Have I jinxed the railway? Having firstly broken an Overground 172
(see previous post) I later witnessed the signaling balls up of the
year on my way home.

Arrived at London Bridge (low level) to switch to an FCC Thameslink on
the high level at 20:30. I checked the times prior and I should of had
a comfortable 15 minute connection between arriving at LB from my SN
service and the 20:45 FCC service.

As I walked down from the subway to P6 for my FCC service I noticed
two SE trains waiting outside London Bridge for a platform; one was a
Metro (465) service and the other a Mainline (375) service. Strangely,
I began to notice them both moving towards the station in sync and
upon closer inspection the signaler had set the Mainline in to the
booked P6 and the Metro bi-directionally in to P5 which is normally
used exclusively by down (country) FCC Brighton and SE Hastings/
Tunbridge/Ramsgate trains. Common sense? Yes but not in this
instance...

To clear P5 immediately for trains in the opposite direction the
signaler had set the road for the Metro to go ahead of the Mainline in
P6 in towards Charing Cross. Now here comes the balls up... That Metro
was supposed to *terminate* at London Bridge in P3! So, there's now a
Metro in P5 which is supposed to terminate but has mistakenly been
given the road towards CX and a Mainline in P6 genuinely headed for CX
that now has to wait for the signal on P5 to be set back before it can
proceed towards Borough Market Junction and CX. Someone's dropped a
humongous testicle.

The Metro terminator formed the 20:05 back to Dartford but the PIS
screens hadn't updated and still show it as the 19:57 FCC to Brighton!
(see mobile pic below). Lots of passengers running down the stairs in
a hurry believing this SE train to Dartford is in fact an FCC train to
Brighton. Fair play on the dispatch staff who shouted to those who
boarded that it wasn't the right train.

http://i1342.photobucket.com/albums/...ndonbridge.jpg

Now there's a second problem! An announcement from the station states
the signaler cannot cancel the route for the P5 terminator because the
points have now stuck at the London-end of London Bridge, meaning the
Mainline in P6 along with both my FCC train and about 3 other SE
services behind, plus all services the London-end of LB are all now
stuck with a points failure. Talk about a bad day?

The driver of the Dartford terminator was changing ends and I asked
what happened and he informed me the signaler mistakenly thought he
was a CX train and didn't realise he was in fact a terminator supposed
to go in P3. It's possible to reverse in P5 and the driver correctly
assumed it was a mere platform alteration. It was only when the signal
pulled off towards Charing Cross did he realise the signaler had made
a mistake.

Eventually after 15 minutes of nothingness, the points at the London-
end of LB are finally reset and allowing the Mainline in P6, the
following other SE trains and my FCC train, plus all down (country)
traffic to begin flowing again. My booked 19:45 to Bedford didn't
arrive until almost 20:15 and had been sitting outside LB for
approximately 25 minutes.

All that chaos caused by the one mistake of a mere platform change.