What happened today!?

[uzairjubilee]

Hi all.

I was in London today and there seemed to be a lot going on. Before I left my house I knew there were problems east due to signal failure at Barking (suspension Whitechapel - East Ham for District) Then it was all okay. However the Upminster train I was on ended up terminating at Whitechapel.

Then later in the day there were even more problems on the Cirlce, Metropolitan and Hammersmith and City.

Could someone explain what was going on?

Thanks.

Btw is this the right thread for this?

[mrfs42]

No - it belongs better here in the SSR Group discusssion.

[Colin]

Jun 1, 2010 21:18:10 GMT uzairjubilee said:

However the Upminster train I was on ended up terminating at Whitechapel.

Whilst the initial problem may be declared no longer an issue, there will be a period of service recovery afterwards as trains will be running late and that has the knock on effect of late meal relief's, possibility of going over laid down driving hours and overtime.

In more detail:

• Late meal relief - driver doesn't have enough time between getting off their first train & picking up their second train
  
• Going over hours - affects fatigue and minimum rest periods; subject to agreements made with the unions and is part of LU's safety case
  
• Overtime - additional costs that LU are keen to avoid

In essence, you may not necessarily be aware that the train service is running late, or in service recovery mode following an incident, as we work on the basis of maintaining regular headways enabling you the customer to simply turn up and get on a train.

Anyway, to answer your specific question, I suspect you were the victim of a driver going over their hours. I was at Upminster when the duty manager had a telephone conversation with a driver regarding being put in the siding at Whitechapel rather than Tower Hill bay. My impression was that the driver was seeking to leave the train somewhere and the line controller was keen to keep Tower Hill bay available for scheduled Tower Hill reversers......

[uzairjubilee]

Ah right. Well we stood at Mansion House for quite a long time.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure that train was one of the 4 that were in the sidings at Parsons Green