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Post by melikepie on Jun 15, 2014 11:43:04 GMT
I know there have been power cuts that have closed stations but anywhere in the history has there been power cuts that have knocked out lines?
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Post by Dstock7080 on Jun 15, 2014 12:11:34 GMT
I know there have been power cuts that have closed stations but anywhere in the history has there been power cuts that have knocked out lines? While Lots Road power station was still feeding much of the Central area of the Underground, i can remember a total blackout, trains and stations on emergency lighting, with regards to the District Line Bow Road-Ealing Bdwy/Putney Bdg/Gunnersbury. Trains were detrained onto track. I seem to remember the shutdown lasted maybe 3 hours and around 1985/6. A recent loss of signal main current caused the loss of signals between Embankment and Turnham Green on the District and between Hammersmith and Acton Town for 50minutes. Trains were able to proceed very slowly under failure conditions with the authorisation of the signal operators. |
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Post by domh245 on Jun 15, 2014 12:19:37 GMT
I remember that fairly recently there was a power surge in the Wimbledon Area on the national grid, and apart from knocking my house out, also took out a large part of the wimbledon and richmond branches, and various bits of the overground and SWT.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2014 12:39:05 GMT
There's this story from the main site: Power Cut. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2014 14:25:51 GMT
In my 32 years as a Controller, I encountered several on shift, some serious (i.e. a long time and wide spread) and some not so (part of a line knocked out). Although they are not that frequent (thank goodness), they do happen - and when you least expect them!
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neilw
now that's what I call a garden railway
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Post by neilw on Jun 15, 2014 15:15:32 GMT
I think the biggest problem was in 1993, with the following summary taken from Underground News
[Thu] 25.11.93 - The biggest power failure and evacuation in LT's
| history occurred yesterday. More than 20,000 commuters had to be
| rescued from stranded trains trapped in tunnels when power failed
| at 07.10 on the eastern sections of the Central, Circle, District,
| Hammersmith & City, Metropolitan and East London Lines; the back-up
| supply failed 20 minutes later. Services were restored to all lines
| except part of the Central, by mid-afternoon, when LT engineers
| traced the failure to a cable fault near Newbury Park station.
| However, as the evening peak was building up, power failed again
| stranding six trains between Leytonstone and Stratford. As a result
| LUL has cancelled services east of Liverpool Street today.
| [Fri] 26.11.93 - The Central Line east of Liverpool Street will
| again be shut this morning because of random electrical short-
| circuiting. Electricians are examining cabling up to 70 years old
| to trace the problem; they spent Tuesday night replacing worn
| equipment on the Hainault loop. The earlier failure which stranded
| 29 trains in tunnels for up to three hours was caused by burn-outs
| elsewhere; two damaged 22,000 volt cables at Mile End and a back-up
| supply have been fixed only for the system to fail again. LUL has
| warned that because of the intermittent failures the problem is
| difficult to trace and part of the Central Line may remain closed
| until Monday.
| [Tue] 30.11.93 - Central Line services should be normal today after
| a "sleuthing" exercise traced the main electrical fault to 56-year-
| old burned cabling at Lots Road power station; random failures
| lasting up to 7 hours accounted for most of the week-long period
| of delays for travellers. Prof. Brian Mellitt, LUL Engineering
| Director, has said that at least 35% of the power cabling should
| have been replaced 15 years ago. LUL estimates that the failures
| cost £2 million in lost revenue, compensation claims, and paying
| for 24-hour engineering work.
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Post by railtechnician on Jun 15, 2014 18:49:59 GMT
In my 32 years as a Controller, I encountered several on shift, some serious (i.e. a long time and wide spread) and some not so (part of a line knocked out). Although they are not that frequent (thank goodness), they do happen - and when you least expect them! I recall one which took out parts of the system one Sunday morning in 1981 just as I was finishing a Saturday night shift at Baker Street at 0800. It took me forever to travel home to North London by buses at the time. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2014 17:45:46 GMT
I remember trying to get back from Alexandra Palace one evening in 2004 +/- 1 and finding Wood Green was closed, so I saw a bus for Camden Town and caught that, seeing stations as we passed closed, finding Camden Town closed and busing to Tottenham Court Road, and then walking to Liverpool Street as all the buses were full. That was caused by a power failure.
JohnW
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Post by superteacher on Jun 16, 2014 21:57:31 GMT
I remember the 1993 power cuts very well. The Central line was really badly affected in what was already a difficult period because the 1992 stock had recently been introduced, and were causing quite a bit of trouble (hmmmm, they still are!).
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roythebus
Pleased to say the restoration of BEA coach MLL738 is as complete as it can be, now restoring MLL721
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Post by roythebus on Jun 17, 2014 9:43:32 GMT
Was it 1993 that the Central shut down? I provided replacement buses for that, running from various places to Chingford to connect with the BR service. We had things like RMC1462, RLH62, some RTs, RF136, all sorts appeared!
My first day on the Underground, 7/7/70, there was some sort of power failure. some of the other blokes in my class were at a complete loss as to what to do when they were going home as they were all then in uniform! I can't remember the details of the failure then; luckily I went home by bus so missed the fun!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2014 15:15:47 GMT
I remember 1993 very well and can remember going to school and the trains were in chaos if memory serves me right the problem was either at Mile End or in Greenwich power station but I can tell you the District was severely disrupted.
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Post by railtechnician on Jun 17, 2014 17:28:27 GMT
I remember 1993 very well and can remember going to school and the trains were in chaos if memory serves me right the problem was either at Mile End or in Greenwich power station but I can tell you the District was severely disrupted. One of the big problems on the Central around that time was the way that the new Westinghouse tunnel telephone system used local power supplies. I was called out on many occasions to investigate 'T/T Operations' at Liverpool Street in the weeks after CLPT staff changed over from the old to new T/T equipment. Minor local power supply failures caused the T/T rack to trip out all four traction sections (i.e. the sections ahead and in rear of the substation) simultaneously. I recall several days on which there were multiple such trips taking out much of the tube portion of the Central. There were as I recall also a substantial number of communication system failures initially which caused a number of operational problems although I cannot now recall the details. As for the T/T system it was simply poor design to use locally fed repeating relays to trip out the traction current but AFAIK the system as originally installed is still in service although local supply issues were AFAIR resolved PDQ within weeks of the problem being identified. |
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