Northern line fun and games at midnight 10/5

[antharro]

I went to a gig last night in Camden and got the tube back to Tooting Broadway, leaving Camden at at about midnight. It was a Morden via Charing Cross service. The journey went fine until we got to Kennington, where there was the obligatory few minutes wait. On departure, the train crawled into the tunnel at just a couple of mph. There was a small speed increase but we never got up to line speed and eventually stopped for several minutes.

The train op made a PA telling us there were signal issues at Morden which were causing problems back to Kennington. We waited there for some time and from time to time I could hear other trains in the tunnel (presumably northbound trains leaving Oval ahead). When we finally got moving again, it turned out we were only about a train length out of Oval's platforms. The train op made another announcement telling us we would not be moving from this platform until a platform at Stockwell was available. This was now due to both a signal and systems failure at Morden. We sat there for some time and finally moved on. Sitting at Stockwell, she told us that trains were now backing up to Euston. This was a particularly long wait, but just as she had finished her second announcement, she obviously got a green signal (or whatever the equivalent of that is now on the Northern) and made a third "actually, we're moving now, so get back on the train!" announcement which lightened the mood and made a few people laugh.

We passed through Clapham South and Balham pretty quickly with barely a wait, then sat at Tooting Bec for a while. Finally the powers that be decided to terminate the train there (presumably so it could sit in the tunnel ahead and let another train sit at the platform) and we were asked to leave the train.

The train op's announcements were excellent and she kept us up to date regularly, even when there was no further information. I saw her on the platform and thanked her.

So I was wondering what the cause of the problem was. The train op told us it was a signal and systems failure at Morden. I'm also wondering what measures were used to try and keep the service running - were any trains terminated at Tooting Broadway and sent back up north to try and keep trains moving southbound? And further north, were any Morden trains terminated at Kennington?

The only sour note was that despite all this, the offical TfL line was that there were "minor" delays between Kennington and Morden. I don't consider a five-ten minute wait at each platform to be a "minor" delay, and I don't consider having a train terminated early to be "minor" delay, but that's what was showing on the TfL service status page, which I was checking at each station and when queueing for a bus. I eventually got home - waited for the N155 bus which didn't let anyone on as it was full (presumably it had picked up passengers from other terminated trains further up the line), so I got a taxi instead.

[londonstuff]

I don't have a lot of info on this and I can't guarantee that it's entirely accurate but I was told the TBTC system kept losing the route into the middle platform at Morden, which was an entirely new one on them, apparently. There was some push-out work required somewhere but this wasn't easy either as a train had to be pushed uphill in the rain, which apparently didn't work too well.

Happy to be corrected on that if anyone knows better!

[Deleted]

Given the time of night all of those southbound services would have been going through to morden to stable therefore there's little option but to keep sending them south holding them in platforms to prevent them being stalled in tunnels

[antharro]

londonstuff - I can see how that could have caused the problems. And a push-out in the rain must have been a tedious and not very successful venture!

wonderwaller - The fact that those trains do run down to Morden to stable is, living in Tooting, one that I am very grateful for when coming back from town. I was just wondering if, in an effort to try and get trains moving as much as possible, some trains were detrained early (Kennington, Tooting Broadway) and sent back up the northbound out of service simply to get them out of the way and allow more southbound trains to be on the move. I guess this didn't happen as it would cause work for the depot staff; they'd have trains in the wrong roads and would have to spend time sorting that out, and there would also be drivers over their hours.

[Deleted]

No any of those trains detrained southbound would most likely have been sent forward empty as far as the signalling would allow to free up a platform to hold a following train in sending any of those trains back north could have created problems finding space to stable them overnight and would almost certainly have lead to cancellations the following morning from morden

[North End]

May 11, 2014 13:23:08 GMT antharro said:

londonstuff - I can see how that could have caused the problems. And a push-out in the rain must have been a tedious and not very successful venture!

wonderwaller - The fact that those trains do run down to Morden to stable is, living in Tooting, one that I am very grateful for when coming back from town. I was just wondering if, in an effort to try and get trains moving as much as possible, some trains were detrained early (Kennington, Tooting Broadway) and sent back up the northbound out of service simply to get them out of the way and allow more southbound trains to be on the move. I guess this didn't happen as it would cause work for the depot staff; they'd have trains in the wrong roads and would have to spend time sorting that out, and there would also be drivers over their hours.

Not so much drivers being out of hours, but at that time of night almost every train would be a Morden driver on their last trip home. The only exception would likely be the last two trains which are night crews from Golders Green and High Barnet, however reverse those and these night crews are then in the wrong place for the morning, also it's imperative for protection purposes that the last trains run with their correct numbers (although neither insurmountable as trains can be renumbered, and there's always the option to book taxis to take the night crews back to Morden). Whilst in an emergency the Morden drivers would *have* to go north, for example if there was a derailment at Morden, but it would have to be a very serious incident where there was no prospect of getting trains in to Morden for several hours.

The only other means would be to find out if any of the drivers live north or central and would be prepared to take their train north, but unlikely to be of use in practice. In any case, if the last northbound has already run then not an option in any case.

[philthetube]

May 10, 2014 15:14:11 GMT antharro said:

I went to a gig last night in Camden and got the tube back to Tooting Broadway, leaving Camden at at about midnight. It was a Morden via Charing Cross service. The journey went fine until we got to Kennington, where there was the obligatory few minutes wait. On departure, the train crawled into the tunnel at just a couple of mph. There was a small speed increase but we never got up to line speed and eventually stopped for several minutes.

The train op made a PA telling us there were signal issues at Morden which were causing problems back to Kennington. We waited there for some time and from time to time I could hear other trains in the tunnel (presumably northbound trains leaving Oval ahead). When we finally got moving again, it turned out we were only about a train length out of Oval's platforms. The train op made another announcement telling us we would not be moving from this platform until a platform at Stockwell was available. This was now due to both a signal and systems failure at Morden. We sat there for some time and finally moved on. Sitting at Stockwell, she told us that trains were now backing up to Euston. This was a particularly long wait, but just as she had finished her second announcement, she obviously got a green signal (or whatever the equivalent of that is now on the Northern) and made a third "actually, we're moving now, so get back on the train!" announcement which lightened the mood and made a few people laugh.

We passed through Clapham South and Balham pretty quickly with barely a wait, then sat at Tooting Bec for a while. Finally the powers that be decided to terminate the train there (presumably so it could sit in the tunnel ahead and let another train sit at the platform) and we were asked to leave the train.

The train op's announcements were excellent and she kept us up to date regularly, even when there was no further information. I saw her on the platform and thanked her.

So I was wondering what the cause of the problem was. The train op told us it was a signal and systems failure at Morden. I'm also wondering what measures were used to try and keep the service running - were any trains terminated at Tooting Broadway and sent back up north to try and keep trains moving southbound? And further north, were any Morden trains terminated at Kennington?

The only sour note was that despite all this, the offical TfL line was that there were "minor" delays between Kennington and Morden. I don't consider a five-ten minute wait at each platform to be a "minor" delay, and I don't consider having a train terminated early to be "minor" delay, but that's what was showing on the TfL service status page, which I was checking at each station and when queueing for a bus. I eventually got home - waited for the N155 bus which didn't let anyone on as it was full (presumably it had picked up passengers from other terminated trains further up the line), so I got a taxi instead.

As train crew, and station staff feel the same, we feel really embarrassed every time the service status messages are inaccurate.  Passengers laugh at the incompetence of the company who are , in their eyes, unaware of what a good service constitutes.  

I have been seriously tempted as a drive to make the following P.A. :-

There is currently a good service on the northern line, I do apologise for the delays caused by this good service.