When is a failure really a failure

[JR 15secs]

All you LU & Metronet/Tubelines people please dont take any offence but I have wondered about this when you here of repeat failures I think it falls into the following
1. Staff error in operating the euipment or not as the case maybe.
2. Staff reaction to failure both LU & Infracos in responding and attending.
3. If failure not on when signals people arrive what about further attendance when trains not running.
4. I have been told that the LU reporter when reporting a signal which failed to clear was because a train was in the section
5. Maintainence of equipment or lack of.

[Deleted]

failures which do cause delay are always investigated as the senior managers at metronet and i suppose tubelines aswell want to know why they have to dish out all that money in fines
all safety signalling has to be maintained with the cycle period for that piece of equipment or it will be taken out of commission
signalman and also us are only human and we do cock up at times you know
and we still have inter - line assistance (ok not so much these days) i.e if a failure was on a infraco boundry both parties would go

[JR 15secs]

I take your point aetearlscourt but what about when the failure happens and there is no signal staff nearby and the operator clears the fault takes a release or whatever or it clears itself does it go down as one of those things what about the failure at South Ken I spoke to a LU manager who told me that signal staff attended in the night but did not find the fault a mouse which had been roasted as per your pic?

[c5]

relaydel said:

I take your point aetearlscourt but what about when the failure happens and there is no signal staff nearby and the operator clears the fault takes a release or whatever or it clears itself does it go down as one of those things what about the failure at South Ken I spoke to a LU manager who told me that signal staff attended in the night but did not find the fault a mouse which had been roasted as per your pic?

If the LUL operator realises it is their error (ie train in section) they should contact the Fault Report Centre, who will close the job. If this has caused a delay to the train service then LU Line Controller would book an "Item" as Staff Error - LU which would then be investigated by an LU Manager. There would be no fault attributed to the Infraco.

If a fault cleared after taking a release this would still need to be investigated as it has not worked as it should have done. If the failure occured for only one train. The Infraco may not worry too much and just have a look on nights.

[Deleted]

usually if a fault only happens for one train and has never happened before these do not get looked at as the shortage of staff we have or shall we say dont have.

operators would usually keep trying the failing route to see if they can clear the failure on there own but if this does fail then the next thing would do would be to take a release.

and just for reference a release only releases signal levers which have been locked not points so if there was a problem with a set of points then it would make no difference wot so ever

i was on days when that shut down at south ken happened and during the day after a t/o(aet) a signal manager and signal operational manager went to the room in question which is down the track and removed the cover to the 600/100v transformer and this is when the mouse was found, granted i know this should of been found on nights but because of rules about switching power supplys over (limits of authority) a t/o is not allowed just to switch back the orignal supply and this is only my opioin btw but i think as it was working ok they left it untill more resources were available i.e the morning after as the incident signal ops manager has to cover the whole of ssl again that is only a guess and i do not know what actually happened that night but on the whole signals what fail do get looked at in engineering hours in great depth

[JR 15secs]

Many thanks aetearlscourt I think that answers my questions have you always worked on the District?

[Deleted]

since passing out in 1998 i have but before then i travelled around abit as a apprentice

[JR 15secs]

aetearlscourt you guys have a tough job and the site your at Clapham Junction of the District line. I know there is a shortage of T/Os system wide, thats part of the problem why some failures take longer to rectify so keep up the good work.