Power cut

[ess1uk]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-68400084

 

was there no UPS?

 

[Wheatley]

Depends how widespread the UKPN failure was. The signalling power supplies (as opposed to the control circuits) don't run down the side of the track from Three Bridges to the whole of Sussex. 

 

This discussion (https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/three-bridges-victoria-automatic-route-setting.261426/) a lot of which I freely admit is just alphabet spaghetti to me, would suggest that a reliable power supply is the least of its issues. 

[phil-b259]

14 hours ago, ess1uk said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-68400084

 

was there no UPS?

 

 

TOTALLY INACCURATE REPORTING!

 

The REAL reasons the Brighton main line was screwed on Monday was down to two point failures!

 

One* outside Preston Park prevented all up movements until they had been clipped up - and even then the signaller had to caution past signals till around 14:00.

 

The other one* was at Copyhold junction and until around 11:00 only 2 of the 4 platforms were available at Haywards Heath - and due to the track layout at the south end of Haywards Heath simultaneous departures and arrivals at the south end was impossible.

 

The power cut which the media have latched on to (and Network Rail are reluctant to challenge because it wasn’t their fault in contrast to the REALLY disruptive points problems) occurred at 04:00 and lasted less than 10 seconds! It was admittedly a pretty big outage though as it was a National grid problem and affected a huge chunks of Surrey / Sussex.

 

In terms of effects on the railway - all it did was drop out lots of the communication systems south of Purley which transmit information between Three Bridges ASC (note NOT Three Bridges ROC which doesn’t control any of the Brighton line south of Anerley / Thornton Heath) and the remote interlockings. Some were bought back by the techs at Three Bridges going downstairs and reasserting them but there were a few places like Redhill which required the techs to attend the relay room and reset the field end equipment.

 

Had the power outage been the only issue then the Brighton line would have been back to normal well before the service started ramping up for the morning peak.

 

*Preston Park was traced to a defective / rodent damaged cable that required point detection circuits to be diverted but as there wasn’t any good spares in the cable or another cable running between the same location cases which could easily be jumpered into so it took some time to fix.

 

* Haywards Heath / Copyhold was due to points which had been damaged in weekend engineering work but the issue wasn’t discovered until the possession was being given back and as the points are of a new design spare parts were not readily at hand and took some time to source.

Edited February 28 by phil-b259

[John M Upton]

...and then in the late afternoon, just as it was all getting back to normal, the points at West Worthing were run through and badly damaged which saw the Coastway West pretty much grind to a halt at the height of the evening peak and the rest of the night was a bit of a mess as a result.  Got stranded in Littlehampton for the thick end of four hours!!!

Edited February 28 by John M Upton

[KingEdwardII]

15 hours ago, John M Upton said:

points at West Worthing were run through and badly damaged

Just goes to show that running through incorrectly set points is not just a model railway problem! Yet we have folk here hoping to carry on as normal with their layouts when it occurs. They should be thinking in terms of half a day outage and the need for an engineering team to attend :-0

 

Yours, Mike.

[phil-b259]

Should just add that the points at Worthing were run through because of a track circuit failure holding signals at red and thus requiring the points to be individual set to the correct position by the signaller* and without the usual safeguard the interlocking provides when signals are what give permission for drivers to make movements.

 

 

* (they unfortunately made a mistake when setting them).

Edited March 1 by phil-b259

[John M Upton]

3 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

Should just add that the points at Worthing were run through because of a track circuit failure holding signals at red and thus requiring them to be set correctly by the signaller (they  made a mistake) and missing the layer of protection against such things afforded by the interlocking.

...or to use the correct railway terminology, there was an all mighty cock up.

[The Stationmaster]

On 29/02/2024 at 12:39, KingEdwardII said:

Just goes to show that running through incorrectly set points is not just a model railway problem! Yet we have folk here hoping to carry on as normal with their layouts when it occurs. They should be thinking in terms of half a day outage and the need for an engineering team to attend :-0

 

Yours, Mike.

Depends on the era in which the layout is set.  With mechanical points and local Perway and S&T presence plus people available to handsignal etc delays would have been much reduced unless there was some really serious damage.   Back in 1978 when I was working in theWest Country we had a point run through by an empty HST set during a major blizzard (Think depth of snow measured in feet - where it hadn't drifted, up to 16 ft deep where it had drifted).  The train pushed the points over and fortunately the lever was standing partly reversed and there was no damage visible when the snow finally melted several days later.

 

Other times you could hit major problems  but usually fixed within a few hours even when components needed replacing.  A lot also depended on the condition of the rodding run and I have seen a point run through with no visible damage to it  but very obvious lifting of the rodding run as the force was lost through the rodding run.   Very different story with motor worked points where damage is inevitable and often difficult to quickly repair..

[ess1uk]

another one yesterday in West Sussex

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cydryqelqdjo

Edited April 12 by ess1uk
added link

[phil-b259]

6 hours ago, ess1uk said:

another one yesterday in West Sussex

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cydryqelqdjo

Yup - but again not is all as it seems.

 

(1) The problem was with national grid feeders / equipment and not railway supplies

 

(2) The repeated outages affected the Domestic supply to Arundel signal box (which controls not just Arundel but also the coastway route between Angmering and Ford)

 

What caused most of the disruption was the Telephone concentrator failing (it has a battery back up but the prolonged outage drained it) with the signaller having to talk past 20 signals as all the level crossing phones were not working. There was also an issue where  emergency lighting also started failing as its battery back ups went flat making it unsafe for the signaller to remain inside and forcing the closure of the box.

 

There were also issues with power supplies at Petersfield and Havant…..

Edited April 12 by phil-b259

[ess1uk]

Time for solar to trickle charge the UPS batteries?

might not work for every piece of equipment though

Edited April 13 by ess1uk