Signal Systems again?

[cso]

Looks like the signaling system on the SSR between Baker Street and Aldgate went again this morning...

Was this related to the previous few days problems, or completely seperate?

[citysig]

As far as I have heard, it is a completely unrelated event. A problem with a couple of signals in the Kings Cross to Farringdon area. Very unfortunate that, once again, it is the city that has been hit. I really thought we had had our share of trouble in that area at least.

[Deleted]

Not including the Aldgate problems, the Met, H&C, Circle has been hit recently with more than it's fair share of problems.

We've seen signal failures at Baker Street, Edgware Road, Finchley Road, Wembley, Farringdon, Kings Cross all over the past 10 days. (no doubt there are more)

Is this just a run of bad luck - or are we seeing a problem such as lack of or bad maintenance?

[citysig]

I would tend to lean more on the side of bad luck.

There were, of course, elements of the Aldgate problems that could be attributed to other causes, but on the whole, we appear to have suffered many months of failures in one hit.

Certainly 1 of Wembley Park's failures was a very rare event. Edgware Road was caused by a relatively minor piece of kit, but was compounded by a couple of additional hurdles that made it impossible to fix easily without inconveniencing even more people than it did.

It could be said that maybe we are fortunate to get it all out the way now, but as we know, unfortunately it doesn't work like that.

[Deleted]

Also, if it was an issue of bad maintenance, would other parts of the SSR not be experiencing the same or similar problem? As it's not, surely this means it's not a maintenance issue?

[Chris M]

Apr 9, 2010 11:30:30 GMT @ltmuseumguy said:

Also, if it was an issue of bad maintenance, would other parts of the SSR not be experiencing the same or similar problem?

Not if the issue was with the maintenance of a specific piece (or type of) equipment that was not present elsewhere on the SSL.
It could also be that the issues would appear everywhere, just that the faults are only just starting to occur and these were the first sites where it happened.

That said though, I have no reason not to believe MetControl when he says bad maintenance isn't the issue.

[railtechnician]

Apr 9, 2010 11:30:30 GMT @ltmuseumguy said:

Also, if it was an issue of bad maintenance, would other parts of the SSR not be experiencing the same or similar problem? As it's not, surely this means it's not a maintenance issue?

You can't generalise like that, there are other factors to consider. Things may have changed now but line maintenance was not necessarily done by the line's own maintenance staff! For instance as a Piccadilly Line signal lineman working out of Acton Town depot my maintenance area included Wembley Park to Finchley Road on the Met and Hanger Lane to Ealing Broadway on the District as well as Charing Cross to Stanmore on the Jubilee and of course Cockfosters to Heathrow and Acton up to but not including Rayners Lane.

At the time there was no Jubilee line maintenance organisation as such it was shared between Picc line maintenance and Northern Line maintenance (responsible for JLE).

These days I believe that Tube Lines just does Jub/Northern/Picc maintenance with Metronet looking after the rest but I don't know whether localised depots are the order of the day or whether the maintenance is pooled. It was certainly a fact that when the Picc took over Wembley Park and Finchley Road depots from the Met the maintenance had previously been very basic and we spent a great deal of time bringing the area up to standard, both Met and Jub.

Although there are standards for everything, manning levels, depot locations, work ethics, budgetary constraints etc etc will all have an effect such that consistency of maintenance will vary from area to area.

Luck does play a part but in my book bad maintenance leads to bad luck! On the other hand there is always the possibility of an Act of God although generally speaking the causes are often human rather than divine, one of the great failings of outsourcing railway engineering maintenance and installation work to such a wide variety of subcontractors is a lack of awareness of potential signalling failure issues. I recall attending many failures caused by other contractors working on or about the track.

Sometimes problems would be lived with until they became urgent and that was a recipe for higher failure levels. At the end of the day it all boils down to matching resources to maintenance need and that can sometimes cost more than available resources allow. Managers fight a never ending chess game to keep on top of it all and I expect in the current economic climate the battle will become even harder to fight.