Entire line suspended?

The annoucement at West Ham station says the signalling system has failed. Something is wrong with c2c today too.

I guess you were luckier than me. c2c was suspended due to a one under at Shadwell, Jubilee was suspended between North Greenwich and Waterloo due to a defective train.

Back on topic, service seems to have resumed on the Central. It gives "a signal systems failure at White City" as the reason for delay.

It was a train radio failure that caused the Central Line line wide suspension today.

I know what was put out about signals systems failure - but is incorrect, that was an amended message of a previous event :

There was a local signals system failure at White City late this morning that caused local suspension.

Before that was resolved there was an apparent line wide train radio failure not long after mid-day. It was this event that caused the line wide service suspension, for about one and a half hours.

The two events were not related.

As it happened the White City signals failure was fixed not long after midday, but the train radio event had already started, so it went un-noticed.

D7666

Do they know why the cables were stolen? Reports were that it was less than £200 worth of material, which surely is just petty and annoying rather than beneficial in any way?

'McGuinness

7/7 basically.

The importance of maintaining communications underground was recognised as something that is essential at all times.

Sorry railtechnician, but you are wrong to say we double man during train radio failure - there is absolutely no requirement to have two drivers in the same cab in this situation.

A second person in the cab is required only where a train fails a trip cock test (ie, to act as the trip cock system) or if the deadman is cut out (on stocks where this is possible of course).

There may well be a requirement for a second person on "tube" lines where the OPO alarm system is used, but being a "sub surface" driver, I'm not fully conversant with the procedures for such equipment. I have a suspicion however that in the case of an OPO alarm failure trains are simply "monitored" by service control.

Getting back to the specific subject of train radio failure; if we're going to be pedantic about it, we go out of service if it affects three or more stations in succession because the rule book says so. I don't have the rule book to hand and I'm not going to spend an hour reading through it, but I believe the rule book also says that platforms have to be manned and that if messages need to be passed, they are to be passed via the member of staff manning the platform. If platforms cannot be manned, only one train is permitted in the section at a time.

The LT way wasn't always the best way. In any case LT is now outdated and times have changed. There was a lot of fall out and supposed expert opinion with regard to 7/7; indeed it's still ongoing. Some of that opinion is equally outdated but there are one or two things we can take from that event and use to improve our resilience/response in the future - train radio is one such item and being a current driver, I do place a value on having the facility available at my disposal.

I wonder what the inquest would make of us having no train radio at all....

Oh and times haven't changed that much - we do still have spares you know!!

Perhaps they mean Victoria Beckham’s time?

All that high tech equipment needs maintaining and if you don’t have enough staff to keep up with the workload then you are going to get a rise in failures. LUL is trying to keep the wage bill down by not filling vacancies and the passengers will suffer the consequences.

The only people who are happy are the bean counters

The sad fact is very few stations would have the ability to staff platforms and even less chance of providing staff to allow for double staffing.

Since Sunday, when LU have changed the ticket office hours and have "Staff who were previously behind under-used ticket office windows will be able to be deployed to places where they can better assist passengers" the station I work at has lost 9 full-time staff. During the peak hours I could realistically put a handsignalperson on about half of the available platforms and retain some sort of basic station control - this would mean all non safety crticial roles would be used i.e. ticket office closed etc.

Come 1900 during the week or anytime at weekends then I couldn't even offer an assisted dispatch without having to close ticket offices.

Some of you here will travel through the station I work at, some of you will drive a train through my station or control the railway through my station. I apologise to the controllers and drivers that assistance will not be as quick as you like and I apologise to the public for any delay or lack of information that you will receive.
I can only do what I can do and I will do my best.

And the problems are widespread - one colleague not on my line has said "no part time staff, having to pay overtime to cover mealbreaks or the station will close. The mobile supervisor has to be on a gateline for over 2 hours (hardly mobile and able to respond to problems) and no staff to carry out security checks!!!!

Prior to 7/7 weren't trains double staffed when the OPO alarm (deadmans alarm springs to mind) was defective.

Stig,

These are all well made and valid points, everyone in the industry knows that the situation has really been created by LUL management, directly or indirectly. As I have asserted, devolvement has done nothing for the customers but it has created a top heavy bloated corporate organisation with duplicated roles at the top and in the middle while drastically reducing the working staff at the sharp end. It all could have been so different if those at the very top had made a proper case for public service instead of giving in to ignorant politicians who have done the damage, wrung their hands and walked away.

If the radios didn't work, how did the message get to drivers that the service was getting suspended?

Is it possible to suspend the line only in tunnels... Above ground, could contact not be established via mobile phone in an emergency?

And what about tunnel telephones, in the event?

Platform staff, easy as...

District Dave's information site has several stories of contacting controllers by the portable blower!

Then if the driver is bored, on the CL at least, he can drive it. Drivers looking down are not looking at their phones, but at their excitement at just being there. It's such a thrill............