Service Status 10/12/17

Yep just spoke to my colleague and it's totally suspended, sleet trains were run overnight, deicers are showing their blue lights. During the handover one train was stalled at Ruislip Manor but as I was leaving it was to move again, I guess it probably wasn't now

Is that W/b or E/b? Also which points are failing at Uxbridge?

ACM?

Second the questioning of this as never seen that shortening before

Actual Control Machine. These were installed at the front of each train in 2037 and provides actual control to the train; instructions when to start, stop and so on. Previously known as a "train operator".

Absolutely correct.

There was a short while where LUL staff were advising people to catch buses instead, simultaneously buses were terminating and advising people to use the tube instead!

Mmm... 29 pts were throwing ok overnight and i had 2 trains go over them once the service started

I believe about 7 inches of snow fell in the Chilterns today. Not just the Met having problems; most trains on the Chiltern line via High Wycombe were cancelled and the A41 has been closed most of the day.

The opening post of this thread reads:

No further comment necessary!

Two inches of snow in the north and the Pacer still bounces along. Two centimetres of slush in central London and the transport network dies.I quite agree, 15hours before I'm due to start work tomorrow I received an SMS from my work reminding me of the forecast and to allow extra time for my journey to work.

Thats what was said at work obviously don't work on the Met so can not comment any further

Depends. Whilst the Northern had two or three hours of utter carnage, once the special service was established the line behaved itself. With a special service once it’s in there are only two opportunities to take it out - when the late turns book on, or at close of traffic.

There will always be issues with crewing arrangements, especially if roads are disrupted or gridlocked. Please don’t see this as an advert for driverless trains, as it’s days like today when well trained staff prove their worth and earn their money.

What could and should have been better was contingency arrangements. De-icing of premises, response staff on standby in strategic locations (overtime offered), assets like point heaters checked in the days leading up, trains topped up with de icing fluid, etc. It seems pretty much nothing was done.

One also has to consider the general deskilling of staff across the combine. Many trains managers aren’t trained on rolling stock now, and LU seems to like the idea of “generalists”. For example, a manager doesn’t need to be trained on rolling stock as a car examiner will be sent to an incident and the driver should know their stock. In real life this just doesn’t hold true. No chance of getting a train tech out to the sticks, and whilst they may know a bit about the trains, they don’t know the full picture especially things like how the train may interface with signalling. Real life also shows wide variability in the competence of train operators in dealing with issues - some are superb but many are not, especially on lines where the trains don’t go wrong often.

I think with the current lost-ship-floating-aimlessly-in-the-sea mentality of LU we are sadly going to see a lot more of this.

Just seen on the News that the M25 was blocked earlier today because it hadn't been gritted, so it seems LU were not the only ones caught on the hop. I didn't see a forecast last night though - was any snow forecast this far south?