Following on from Monday's service meltdown on the Thameslink core route at
City Thameslink station (which was seemingly mended and then promptly broke
again), there is now a signalling problem elsewhere, this time on the
Midland mainline between Cricklewood and Radlett - from FCC JourneyCheck -
and it seems like its going to last right into the evening and night:

http://www.jcheck.com/firstcapitalconnect

---quote---
Owing to signalling problems between Cricklewood and Radlett all lines are
blocked. Train services through these stations may be subject to disruption
on all routes at short notice. Disruption is expected until 23:45 11/11.

Additional Information:
Ticket acceptance is available on LUL, local buses and Croydon Tramlink
across London. London Midland, Euston to Milton Keynes, including Watford to
St Albans Abbey. FCC Great Northern Kings Cross to Peterborough. Southern
any reasonable route.

A plan is being put together for services to run as follows:
City Thameslink to Sutton, London Bridge to Brighton, Bedford to Luton.

Bus replacement as follows,
St Albans to Hatfield, Luton/Luton Airport Parkway to Hitchin, Bedford to St
Neots.

Customers travelling to and from London are advised to travel from Kings
Cross and connect into the replacement buses.

Message Received :11/11/2011 14:29
---/quote---

More info from NRE he
http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service_disruptions/sa34a55203f2481ca1845d3fc436cc1b/details.html

The above states that "Trains between Sevenoaks and Kentish Town are
currently suspended" and "A half hourly service will run between London
Victoria and Sevenoaks via Catford", seemingly to fill in for the former.
(These Sevenoaks services are run by Southeastern south of Blackfriars, so
FCC only half-acknowledges their existence.)

The statement that "No First Capital Connect trains will run between West
Hampstead Thameslink and St Albans" suggests that at least some FCC
Thameslink trains will get as far north as West Hampstead.


The ongoing unreliability of the Thameslink route is the stuff of legend,
which is a great shame as it's such a useful service when it works
properly - the supposed light at the end of the tunnel is the 'new &
improved' Thameslink after the extensive TL Programme upgrade, but one does
wonder whether it'll work as planned if 'they' can't get things right now (I
fear there might be a 'one day over the rainbow' attitude w.r.t. Thameslink,
meaning that there might be a temptation to brush over the failures of today
because of the beckoning promise of the bright new post-TL upgrade
tomorrow - but the new, post-upgraded Thameslink won't just magically work
properly all by itself).

On Nov 11, 2:36*pm, "Mizter T" wrote:

A plan is being put together for services to run as follows:
City Thameslink to Sutton, London Bridge to Brighton, Bedford to Luton.

Bus replacement as follows,
St Albans to Hatfield, Luton/Luton Airport Parkway to Hitchin, Bedford to St
Neots.

Going to be hard to get enough buses to do that! (It's a bit
different if you get a problem like this in the morning, as those with
an option to work from home usually will when faced with that kind of
disruption).

If trains are running Bedford-Luton, might a better answer be to
bustitute (taxi-stitute, more like) Bedford-Bletchley local stations,
get some DMUs down from somewhere (LM got any spare 150s that haven't
cascaded yet?) and run a 4-car shuttle Bedford-Bletchley as frequently
as possible, with stop orders at Bletchley for all LM services that
don't presently stop there?

Neil

On Nov 11, 2:58*pm, Neil Williams wrote:

If trains are running Bedford-Luton, might a better answer be to
bustitute (taxi-stitute, more like) Bedford-Bletchley local stations,
get some DMUs down from somewhere (LM got any spare 150s that haven't
cascaded yet?) and run a 4-car shuttle Bedford-Bletchley as frequently
as possible, with stop orders at Bletchley for all LM services that
don't presently stop there?

Actually, scratch that:-

"East Midlands Trains services can now run between London St Pancras
International and Luton / Bedford"

So they're going to be quite busy, then. Time to hire in some
locomotives and stock to ensure everything is 10-car?

Neil

I was interested in the alternatives:

Passengers may use:

East Coast services between London Kings Cross and Doncaster
CrossCountry trains between Birmingham New Street and Leicester on some
services
Grand Central on all reasonable routes
London Midland on all reasonable routes
London Underground on all reasonable routes
Virgin Trains on all reasonable routes

Perhaps I've missed it before, but having Grand Central accepting EMT
tickets is something I don't recall before.

David

"Mizter T" wrote:
http://www.jcheck.com/firstcapitalconnect

---quote---
Owing to signalling problems between Cricklewood and Radlett all lines are
blocked. Train services through these stations may be subject to
disruption on all routes at short notice. Disruption is expected until
23:45 11/11.
[...]
---/quote---

More info from NRE he
http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service_disruptions/sa34a55203f2481ca1845d3fc436cc1b/details.html

The NRE page said and is still saying "Journeys between London St Pancras
International and Luton may be delayed by up to 90 minutes", whilst the
JourneyCheck message said and still says that "all lines are blocked" -
looking at FCC's Twitter stream, the latter message would appear to be
correct and nothing's moving through the affected area, e.g.:
http://twitter.com/#!/FirstCC/status/135006922691723264

That doesn't stop LDB from promising trains that seemingly can't run, for
example the St Pancras LDB is showing trains to Luton and Bedford...
http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/ldbboard/dep/STP

....whilst the Mill Hill Broadway LDB still suggests services are running to
and from the station (when it actually falls within the portion of the line
that's supposedly blocked)...
http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/ldbboard/dep/MIL

Also, haven't seen this before (but maybe I've just never looked for it) -
on the NRE 'Service alterations' page, under the "Ticket Acceptance /
Alternative travel routes" heading, this is one of the bullet points:

---quote---
* Local Buses between Welwyn Garden City and Luton (Route 366) and Potters
Bar and St Albans (Route 84). Please note, you will need to purchase a
ticket for this journey and request a refund from First Capital Connect
---/quote---

Not so much "ticket acceptance" as 'ticket non-acceptance', though it's
undoubtedly an "alternative travel route" though.

Wonder if this might all be the work of cable thievery? (Though on the busy
MML, in the middle of the day?)

"Neil Williams" wrote:

Actually, scratch that:-

"East Midlands Trains services can now run between London St Pancras
International and Luton / Bedford"

So they're going to be quite busy, then. Time to hire in some
locomotives and stock to ensure everything is 10-car?

That's almost suggestive of it being an OHLE power issue (EMT having diesel
traction of course) rather than a signalling issue - though I'd be wary of
jumping to that conclusion just yet - perhaps they've hashed the signalling
together enough to be able to run a service on the fast lines, who knows?

In message , at 15:17:28 on Fri, 11
Nov 2011, David Thornhill remarked:
I was interested in the alternatives:

Passengers may use:

East Coast services between London Kings Cross and Doncaster

FCC to Peterborough would help as well.

CrossCountry trains between Birmingham New Street and Leicester on some
services

But not Birmingham to Derby/Nottingham it seems. Or
Peterborough-Leicester.

Grand Central on all reasonable routes
London Midland on all reasonable routes
London Underground on all reasonable routes
Virgin Trains on all reasonable routes

And of course on other ex-CT EMT's I presume.

Perhaps I've missed it before, but having Grand Central accepting EMT
tickets is something I don't recall before.

Sheffield via York?
--
Roland Perry

"Mizter T" wrote:
[...]
That's almost suggestive of it being an OHLE power issue (EMT having
diesel traction of course) rather than a signalling issue - though I'd be
wary of jumping to that conclusion just yet - perhaps they've hashed the
signalling together enough to be able to run a service on the fast lines,
who knows?

Network Rail tweets:
"St Pancras: Power restored. Disruption continues, for which we are very
sorry. Service information: http://bit.ly/sT3zWK @EmTrains @FirstCC"
http://twitter.com/#!/networkrail/status/135025991801249793

The nature of the power failure is unspecified.

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 15:17:28 on Fri, 11
Nov 2011, David Thornhill remarked:

Perhaps I've missed it before, but having Grand Central accepting EMT
tickets is something I don't recall before.

Sheffield via York?

Presumably via Doncaster (on Bradford trains), though there may be
passengers with EMT + Connections tickets to stations north of Sheffield who
would be able to use GC beyond Doncaster.

Peter

I've just come though this one.

I got a text from a friend at just after 15:00, I was near Farringdon;
no time to properly check what FCC were saying; the gen I had was
similar to early posts nothing between WHP and StAlbans, and 90 min
delays between StPancras and Luton. I had no bus gen.

I got to Farringdon at 15:18, TL platforms barriered off but no
whiteboards out.

Experience tells me if something is running north of StAlbans by far
the best way is via Watford Junction even with the walk. This avoids
buses (for which queuing time can be substantial) and the subsequent
bus to train scrums wherever buses go to.

I made 15:35 Tring at Euston, which has no direct connect, 16:31 to
Snorbens Abbey, walk to Snorbens City, got there about 17:12, empty
8car 319 in DS platform, as walking down to find out what this was, it
seemed a couple of buses had arrived and announced train as all
stations Bedford. Probably we had 100 or so people on it thats all.
Dep 17:20 got to Luton 17:38.

In the circumstances not bad, could have been much much worse. And I
suspect it is for people still travelling.

I understand it is cable theft around Radlett (speculating: maybe the
junctions are affected ?), and also that other passengers had been
stranded at Snorbens since about 16:00 before the train I was on
departed.


No sign of any buses at Luton.

As those 319s arrived in Luton on DS a 222 on DF indicated Sheffield
arrived on DF - and Luton did a very very good move and held both
trains for each other with copious holding announcements and staff
dealing - there were numeorus passengers swapping both ways between th
2 trains. But I'll add this , the leading FCC person on duty in what
I'd at one time called the supervisors office was a long time exBR
man, one I've seen and spoken to at Luton many times over more than 20
years, he was coordinating the whole show by radio. Well done to him,
but I do wonder had it been one of the off the street fcc ones whether
they'd have worked it out.




--
Nick