Merseyrail Not Operating on Friday

[bazzoh]

Ominous sign at West Kirby P1!
Screenshot taken from traksy

 

[Spandau]

I think the headline should be "Merseyrail cries wolf"

 

[HS2isgood]

It's pathetic. PD: the Ellesmere port Northern service doesn't seem to be running today, either.

 

[nedchester]

It's pathetic. PD: the Ellesmere port Northern service doesn't seem to be running today, either.

I had to drive to Chester this morning and the roads were clear. Not even icy.

There is no snow or ice and still Merseyrail are not running a service. Don't know who is to blame but both NR and ME own this. I suspect ME will be happy to take the compo from NR for not opening the network.

Meanwhile this tweet from NR is pathetic:

Liverpool Lime St on Twitter: "⚠️It’s a cold one this morning! Here’s our version of a road gritter. They’ve been running around @merseyrail network so the snow ❄️ & ice doesn’t stick on the track. Be safe Be patient Be kind @Merseytravel https://t.co/4QLgGlHQYS" / Twitter

 

[Bletchleyite]

Was it NR that told ME they couldn't operate, or was it ME's own decision, or a collaborative one?

I think they have made themselves look rather silly here. You can be sure the big yellow Ms will be all over the front page of the Echo, they love it!

 

[185]

I had to drive to Chester this morning and the roads were clear. Not even icy.

There is no snow or ice and still Merseyrail are not running a service. Don't know who is to blame but both NR and ME own this. I suspect ME will be happy to take the compo from NR for not opening the network.

Meanwhile this tweet from NR is pathetic:

Liverpool Lime St on Twitter: "⚠️It’s a cold one this morning! Here’s our version of a road gritter. They’ve been running around @merseyrail network so the snow ❄️ & ice doesn’t stick on the track. Be safe Be patient Be kind @Merseytravel https://t.co/4QLgGlHQYS" / Twitter

It's nothing unusual to keep trains running through the night for frost protection and it's one of the absolute basics to send engineering trains out in this weather.

I get the impression they just don't like running trains, and Merseytravel who get paid a fortune to oversee this contract have for many years become utterly inept - time for the operator's contract to end, and the many useless, expensive 'Qango' PTE's across the UK to shut, and be reformed into far smaller organisations.

I'd go as far as to suggest pushing Merseyrail into Northern, given the current costs compared with what we actually get for our money.

 

[nedchester]

It's nothing unusual to keep trains running through the night for frost protection and it's on of the absolute basics to send engineering trains out in this weather.

I get the impression they just don't like running trains, and Merseytravel who get paid a fortune to oversee this contract have for many years become utterly inept - time for the operator's contract to end, and the many useless, expensive 'Qango' PTE's across the UK to shut, and be reformed into far smaller organisations.

I'd go as far as to suggest pushing Merseyrail into Northern, given the current costs compared with what we actually get for our money.

I suspect that ME are more than happy to take the compo from NR for not providing infrastructure especially as there owners are Merseytravel that are losing masses of revenue at the moment...........

 

[Watershed]

I suspect that ME are more than happy to take the compo from NR for not providing infrastructure especially as there owners are Merseytravel that are losing masses of revenue at the moment...........

I wouldn't be so sure that NR are actually compensating them for anything. I think there is a lot more going on here than meets the eye.

 

[nedchester]

I wouldn't be so sure that NR are actually compensating them for anything. I think there is a lot more going on here than meets the eye.

I know that Merseyrail asked NR to provide a rescue engine (just in case) earlier in the week. 57312 provided at Chester. NR then probably couldn't give a 100% guarantee that the infrastructure would be OK this morning and so Merseyrail make the decision not to run a service. Perhaps something like that.

 

[railsuntcommun]

I don't know how scientific it is, but the view locally always used to be that anything extreme coming in over the Atlantic dumped on Ireland instead, meaning Merseyside and West Lancashire tended to lack weather extremes usually experienced by the South East.

I used to live in Southport and always assumed it was The Gulf Stream.

 

[scrapy]

To be fair all the weather forecasts I saw last night were predicting heavy snow, with probabilities greater than 90% and met office weather warnings.

 

[158756]

To be fair all the weather forecasts I saw last night were predicting heavy snow, with probabilities greater than 90% and met office weather warnings.

The met office forecast I looked at after seeing this thread last night only forecast sleet and the temperature remaining above freezing in Liverpool. There were worse forecasts earlier but by last night it wasn't that bad. Here in Lancashire the forecast changed from a 60% chance of snow to mostly sleet, in the end we've had a very thin coating of snow,

 

[geoffk]

RTT shows trains starting up around 10.30. If there was the money for it, the time to change from top contact to side or bottom contact third rail would have been when the fleet was replaced, but that opportunity has now been lost. Of course it would have meant that the new trains could not be phased in gradually. I believe that extreme temperatures in Merseyide are unusual so probably not worth the expense.

 

[Starmill]

There was a service in place on all routes shortly before midday.

 

[Clip]

Can't help but think this would be a wholly different thread if merseyrail didn't put a plan in place for the bad weather and people ended up stranded in places

 

[73001]

Can't help but think this would be a wholly different thread if merseyrail didn't put a plan in place for the bad weather and people ended up stranded in places

Very much so... we have to remember as well that the network will have been haemorrhaging money for nearly 12 months now and the effects of driver absence and unit failures from last week will have lead to these decisions.

 

[nedchester]

Very much so... we have to remember as well that the network will have been haemorrhaging money for nearly 12 months now and the effects of driver absence and unit failures from last week will have lead to these decisions.

The railway cannot run on whataboutery. Merseyrail could have easy said 'there maybe some disruption to services in the morning, passengers should check before they travel'. Rather instead saying we're not running tomorrow, get lost.......

 

[Polarbear]

The railway cannot run on whataboutery. Merseyrail could have easy said 'there maybe some disruption to services in the morning, passengers should check before they travel'. Rather instead saying we're not running tomorrow, get lost.......

Agreed. Just throwing in the towel the day before is just not good enough. Yes, I appreciate that resources may be stretched, but Merseyrail are not the only company struggling at the moment - there are many companies that are experiencing difficulties for many reasons.

 

[S&CLER]

I don't know how scientific it is, but the view locally always used to be that anything extreme coming in over the Atlantic dumped on Ireland instead, meaning Merseyside and West Lancashire tended to lack weather extremes usually experienced by the South East.

It's true that Merseyside doesn't usually suffer from extremes of cold or snow; but on the other hand it does have quite frequent high winds. So to that extent the third rail is more resilient in the face of the predominant local weather extremes than an overhead electrification system would be. I've lived in Southport since 1995, and can only recall one winter (2010) when snow lay for more than a day. On the other hand, it is not uncommon for it to snow at Ormskirk or Parbold, say, and only rain here on the coast.

 

[ExRes]

I given to believe that the Mayor of Liverpool City Region is quoted as saying that he believed Network Rail had issued a restriction of use order, if true then Merseyrail cannot be blamed in the slightest

 

[nedchester]

I given to believe that the Mayor of Liverpool City Region is quoted as saying that he believed Network Rail had issued a restriction of use order, if true then Merseyrail cannot be blamed in the slightest

I don't think it matters if it was NR or ME, the whole thing is ridiculous and even more so that it took until midday to get the service up and running when it was obvious at 08:00 that there wasn't an issue.

 

[Bow Fell]

I don't think it matters if it was NR or ME, the whole thing is ridiculous and even more so that it took until midday to get the service up and running when it was obvious at 08:00 that there wasn't an issue.

The Chester and Ellesmere Port lines were impassable overnight with issues with route proving train, once the early morning de-icer and a further route prover traversed the line, the line was given back.

 

[philthetube]

Not relevant for top contact 3d rail operations.

You can run trains all night if you have crews - (cut in and with heaters on) , you can spray de-icer on shoes before departure , you can treat the sliding doors with de-icer and give the train crews portable de-icer garden sprays to get them out of trouble if needed. You can call out all your staff -including management above the "on call" arrangement , (subject to safety training) the PW gangs can scrape critical areas , the point heaters can all work - and still have trouble.

Not much else you can do really..... any other ideas ?

the only sure way to not get stranded on ice is heated third rail, however much de-icer you lay, if it rains or snows this washes it off then if it freezes you have iced rails, or even worse, frozen snow on third rail. Trains laying de-icer wont shift this and will, if electric, become stranded themselves.

of course a couple of feet of snow will stop everything regardless.

 

[68001]

appears to have been a de icer train out and about the mersey rail network 3S99 wigan-wigan via various routes across the network
this morning

 

[nedchester]

The Chester and Ellesmere Port lines were impassable overnight with issues with route proving train, once the early morning de-icer and a further route prover traversed the line, the line was given back.

'Impassable' - you make it sound like it was 6ft deep out there. I looked out of the window near Capenhurst and there was a light dusting of wet snow. I think you may be over dramatising there.

Running a train over it would have cleared the tracks and 3rd rail easily.

It was obvious at 08:00 there wasn't an issue but still took until nearly midday to get things up and running. Really quite pathetic. Is this is what is expected now every time we get winter weather in winter?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I'm in the hills 20 miles south of the Wirral 3rd rail and we have about 5 inches of snow, been snowing all day and still coming down.
Height makes a big difference up here (I'm at 700ft) and the snow line is very difficult to forecast in conditions like today - it may be clear on the coast/Wirral.
Today the radar maps show the snow belt staying mainly off-shore around Liverpool but on-shore in NE Wales and West Lancs (north of Merseyside).

Just watched impressive clearance of snow and ice in Turkey (Chris Tarrant's Dogu Express film) and they take it seriously over there.
But they have long, severe winters.
The last major Merseyrail winter problem I remember was severe icing for a day a couple of years ago.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

the only sure way to not get stranded on ice is heated third rail, however much de-icer you lay, if it rains or snows this washes it off then if it freezes you have iced rails, or even worse, frozen snow on third rail. Trains laying de-icer wont shift this and will, if electric, become stranded themselves.

of course a couple of feet of snow will stop everything regardless.

Some considerable investment in heated con rails was done South of the river some years back - Horsham area from memory.

LT did this on the Met following the 1963 winter - certainly around Chorleywood / Moor Park - along with clever ideas like de-icing tanks where the pick up shoes got a dip of antifreeze on the move , which augmented the normal sleet trains and de-icing equipment on some of the trains.

I know a bit about de-icing trains , having in both passenger and freight operations - 4 x 37's and an 08 to move an urgently needed special of imported nickel for Mond, Swansea frozen to the rails at Felixstowe in 1981 , previous attempts at manual de-icing and burning cardboard boxes under said train to release the seized disc brakes. Good conditions for strong language I assure you. Ironically , this container train had boxes which had managed the weather in Canada and the North Atlantic. It got to Swansea.

 

[Class83]

How many people in Merseyside have a car on the basis that they would use the train, but can’t rely on it for the odd day a year the trains might not run because rain washes off the anti-ice solution and freezes the con rail?

If it’s more than zero I’d be surprised...

That's probably not the only reason someone buys a car, but if someone was perhaps considering getting rid of a second car and using public transport more, stunts like this will discourage them. Then every subsequent journey will be priced as petrol v rail fare, rather than total cost of car v rail fare. Which makes the train uncompetitive. Outside London, driving is still generally a practical alternative.

 

[whoosh]

I think the weather forecasts we get these days - there seems to be a "weather warning" every other week for something or other. It is cry wolf. When it's actually really bad, no-one has listened as it was, "yet another weather warning".


As for Merseyrail, these days whoever maintains the trains won't want shoes damaged, or wheels with flats or worn out as they've been spinning, or jammed iced up doors, or any of the delicate electrics blown, and it becomes a bum covering excercise with how to save money - because someone would have to pay for all the repairs and cancelled trips in the following days. Cue claim and counter claim. I'm sure they just agree between themselves now (train maintenance contractor, TOC and Network Rail) just not to run anything.

It is of course, utterly ridiculous, unless the weather is actually bad, and very low temperatures or tracks impassable. The railway should be able to run a lot better than the roads.

 

[Starmill]

A full four services per hour have been running this afternoon between Southport and Hunts Cross with little disruption. Other routes two services an hour with just a handful of cancelled Kirkby trains due to a crew shortage. In other words, post 1200, little difference from any other day this week? Someone will correct me if I'm wrong.