Meltdown Yesterday - 7 December

Over the last few days I’ve heard of this happening on Eurostar and NR, and I saw a dead train on the approach to Victoria (NR) today.

I haven’t yet heard of happening on LU.

The initial cause of the issues yesterday was a Great Western IET (802111) coming into contact with downed OLE wire "near Ladbroke Grove" (I don't know the location more precisely than that). This wire remained in contact with the train (one report apparently said "in four places", I don't know the source or its reliability) which obviously necessitated a full power isolation. I do not know why evacuation took so long, but both GWR and Elizabeth line drivers (I don't know about other staff) who were members of ASLEF were taking strike action yesterday and the GWR driver (at least) was a manager. I have been told by someone who has access to at least some internal information that "a full-time driver probably wouldn't have acted in the same way" but I know know more detail than that. One reason the incident took so long was that there were multiple uncontrolled evacuations, according to NR Chief Exec Andrew Haines who happened to be on one of the trains that didn't lose power www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7138903227495800832/

I don't know how long the emergency lighting lasted, but the version 4 (December 2013) of the relevant standard only required 180 minutes (see section 4.2 starting on PDF page 17). I believe the current version of this standard is version 6, but I haven't been able to find freely available copies of that (or version 5), nor do I know which standard applies to the Class 345s (constructed 2015-19).

Edit: I've been pointed to the [https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5fe098758fa8f51490fce820/NTSN_Rolling_Stock_-_Locomotive_and_Passenger__LOCPAS_.odt]National Technical Speechification Notice Rolling Stock - Locomotive & Passenger[/url] (Open Document Format) applicable from 2021. which reads in relevant part:

This appears to be identical to the requirement found in the EU Technical Specification for Interoperability 2014 (section 4.10.4.1 on pdf page 82) which almost certainly applied at the time Class 345s were built. Regulation (3) is applicable to Class 345s, Class 80x will be subject to regulation (1).

After a quick read, it seems the "thread title" needs updating?

I am guessing that it should read December rather than September. Is this something the Mods can fix or is it something only the person who created the thread who can fix? -done-


I saw various newspaper reports suggesting that the chaos was somehow due to a managment person driving the GWR train instead of a regular member of staff (who may or may not) have been on strike.

This perpective seems somewhat perverse as I am unconviced that ANY driver would have been able to do anything to dodge a section of live OHLE cable dangling down in front of the train.

Assuming the train was travelling at typical line speed I rather doubt the driver(any driver) could even spot that hazard and actually do something to bring their train to a halt before it was totally tangled up in the knitting.

My gut feeling is that once again Government penny pinching is the underlying villain here.

It seems undeniable that the frequency of electric services departing Paddington has seen an enormous increase in recent years. This is certainly good news for the environment but it seems the bean counters (Department of Transport/HM Treasury) chose not to substantially upgrade the OHLE in this section to be fit for the new far more intense service.

I know against the background of a strike - it is perhaps tempting to fire off accusations that "blame the driver".

However the far more important and largely unspoken question is why a single defect ended up affecting pretty much all services out of Paddington. The media needs to focus on why the impact was so extreme and start to demand that Network Rail are urgently given the funds by the Treasury to rapidly upgrade the OHLE so it is fit for purpose.