From the live departure board at Peterborough at 2240 to give a
flavour of the tail end of a rather abysmal afternoon for passengers
on the ECML: 2028 London King's Cross delayed 143 minutes, 2038 London
King's Cross delayed 210 minutes, 2121 London King's Cross delayed 108
minutes, 2215 London King's Cross delayed 116 minutes.

Yet the www.nationalexpresseastcoast.com home page proudly claims "No
disruptions reported".

Goodness, I wonder what constitutes *real* disruption at Bowker HQ?

"spark"  wrote in message
news:9e670034-9efa-4b6c-a0e2-f630e05a8539@c65g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
> From the live departure board at Peterborough at 2240 to give a
> flavour of the tail end of a rather abysmal afternoon for passengers
> on the ECML: 2028 London King's Cross delayed 143 minutes, 2038 London
> King's Cross delayed 210 minutes, 2121 London King's Cross delayed 108
> minutes, 2215 London King's Cross delayed 116 minutes.
>
1350 Glasgow - Kings Cross was 231 late at Peterborough. 1700 Kings Cross -
Edinburgh is expected 208 late at York and will terminate at Newcastle.

NXEC will have a hefty taxi bill tonight - though they should be reimbursed
by Network Rail, whose signals have packed up at Retford.

Peter

GC's 1650 off Kings Cross hasn't got home yet either!

I had a grand tour of Lincolnshire behind 67002 this evening, so I too was 
surprised on getting home a couple of hours late that the NXEC website 
reports 'No disruptions reported'.

Still, NXEC seem to have their own time system. If you go to Live Train 
Times on the NXEC site and take KX as an example, trains are three/four or 
so hours late, so for example, the 2220 arrival from Aberdeen is expected 
at, er, 2523.

Then compare systems. NXEC expects the 2214 arrival at Edinburgh to get 
there at 2457, yet other real time systems suggest 0142 (or I presume 2542 
in NXEC-speak) and my money is the latter.

There's other oddities between systems. On NXEC 2052 arrival Newcastle from 
KX is expected 2533, yet other systems don't show the train at all.

I was looking for a train I saw at Newark about 2245 for Scotland, so I 
would guess Edinburgh around 0400! But that seems to have disappeared from 
all systems.

David

The state of ECML is certainly worrying.

On 18th I was caught up in p.m. chaos with 91101 failing on down train - 
rescued by 67019 to Doncaster where train terminated.

My next trip on ECML was 26th. Going out 91108 had failed with 67016 to 
rescue (0752 Newcastle - KX). This was blocking platform at York causing 
much congestion, so although I wasn't very late into York, connection had 
gone. So ended up hour late.

The coming home on 26th was the chaos that initiated this thread, but the 
ride with 67002 via Gainsborough made a change.

On top of above there are the minor delays, but sufficient to miss 
connections at Grantham. I cannot even remember the last time I actually 
made the 2046 Grantham - Nottingham, so I'm consitently hour late home. In 
fact I've given up on ever getting the 2046 again, so now get off at Newark 
for longer connection to 2105 Newark - Nottingham bus.

David

On Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:34:52 +0100, "David Thornhill"
 wrote:

>I had a grand tour of Lincolnshire behind 67002 this evening, so I too was 
>surprised on getting home a couple of hours late that the NXEC website 
>reports 'No disruptions reported'.

Well done.

I got to KX at 18.50 to find the 19.03 Leeds cancelled. I got on the
19.00 Newcastle, with the intention of changing at Doncaster, and not
knowing that there was a wider problem (the departure indicator made
no mention of anything else).

At 19.10 an on-train announcement was made advising passengers for
Wakefield and Leeds to go to St. Pancras for EMT's 19.25 departure,
and saying that there was still no departure time in sight for the
Newcastle service.

I baled out and headed to St. Pancras. EMT had declassified all the
1st class accommodation on the 19.25, but were still apparently
honouring seat reservations. The train was jammed to the gunwales, and
they closed the barrier several minutes before departure in order to
prevent anyone else adding to the crush on board. A couple of minutes
before departure, I decided that I didn't fancy standing all the way
to Leeds on tthat train, so I baled again and headed for Euston.

The 20.05 Euston - Manchester Pendolino ran to time and connected
nicely into a TPE service at Piccadilly, so I did get home.

Just picked up on local news that the chaos was result of cable theft. It 
claims they stole the overhead cable. Is that a first, although I suspect 
that might not be quite what we think? More likely overhead cables leading 
towards the rail cables.

David

On 27 Jun, 19:04, "David Thornhill"  wrote:
> Just picked up on local news that the chaos was result of cable theft. It
> claims they stole the overhead cable. Is that a first, although I suspect
> that might not be quite what we think? More likely overhead cables leading
> towards the rail cables.
>
> David

We have had OLE cables nicked during possessions before when we've had
isolations. Usually its the RC cable that goes missing, but in some
cases the contact wire has had sections cut out. Very deadly game to
be playing, due to the high wire tensions and also sections of the OLE
remain live in some certain cases!

On Fri, 27 Jun 2008 19:04:51 +0100, David Thornhill wrote in
<5Z99k.68499$GF6.46324@newsfe27.ams2>, seen in uk.railway:

> Just picked up on local news that the chaos was result of cable theft. It 
> claims they stole the overhead cable. Is that a first, although I suspect 
> that might not be quite what we think? More likely overhead cables leading 
> towards the rail cables.

According to the Network Rail bod who was patrolling the area
concerned (and who'd been called away to another incident just before
this happened), the little angel concerned tried cutting through a
live cable carrying 650v, and later turned up at hospital - where he
was duly arrested - still (allegedly) smoking nicely.

-- 
Ross. 
* Opinions are my own; my employer has disowned me again.
* Reply-to will bounce. Replace the junk-trap with my first name to e-mail me.

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