Picc problems

[happybunny]

Yesterday I was on a W/B train and it came to a stand between Sudbury hill and S.Harrow... we was stood for half an hour in the baking heat! The driver made just two announcements within the first ten mins both just saying we are being delayed because of a signal failure!
As I understand it there was a train stuck in the W/B platform at S.Harrow that is why we could not get in. What puzzles me, is that leaving Ealing Common.. that train in front of ours was at least 18 MINUTES in front.. so therefor that was plenty of time for the controller to hold our train at Sudbury hill platform. Also they should not have left a train stuck there for half an hour, we should have been brought in to the E/B platform via the crossover (I think this is possible with a train in the W/B).. it was very bad all in all!

[Tubeboy]

Yep, correct, signal failure at South Harrow, soon after, there was a signal failure at Hounslow Central. So for a fair while, apart from Acton-Northfields, there was nothing going past Acton on the Westbound.

Veering slightly off topic, I was going to Edgware on wednesday, train crawled from Chalk Farm -Golders, stopping several times for 2 minutes a time, waited ages at Golders. T/op said absolutely nothing.

[Oracle]

Did they reverse at the Central?

And why not reinstate the cross-over at North Ealing, which we harped on about 30 years ago?

[trc666]

Good idea.

It would speed up getting those sightseeing District drivers out of the way! ;D

[happybunny]

You miss the point. It should never happened that we were stuck in section!!! It was bad 'line controlling' to get into that situation.. alright there is nothing you can do about a signal failure.. but SURELY it would have made lots of sense to hold our train in the previous station!!! Since the train in front had been sitting in S.Harrow W/B for 10-15mins! They obviously knew there was a signal problem, so why let our train leave Sudbury hill and get stuck

[mandgc]

When a delay occurs could not the Panel Operator immediately send out a General warning to Drivers to hold their trains in a Station Platform rather than bunch up behind one another ?

(Sit back and wait for Comments from Panel Operators ! )

[c5]

At the present time there is no way of doing this unless either the Line Controller makes a radio broadcast or station staff are sent out to hold trains in platforms.

[mandgc]

"No way of doing this unless---" (Reply #6)

Why can't the Line Controller do this ?

[Deleted]

happybunny said:

we was stood for half an hour in the baking heat!

Since when has the low 20 degrees been baking?

[Colin]

mandgc said:

Why can't the Line Controller do this ?

To be fair, the line controller can have a lot on his plate at times depending on how the whole line is running. There is mention that there was a second signal failure on the other western branch - that does make life difficult for one controller on his own to deal with. Don't forget, he has to liaise with the relevant signallers, report the fault and arrange it's repair, liaise with the DMT's to re-form the service, arrange protection for anyone going trackside to effect any repairs, constantly update the network operations centre (who will broadcast network wide messages), write down everything he does in a log.............all this, and deal with the drivers via radio. That takes some doing.

Also, Earls Court is hardly brimming with modern technology - and IIRC from my last visit there, the Line controller can't actually "see" that part of the line........he has to rely on information being passed from the signallers.

Another possibility may be that the line controller did indeed call up happybunny's train driver - but that driver may have turned down the volume on his radio, or if he/she is a pedantic one, they may well ignore the radio unless they are stationary in a platform - yes, we do have drivers that just love to make the job hard for themselves

It is easy to blame the line controllers - but they are not always at fault (well 50% of the time anyway).