Water Water Everywhere...!!

[BestWestern]

Lots of flooding chaos so far today, current FGW disruption includes:

Flooding in Patchway Tunnels, London-bound lines from South Wales closed.

Flooding at Flax Bourton Tunnel, between Parson St and Nailsea, all services suspended.

Flooding Tiverton area, disruption.

And, rather alarmingly, a 'hole' appearing somewhere in the Malvern area, also causing service disrupton.

Also a signalling failure currently ongoing at Twyford.

How is the rest of the world doing?!

 

[Rich McLean]

All looking a lot calmer in Devon Now
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Taken from NRE:

Heavy rain and flooding is causing disruption in western England and Wales.
Because of this, the following will apply until further notice, with extended journey times of up to 60 minutes:
Arriva Trains Wales and Virgin Trains
Chester - Crewe
No Arriva Trains Wales services are running between Chester and Crewe. Virgin Trains services may be delayed.
Arriva Trains Wales
Hereford - Shrewsbury
No trains are running between Hereford and Shrewsbury. Replacement transport is being arranged.
Bidston - Shotton
No trains are running between Bidston and Shotton.
Wem - Yorton
No trains between Wem and Yorton
Arriva Trains Wales and London Midland
No trains are currently running between Wellington and Shrewsbury.
CrossCountry and First Great Western
Bristol Temple Meads - Weston-super-Mare - Taunton
Trains are also currently unable to run between Bristol Temple Meads, Weston-super-Mare and Taunton. Passengers may use local buses, subject to road conditions.
CrossCountry services between Bristol and Taunton are being diverted - no stations will be missed but journey times will be extended by up to 30 minutes.
Exeter St Davids - Taunton

Trains are currently unable to run between Exeter St Davids and Taunton. Buses have been ordered, but local roads are also affected by flooding
Passengers may use First Buses between Taunton and Bristol Temple Meads.
Newport (South Wales) - Swindon
Trains may be diverted, with journey times extended by up to 60 minutes. No trains will call at Bristol Parkway.

CHAOS

 

[krus_aragon]

Journeycheck is painting a rather pessimistic view for anyone in Shrewsbury:

Do not travel from Shrewsbury as the following lines are closed:

• Shrewsbury to Hereford in both directions.
• Hereford and Cardiff in both directions. Shrewsbury and Birmingham in both directions.
• Shrewsbury and Crewe in both directions.
• Chester and Crewe in both directions.
• Knighton and Shrewsbury in both directions.
• Shotton to Bidston in both direction.

Road Transport will be provided where possible, however this will be very limited, so therefore we advise passengers not to travel.
All tickets that are not used today will be honoured tomorrow.

 

[Rich McLean]

Not good if you have commuted from Shrewsbury to work this morning, only to find that you can't get home again

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Journeycheck is painting a rather pessimistic view for anyone in Shrewsbury:

North Wales main line was closed earlier at Flint but seems to be working again now.
ATW seems to be reduced to a series of disconnected shuttles.
Chester-Crewe is closed but VT appear to be working via Middlewich or Warrington.
No let-up in the weather here.

 

[Cheshire Rover]

Surprised that there are no issues over Chat Moss yet. NR appear to slow things down over it when there is heavy rain.

 

[Rich McLean]

The worst of the weather is moving north from the Midlands, give it a matter of time and there will be problems at Chat Moss

 

[Ascot]

I'm trying to get to Euston on the 11:30 ex BHM however things have since crawled to a halt. Has anything gone Pete Tong down this way?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Mike395]

I'm trying to get to Euston on the 11:30 ex BHM however things have since crawled to a halt. Has anything gone Pete Tong down this way?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Two of the 4 lines are 'blocked' at Watford due to a signal failure.

Edit: Literally just reopened, so you'll hopefully be on the move shortly.

 

[ValleyLines142]

Tell me about it!! I had a nightmare this morning!! I got on the 0755 Cardiff to London, going to Bristol Parkway. Everything was running smoothly to near Patchway, then we ground to a halt for about 20 minutes, then the conductor/train manager/whoever told us about the flooding, then we went back to Severn Tunnel Junction and those who decided to go back home to Wales were allowed to get off, then the train went out of STJ and went to London via Gloucester!! Had to catch the 0938 STJ to Maesteg service back home on 150255, which left 12 minutes late due to waiting for pax off other services!! All in all took me nearly 3 hours to get home!!

Only one annoying thing though. There was not ONE SINGLE announcement made at Cardiff or Newport before setting off regarding the delays, as both the 0655 and the 0725 were delayed as well. If there were announcements, people could have made alternative arrangements.

 

[Ascot]

Two of the 4 lines are 'blocked' at Watford due to a signal failure.

Edit: Literally just reopened, so you'll hopefully be on the move shortly.

I ended up around 20 minutes which wasn't too bad compared to other people in the country. Let's see how the return goes! 19:23 ex EUS I'm aiming for providing the tube holds up.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Tracky]

Surprised that there are no issues over Chat Moss yet.

You said YET.

Jinx

 

[cm39275]

this was posted on facebook aprox 1 hour ago

Virgin Trains & Chiltern Railways* Loco Hauled Gen


‎1F23, 17:33 London Euston - Liverpool Lime Street will today additionally call at Warrington Bank Quay. From Warrington it will be diesel hauled by a class 57 to Liverpool Lime Street. This is due to severe flooding.

 

[brianthegiant]

It's not as if rain is an unusual occurence in Britain..

Are we not specifying large enough drainage infrastructure?
Or not checking them for blockages?

I wonder also if drainage (natural & piped) is impeded by the amount of waste ballast piled up at the side of tracks everywhere (so the 4 foot area forms a river during very heavy rain).

Or does NR need powers to with drainage problems on neighbouring land?

 

[michael769]

It's not as if rain is an unusual occurence in Britain..

Some parts of the country have received 5 times as much rain as normal, this year is not (thankfully) a normal occurrence.

 

[brianthegiant]

sorry I don't buy that, what are we defining as 'normal'. Any time there is heavy rain it more than 5x the average rainfall.

Saying its the wrong type of snow (E*), or the wrong type of sunshine (OHL & points failures), or too much rain, just gives the industry a bad reputation. It's high time to start learning where designs aren't resilient enough for the operating environment and learning from past failures.

I would be interested if there is any analysis of what water catchment area feeds into each section of track, whether peak rainfall data is analysed for the catchment and informed decisions about drain sizes made (rainfall data available from UK hydrographic office). Or whether we just wait until it floods and then think about upgrading it (or just put it down to freak weather...).

The other thing is that looking at the short term trends, the weather is changing, We're getting more sunshine on average than we did 10 or 20 years ago, but we're also getting heavier rain. Even if you still deny the existence of climate change, just looking at the changing weather patterns should tell us we need to build & maintain infrastructure for more extreme weather conditions.

 

[David]

sorry I don't buy that, what are we defining as 'normal'. Any time there is heavy rain it more than 5x the average rainfall.

Having several inches of rain fall in a matter of hours is not normal, when you consider that the average rainfall is 2-4 inches per month (depending on where abouts in the country you live).

And your point about climate change ....

Climate change has existed since the planet was formed, and it will keep on changing until the planet dies. There is nothing anyone can do to change that ....

 

[YorkshireBear]

sorry I don't buy that, what are we defining as 'normal'. Any time there is heavy rain it more than 5x the average rainfall.

Saying its the wrong type of snow (E*), or the wrong type of sunshine (OHL & points failures), or too much rain, just gives the industry a bad reputation. It's high time to start learning where designs aren't resilient enough for the operating environment and learning from past failures.

I would be interested if there is any analysis of what water catchment area feeds into each section of track, whether peak rainfall data is analysed for the catchment and informed decisions about drain sizes made (rainfall data available from UK hydrographic office). Or whether we just wait until it floods and then think about upgrading it (or just put it down to freak weather...).

The other thing is that looking at the short term trends, the weather is changing, We're getting more sunshine on average than we did 10 or 20 years ago, but we're also getting heavier rain. Even if you still deny the existence of climate change, just looking at the changing weather patterns should tell us we need to build & maintain infrastructure for more extreme weather conditions.

No roads are flooded at all it must be soley a problem of the railways.....
The drainage is inadequate like the rest of the victorian infrastructure in the country. A railway drains well due to the nature of its construction, water in rainfall like this just builds up...

 

[causton]

The shopping centre I work in has buckets and wet floor signs all around at the moment, so it's not just the railways
... I am surprised at how unaffected the roads are though - nothing major around this way at least and there has been some pretty heavy rain today!

 

[Tomonthetrain]

Water water everywhere

And not a drop to drink

 

[Searle]

I planned a trip down to Dawlish, which I returned from earlier, came out surprisingly well from it.

Caught the 07:06 Devon Express to Newton Abbot, and just past Pewsey, the guard announced that there will be delays past Taunton, but fortunately we were the first southbound train through it, and it all seemed to be fine, arriving into Newton Abbot just 10 minutes down. All the fields beside the track were completely flooded though!

A couple of trains were late/delayed, and fortunately, my 14:25 XC service from Exeter - Bristol only lost 6 minutes or so. I passed a Voyager that was stuck though in front of some floods, but that was only going southbound.

Coming back from Bristol to London was absolutely fine too, although this wasn't in the flooding area.

I'm not sure how I got away so easily, with people talking about replacement buses and the like, I must have picked up about 20 minutes of delays in the whole day! Managed to get back to London, before my train to Hertford was cancelled due to a train fault, so close, yet so far

 

[transmanche]

I am surprised at how unaffected the roads are though - nothing major around this way at least and there has been some pretty heavy rain today!

There are some roads closed (including a stretch of the A1) in NE England; not just from flooding, but also from fallen trees and power lines.

 

[ian959]

sorry I don't buy that, what are we defining as 'normal'. Any time there is heavy rain it more than 5x the average rainfall.

Saying its the wrong type of snow (E*), or the wrong type of sunshine (OHL & points failures), or too much rain, just gives the industry a bad reputation. It's high time to start learning where designs aren't resilient enough for the operating environment and learning from past failures.

I would be interested if there is any analysis of what water catchment area feeds into each section of track, whether peak rainfall data is analysed for the catchment and informed decisions about drain sizes made (rainfall data available from UK hydrographic office). Or whether we just wait until it floods and then think about upgrading it (or just put it down to freak weather...).

The other thing is that looking at the short term trends, the weather is changing, We're getting more sunshine on average than we did 10 or 20 years ago, but we're also getting heavier rain. Even if you still deny the existence of climate change, just looking at the changing weather patterns should tell us we need to build & maintain infrastructure for more extreme weather conditions.

Whilst I cannot attest to the UK, in Australia infrastructure was designed to handle fifty year events (that is an event like heavy rainfall that would normally occur once in every fifty years). With the advent of more obvious climate change as evidenced by the floods in eastern Australia two years running, infrastructure will now be built to meet one hundred year events.

That infrastrcuture will start coming into use over the next 10 years - going back and upgrading the existing infrastructure will be done on a case by case basis as funds become available. It will take a VERY long time!

I imagine it is the same in the UK - and I would imagine a lot of the existing infrastructure being even older than Australia's means that it was probably designed to handle even less than a fifty year event.

 

[PR1Berske]

This was not "normal occurrence" rain. This was the remnants of Tropical Storm Nadine, and in some parts of the county a month's amount of rain fell in 24 hours.

I'd be surprised if any rail network was able to cope with that amount of deluge.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Water water everywhere
And not a drop to drink

Nor any drop to drink...

 

[merlodlliw]

without realising this page was showing in infrastructure, I have put up comments from North Wales Rail newsboard on the ATW Premier site under general discussion. Its too large to double it up here but worth a look link http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=69267&page=11
thread 159

Bob

 

[507 001]

Marten Spaargaren of merseyrail posted on twitter last night;

"Hooton Station is like a swimming pool. Can't really run trains there. sorry."

This morning Merseyrail have managed to organise an HOURLY Rail replacement bus covering both the Ellesmere port and Chester lines
I feel sorry for anybody commuting that way today!

 

[bolli]

No roads are flooded at all it must be soley a problem of the railways.....

Judging by the fact that I had to turn around twice whilst on my 20 mile commute yesterday, I can safely say that the roads were hit a lot harder than the railways.

 

[merlodlliw]

Out of interest, if the track is flooded can 3rd rail operate?

Plus this what the Local regional Daily Paper website says about this morning "courtesy of the Daily Post" http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/nor...th-videos-and-picture-gallery-55578-31901144/

Problems on the railway centred on the lines from Shresbury into Mid Wales, Chester and Crewe. Delays of up to 60 minutes on those services running with buses replacing other trains.

The 5.33am Holyhead to Cardiff, the Gerallt Gymro express, was delayed at Chester due to flooding. Other North Wales to Cardiff and Birmingham services are being delayed at Chester with some being terminated and restarting at Shrewsbury. Buses running between the two stations.

Trains from the south heading north terminated at Shrewsbury. An Arriva Trains Wales spokesman said (at 8.15am) the situation appears to be improving with services slowly being re-instated trains between Chester and Crewe and Shrewsbury via Wrexham.

 

[Johnuk123]

Out of interest, if the track is flooded can 3rd rail operate?

Once it starts to cover the sleepers then it's had it.