be a service 'bus from Oxford.  

 

In the meanwhile I'd established I couldn't reach Taunton (via Basingstoke and Exeter until after 21.00 thus totally trashing my arrangements and greatly inconveniencing the friend with whom I'd be stopping overnight so eventually - having been told the 'temporary fix' hadn't fixed anything and there was still no information at all about when the line would reopen I turned round and went home.  By then GWR were getting extra people onto Reading station better equipped to give information but in some cases still ignorant of potential/the best diversionary options.  In the circumstances I think GWR did their best but they do need to think seriously about some staff training on railway geography and alternative routes especially when some of them we easy (but I accept Reading to Gloucester was a very awkward one).

 

But I reserve my greatest disdain and total disrespect for NR for the following reasons -

1. For not having in relatively simple (signalling wise) territory) a system which can drop into through routes when what amount to 'transmission problems' strike - crikey we had there in the late 1960s!

2. For having what amounts to a brand new system which seems to be incapable of 

a. standing up,

b. being straightforward to fix if it does fall over, and

c. requiring technical intervention from the other end of the country when it does break - even to simply analyse the root cause.  TVSC no doubt cost a large sum of money so it should at least be capable of having fault finding and rectification on the doorstep with spare parts to hand for common electronic units - that is basic railway reliability and resilience (and yes, it costs money - but how much did this nonsense cost this past weekend?

3. For seemingly total inability to give train operators, and hence the people who are paying for it all in the shape of passengers,  at least 'generalised' time estimate for a task of known geographical and manning requirements (i.e. clipping up and manning for TBW) required to get something running and give train operators a chance to plan at least something.

 

I will obviously and immediately admit that my views are somewhat coloured by having my weekend plans trashed (balanced of course by the money I saved.  However as a long serving railwayman who ended his career in a senior operations management position I am utterly dismayed to see an industry where we tried our level best to operate as much as we could in the most trying of circumstances and to do our best to keep folk informed about what was happening and what we hoped to do when (I'll admit that was sometimes overlooked, sorry) reduced to the Fred Karno's shambles that I saw and experienced last Saturday.   An oft used expression from the past comes to mind 'couldn't run a Hornby set' 

 

Incidentally I didn't see or hear a single abusive passenger at Reading in the space of almost two hours - certainly many worried and concerened (about journey delays) passengers and definitely all of them seeking information but no abuse, no shouting and no fisticuffs - and lots of patient queueing.

[phil-b259]

Whilst it is certainly interesting and informative to understand more about what went wrong, and the extent of the area affected, it still boils down to the fact that, with the B&H closed for major renewals, additional staff should have been available to 'gold plate' the one remaining route, especially on a Bank Holiday weekend. When I was working, this sort of thing was very much up my street (although not that particular area), and one other thing I would have insisted on from the maintenance teams was that pre-weekend checks were done on all key items of infrastructure, 'double-checking' if you like, just to minimise the chances of missing something (OK, you can't spot everything in advance, I do understand that).

 

The other thing, as alluded to by Paul above, is the general shortage of qualified staff to implement emergency working like SLW or TBW. The inexorable reduction in staff numbers within NR in recent years, in both operations and maintenance posts, has had its effect and I came to the conclusion quite early on, when still at work, that the grown-ups in Swindon and elsewhere were simply happy to accept the significant disruption that this kind of incident can cause, because in the longer term, they are more concerned about meeting their annual financial budget targets and the reduced staff number targets for the following year, as set them by people even more grown-up than themselves. All in the interests of meeting ones objectives and trying to get a good appraisal score (not that that generally made a blind bit of difference to the percentage pay rise managers within NR got, or their annual bonuses, but one always - and naively - 'lived in hope'). That's one other aspect of NR that I'm now glad to be rid of.

 

They cynic in me suggest this might have something to do with NR being reclassified as a 'Public Body' and thus coming within the orbit of the inhabitant of Whitehall, for whom appraisals, targets and performances measures are king when it comes to deciding whether a particular body is 'performing' as required.

 

We tried Privatisation and that didn't work - neither did nationalisation, but having NR as a stand alone 'mutual' type body did seem to sort of work.

[caradoc]

When Virgin Cross Country (as they were then) increased the ECML service north of Newcastle from a couple of trains each way per day to hourly, two new MOM posts were created at Dunbar. Unsurprisingly these posts no longer exist, and if problems occur in that area MOMs now have to come from Edinburgh. Given the pressure that the rail industry, and NR in particular, is under from the ORR (ie Government) to become more efficient (ie reduce costs by reducing staff), it is a natural if unfortunate consequence that such posts, which are invaluable in a crisis but can otherwise seem under-utilised, are eliminated. None of which is any consolation to passengers caught up in the disruption on Saturday.

 

Regarding the signalling, on the WCML in Scotland there is an override facility, which allows certain interlockings to effectively be switched out, with the routes set for Up and Down main lines only. The Signaller has no control over trains in the area, and indeed cannot see where they are between entering and leaving the interlocking area, but trains can still run. I'm not sure whether this kind of facility is still being provided in more recent signalling schemes.

 

Finally, it could be regarded as bad luck that the GW incident occurred on a Saturday, when fewer staff (both Operations and Maintenance) would be on duty, and when the diversionary route via the Berks & Hants was also closed. Again, this is of course no consolation to the passengers.

[HillsideDepot]

Thank you Mike for your long post, with "on the ground" detail.

 

If someone has to travel from Doncaster to Bourton (if indeed that was where the engineer was rather than just the manager who sent him) what hope for a similar failure at, say, the Largin Viaduct single line section when that eventually transfers to TVSC? Sure the number of trains involved will be considerably fewer, but...

 

Good thinking about a 'bus from Oxford to Swindon, they run (amazingly) every 20 minutes from near Oxford station to Swindon - Stagecoach West's service 66. 

[phil-b259]

But I reserve my greatest disdain and total disrespect for NR for the following reasons -

1. For not having in relatively simple (signalling wise) territory) a system which can drop into through routes when what amount to 'transmission problems' strike - crikey we had there in the late 1960s!

2. For having what amounts to a brand new system which seems to be incapable of 

a. standing up,

b. being straightforward to fix if it does fall over, and

c. requiring technical intervention from the other end of the country when it does break - even to simply analyse the root cause.  TVSC no doubt cost a large sum of money so it should at least be capable of having fault finding and rectification on the doorstep with spare parts to hand for common electronic units - that is basic railway reliability and resilience (and yes, it costs money - but how much did this nonsense cost this past weekend?

3. For seemingly total inability to give train operators, and hence the people who are paying for it all in the shape of passengers,  at least 'generalised' time estimate for a task of known geographical and manning requirements (i.e. clipping up and manning for TBW) required to get something running and give train operators a chance to plan at least something.

 

(1) This is far simpler to arrange back in the days when the 'brain' (the interlocking) was made up of individual relays and wasn't concentrated into one big lump, but split up into byte sized chunks along the line with the sections in between worked on an automatic basis. In such a setup standby controls work well - the BML features 'Overdide' controls which can be used to tell the remote relay rooms to default into 'straight line running' or 'limited routes' mode (activating key relays via FDM transmission) when the main TDM transmission system. If all else fails local switch panels can be staffed (assuming signallers are trained up to operate them) bypassing the need for a link to the control centre.

 

To provide an equivalent ' backup' to a SSI /CBI system requires those interlocking to be made much smaller (akin in controlling area to an old fashioned relay room) and placed directly adjacent the bit of line they control. They can then be fed from a hardwired local control panel to be used when transmission fails, plus if used with auto sections, you minimise the issues should both data links to the trackside modules fail. Unfortunately this setup requires much more equipment than centralised control does - so is unatractive to the paymasters and equipment suppliers who keep telling use 'new' = 'better'.

 

(2) These issues are not unique to the railway (they also bedevil the military and quite possibly other industries). Even in our domestic lives, the emphasis is to make things hard for the end user to do - if there is an issue with your car, rather than tell you what it is manufacturers expect you to take it to a dealer so they can plug a box with the manufacturers own diagnostic software on it to confirm whats up. Even then most parts are not designed for the user to easily replace them - by design or fitment removing the ability for the end user to perform a fix.

 

Thats the great things about relay interlockings - yes they suffer from high resistance contacts developing or the wiring going brittle - but these are something the front line techs can solve themselves and will rarely affect the entire interlocking. The modern practice of 'digitising' these on computer cards means that detailed fault finding is rarely possible (change a card being the usual manufacturers solution) and usually affects significantly more equipment. It also brings in the problem of defective card housings and broken multi-way connectors which can cause far more chaos (both if a defect happens and if one needs changing) than good old fashioned individual wiring.

 

(3) They cannot give times because they have swallowed the manufacturers sales pitch and they believe that there is a 'magic fix' that will sort the problem out before all they have managed to scrabble together enough people to go round and clip up everything necessary. Why plan for all these contingencies when it will never happen according to the equipment suppliers the thinking goes? Yes a prudent and long serving manager might distrust such assurances - but that is flying against NRs wider aims - namely to do more with less (replace people by fancy new kit, be more efficient - all the usual Whitehall b******t that now seems endemic within the organisation as it seeks to conform to its masters wishes.

 

 

Finally it makes a refreshing change to hear there did not seem to be any incidents of staff abuse going on at Reading - though that could be because weekend travellers are less of the 'type' susceptible to such things compared to weekly commuters. I'm sure that all stuff were just as frustrated as the passengers and were genuinely upset they could not offer more helpful advice. As you note though the lack of wider 'railway knowledge' in such staff doesn't help, but in an industry that has been fragmented into so many 'silos' and cost centres , with traditional lines of promotion well and truly broken rectifying that is not high up the list of any if them.

[phil-b259]

 

Regarding the signalling, on the WCML in Scotland there is an override facility, which allows certain interlockings to effectively be switched out, with the routes set for Up and Down main lines only. The Signaller has no control over trains in the area, and indeed cannot see where they are between entering and leaving the interlocking area, but trains can still run. I'm not sure whether this kind of facility is still being provided in more recent signalling schemes.

 

 

This is only really possible where you have remote interlockings (made from relays), which can then be told to work in 'auto' mode if the communications link fails.There has never been such functionality built into SSI or CBI schemes - as the presence of two data links trackside (each starting at the opposite end of the area controlled, and feeding all modules within it) plus duplicated transmission lines from the trackside to the section of line were seen as sufficient backup.

[The Stationmaster]

This is only really possible where you have remote interlockings (made from relays), which can then be told to work in 'auto' mode if the communications link fails.There has never been such functionality built into SSI or CBI schemes - as the presence of two data links trackside (each starting at the opposite end of the area controlled, and feeding all modules within it) plus duplicated transmission lines from the trackside to the section of line were seen as sufficient backup.

 

I understand that perfectly Phil (and indeed knew it to be the case before I wrote my comment about through routes because it does show up a significant design weakness in the process of centralising interlockings where all the thought seems to have been about what can be shoved into one central place rather than the very rational alternative of what ought not to be shoved into such places).  To me it seems to create a considerable weakness in the overall system as everything is subject to potential problems at the control centre  (e.g. the Cardiff power failure) but equally various discrete parts cannot stand on their own two feet (or local processors) when data links 'go funny' and a through routes style solution would be quite feasible.

 

Alas, to me at any rate, teh digital railway isn't quite as sophisticated and 'clever' as the analogue one could be in some situations.

[Gary H]

When Virgin Cross Country (as they were then) increased the ECML service north of Newcastle from a couple of trains each way per day to hourly, two new MOM posts were created at Dunbar. Unsurprisingly these posts no longer exist, and if problems occur in that area MOMs now have to come from Edinburgh. Given the pressure that the rail industry, and NR in particular, is under from the ORR (ie Government) to become more efficient (ie reduce costs by reducing staff), it is a natural if unfortunate consequence that such posts, which are invaluable in a crisis but can otherwise seem under-utilised, are eliminated. None of which is any consolation to passengers caught up in the disruption on Saturday.

 

And this ladies and gents is the unfortunate by-product of Whitehall officials getting involved with the running of railways. They probably have about 25 minutes worth of railway experience between them!

The upshot ofcourse that eventually, cutting your resources to the bone will come back and bite you in the backside.

I've said it before, if the railway gets to 'political' (which it undoubtedly has), these are the results we should expect. 

[phil-b259]

I understand that perfectly Phil (and indeed knew it to be the case before I wrote my comment about through routes because it does show up a significant design weakness in the process of centralising interlockings where all the thought seems to have been about what can be shoved into one central place rather than the very rational alternative of what ought not to be shoved into such places).  To me it seems to create a considerable weakness in the overall system as everything is subject to potential problems at the control centre  (e.g. the Cardiff power failure) but equally various discrete parts cannot stand on their own two feet (or local processors) when data links 'go funny' and a through routes style solution would be quite feasible.

 

Alas, to me at any rate, teh digital railway isn't quite as sophisticated and 'clever' as the analogue one could be in some situations.

 

I did expect you would already have considered such matters Mike - but its worth stating such things for others with less insider knowledge

 

As regards your comment on the 'Digital Railway', I agree - and what with 'Uncle Rogers' recent comments about the gulf between what those in power think the 'digital railway' can deliver in the way of cost savings (easily 40%), and what those in the know say it can (at best 20%), its all a bit "emperors new clothes" syndrome