Appendix
Responses from Train Operating Companies about their services following snowfall in early February 2012
Contents:
1. C2C 1
2. Chiltern Railways 5
4. First Great Western 13
5. Greater Anglia 17
6. Heathrow Express 19
7. Southern (and Gatwick Express) plus additional information on Streatham Hill station 21
8. Southeastern 24
9. South West Trains 26
10. London Midland 28
1 2 3 4 5 6
Caroline Pidgeon AM Chair of the Transport Committee London Assembly City Hall The Queen’s Walk London, SE1 2AA
23rd February 2012
Dear Ms Pidgeon
Thank you for your letter dated 7th February 2012
Please see below a detailed response to your questions regarding the impact of the snowfall on Saturday 4th February.
1. How many, and what proportion of First Capital Connect services in and out of London on Saturday 4th, Sunday 5th, and Monday 6th February were affected by the bad weather?
The snowfall of the evening of Saturday 4th February had an effect on First Capital Connect’s (FCC) train service due to a variety of weather-related incidents affecting train services from the early evening as snow began to fall and settle.
According to FCC’s delay attribution records, a total of 114 FCC services were delayed by two minutes or more by the bad weather. Of these 114 services, five were fully cancelled and four were partly cancelled (see section 4 for further details).
To put this in perspective, FCC planned to operate a total of 803 train services throughout the entire day of Saturday 4th February, of which 422 were on the Thameslink route and 381 were on the Great Northern route. The vast majority of these services are planned to operate into and out of Greater London. The 114 services that experienced disruption of two minutes or more represent 14.19% of FCC’s total planned train service for the day.
7 Our overall reliability for the day was 98.13%, which takes into account every cancellation over the course of the day.
FCC train services were not affected to any significant extent by bad weather on either Sunday 5th February or Monday 6th February. Therefore, the following responses will relate specifically to the severe weather events of Saturday 4th February.
2. What plans were put in place prior to the bad weather to prevent service disruption?
Following Extreme Weather Action Team teleconferences with the appropriate Network Rail areas and MeteoGroup, FCC arranged an internal teleconference at 1400 on Friday 3rd February. The purpose of this was to communicate the forecasted weather conditions for the weekend, specifically taking into account the following day’s snow and plan our response from all parts of the business including Operations, Fleet, Customer Service, and Communications.
No issues or concerns were reported by our Fleet team for the weather forecast. However, as a precaution we stood down our Class 321 fleet throughout the weekend due to their particular susceptibility to snow ingestion can cause traction motor failures. Any electrical isolations at depots for planned engineering works were cancelled to enable power to be fed through to trains overnight to assist with heating, to prevent on-board toilet water supplies from freezing, and to assist with morning start-up. An additional Fitter was rostered to work at Cambridge after 1600 on Saturday to assist with any weather-related issues affecting our trains.
As a precaution, our Thameslink route Control sought to double train formations from four to eight carriages wherever this was operationally feasible. This allows for additional redundancy within a train set in the event of any system failure caused by ice or snow.
Our stations were treated for ice overnight throughout the weekend, with snow clearance also requested for station platforms as required through Saturday night as the snow fell.
Due to the exposure of the third rail to ice at Drayton Park for the Northern City Line into Moorgate from Finsbury Park, it was planned to have Network Rail treat the section with de-icer and run a ‘ghost train’ into Moorgate very early on
8 Monday morning. This would ensure our ability to operate over the Northern City Line in time for the Monday morning peak.
Network Rail preparations to protect FCC services were as follows: London North Eastern route – staff were planned to come in five hours early, with full off-track, maintenance and operational staff coverage and additional staff if required. It was planned for a Mobile Operations Manager to visit Drayton Park to treat the third rail for ice, if required. Anglia route – additional staff were planned to act as ‘snowmen’ at Shepreth Branch Junction and Ely to clear points and junctions of snow and ice. East Midlands route – additional staff were planned to act as ‘snowmen’ to clear points and junctions of snow and ice and to check for icicles forming on structures. Kent route – additional staff were planned to act as ‘snowmen’ to clear points and junctions of snow and ice. Point heaters were all reported to be working without issue. Sussex route – additional staff were planned to act as ‘snowmen’ to clear points and junctions of snow and ice and four wheel drive vehicles were available. Point heaters were all reported to be working without issue.
The message to customers was that there was no anticipated change in the train service over the weekend, but to take care when on or about stations and car parks due to the slippery underfoot conditions.
3. Which parts of the plans worked well and which parts, if any, did not?
The decision to stand down our Class 321 and utilise other fleets for these services fleet worked well. With this fleet being particularly vulnerable to snowy and icy conditions, the plan to keep them stabled throughout the weekend resulted in a much lower failure rate than we might have otherwise seen, thereby giving more reliable journeys to our customers without a reduction in capacity.
Network Rail’s ability to clear snow and ice from the running line was the major cause of weather-related disruption to FCC. We were particularly exposed in this respect on the Fen Line (between Cambridge and King’s Lynn via Ely) and ice on the third rail on the Brighton Mainline between Gatwick Airport and Brighton. This was the cause of a noteworthy level of disruption as the evening progressed on Saturday 4th February (as described in sections 1 and 4).
9
We were also unable to have the third rail at Drayton Park treated for any potential ice build-up before the Monday morning peak due to Network Rail’s Mobile Operations Manager being re-deployed to a separate incident. However, the first and empty train on the Northern City Line checked for the absence of problems and progressed without incident.
4. Where services were changed because of the bad weather, what particular circumstances led to the changes, in particular any reliance on track and signalling services beyond First Capital Connect’s control?
No planned changes were made to FCC services prior to Saturday 4th February as the weather forecast did not necessitate the need. However, cancellations and alterations to services were made on the day as a result of the bad weather. These services were all altered due to problems with traction current (either third rail or overhead) or points and junctions.
Five services were fully cancelled due to the bad weather. These were: 0542 Bedford to London King’s Cross 0704 London St Pancras to Luton 2135 King’s Lynn to London King’s Cross 2310 King’s Lynn to Cambridge 2357 London Bridge to Three Bridges
Four services were partly cancelled due to the bad weather. These were: 0538 Bedford to London St Pancras (ran fast) 0720 London St Pancras to Bedford (ran fast) 2123 London King’s Cross to Peterborough (ran fast) 2315 London King’s Cross to King’s Lynn (terminated at Ely with passengers forward on the late running 2215 London King’s Cross to King’s Lynn)
Three services ran in excess of 120 minutes late due to issues with points in the Ely area. These were: 1945 London King’s Cross to King’s Lynn (145 minutes late arriving at King’s Lynn) 2045 London King’s Cross to King’s Lynn (180 minutes late) 2215 London King’s Cross to King’s Lynn (174 minutes)
10 These services spent a significant proportion of their delay in the station platform at Ely whilst waiting for route clearance forward onto the Fen Line towards King’s Lynn.
5. How effective were your communications with passengers during the period of bad weather?
Communications with passengers was largely through Tyrell Line Messages to inform them of service disruption. This feeds downstream systems including National Rail Enquires and FCC’s website.
The following customer messages were distributed throughout the evening, relating the most disruptive incidents: ‘Owing to poor weather conditions between London Bridge and Brighton, train services may be delayed by 30 minutes. Disruption is expected until 0230.’ ‘Owing to snow between London King’s Cross and King’s Lynn trains have to run at reduced speed on all lines. Train services on the entire GN network may be delayed by up to 40 minutes or revised at short notice. Disruption is expected until 0300. ‘ ‘Owing to signalling problems between Ely and King’s Lynn some northbound and southbound lines are blocked. Trains services may be delayed by 90 minutes or revised at short notice. An estimate for resumption of normal services will be provided as soon as the problem has been fully assessed.’ ‘Owing to signalling problems at Wimbledon, train services through this station may be delayed by up to 30 minutes or revised at short notice. Disruption is expected until 0040.’
Customers were also informed of disruption and alterations via ‘Twitter’ until 2200.
6. What, if any, further lessons have been learned to inform future preparations for bad weather?
First Capital Connect, in conjunction with Network Rail and the rail industry in general, undertook an extensive review of our management of last year’s severe winter weather in readiness for this year. This resulted in a series of actions that were implemented in order to improve our ability to competently manage severe winter weather.
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First Capital Connect Hertford House 1 Cranwood Street London EC1V 9QS firstcapitalconnect.co.uk
Although we have not yet seen the severity of winter weather this year that we have in the previous few years to fully test our plans, Saturday 4th February has demonstrated our Winter preparations are effective in protecting on train service delivery.
In terms of lessons learned to the importance of deploying Fleet staff on stand- by at key locations for low-level snowfall has been highlighted in order to aid minor snow-related train defects.
It is also key that Network Rail are flexible in their ability to allocate staff to ‘snowmen’ duties in order to clear the infrastructure of any snow or ice, especially if drifting snow is forecasted and we will work with them to ensure this happens.
Should you require any further information please do not hesitate to contact me.
Yours sincerely
Neal Lawson Managing Director First Capital Connect
First Capital Connect Limited, Registered in England and Wales No. 05281077 Registered office: 50 Eastbourne Terrace, Paddington, London, W2 6LG 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Additional information provided by Southern on incident at Streatham Hill Station
The incident at Streatham Hill station was as a result of a member of staff not following procedure and closing the station before the last train had arrived and was not therefore a winter weather-related issue as such.
Having carried out an investigation into the incident, it is clear that the member of staff did not follow the correct procedure for closing down the station by calling our Control Centre to let them know he was locking up. If he had followed procedure, he would have been notified that the last train had not yet arrived at the station.
Steps have been taken by the station manager to prevent a recurrence and clearly, we would like to apologise to the passengers concerned for the premature closure of the station.
Help Points are available at Streatham Hill station on both platforms to enable passengers to speak directly to our control point at any time. Our records show that neither of the Help Points was used on Saturday night, so we weren’t alerted to the situation at the time.
23 Southeastern’s response
Caroline Pidgeon AM Chair London Assembly Transport Committee City Hall London SE1 2AA
15 February 2012
Dear Caroline
Re: Rail services in London during recent bad weather
Thank you for your letter of 7 February addressed to Charles Horton. Charles has asked me to respond on his behalf.
In the London area the majority of our Metro trains ran to time despite the moderate snow fall and freezing conditions, however on Saturday 4th February there were severe delays to late evening services due to points problems in the London Bridge area. Network Rail staff worked quickly to address these problems but some customers experienced much longer journeys than usual. Nevertheless services recovered quickly after the points were fixed and a normal Sunday Metro timetable ran on 5th February. Further afield services in Kent were disrupted due to signalling and point system failures and roads being impassable for planned rail replacement bus services. Later in the evening services on our high speed route were delayed by ice damaging the undercarriage of the high speed train. .
I’ll answer your questions in order:
1. How many and what proportion of your services were affected by the bad weather?
In the main, performance in the Metro area held up well. On the worst day of bad weather, Sunday 5 February, around 85% of the planned service ran and arrived within five minutes of their advertised time on our metro routes. We are still awaiting official figures from Network Rail for 4, 5 and 6 of February and once available, I’ll send the figures over to you.
2. What plans were in place prior to the bad weather to prevent service disruption?
As outlined during the joint Southeastern/Network Rail briefing session to you and other GLA members on 3 November last year a package of measures were put in place to minimise any disruption. From Network Rail these included two dedicated snow clearance trains and conductor rail heating. We fitted de-icing tanks to 20 of our Class 375 trains and purchased specialist snow clearing equipment to ensure that station platforms and forecourts were kept clear. We also made changes to communications systems and processes.
3. Which parts of the plans worked well and which parts did not?
From our perspective, in general services in the Greater London area ran far more reliably than in previous snowy conditions. All staff were briefed and well prepared, and a good number of volunteers were out on Sunday morning clearing platforms and station forecourts of snow. We prioritised our efforts on the stations and areas that are most heavily used. However the points problems at London Bridge on the evening of 4th February did cause disruption to our services. Network Rail is reviewing why these problems arose.
4. Where services were changed because of the bad weather what particular circumstances led to the changes, in particular any reliance on track and signalling services beyond your control?
24 We operated the normal Metro timetable throughout this period. Track and signalling maintenance is a matter for Network Rail I have sent a copy of your letter to colleagues to see if they wish make any specific comments on infrastructure performance.
5. How effective were your communications with passengers during this period of bad weather
I’m pleased to say that communications were much improved and there was no repeat of the problems experienced last year. As you know in the past year we have made a number of improvements to our communications systems and processes. These allowed us to;
Make passenger announcements to many stations direct from our control room
Provide more real information to customer facing staff using Blackberry Applications and new computer terminals
Give more real time information to passenger via Smartphone applications, Twitter, email alerts and the internet
While there is always room for further improvement, we believe there’s been progress made in the information provided for passengers compared to last year. Of course during service disruption it can be challenging to keep customers up to date and there are times when there’s little new information to pass on.
6. What, if any, further lessons have been learned to inform future preparations for bad weather?
We’re currently reviewing our performance however it is clear that Network Rail’s snow clearance and conductor rail heating was substantially better than last year. The points are subject to a technical review by Network Rail and we hope that the learning this exercise will be used to ensure more robust performance of this equipment during future snowfall. Our communication and snow clearance arrangements generally effective.
I hope this is helpful, but if you need further information, or a meeting with Charles and his senior management team to discuss these or other rail issues in more detail, please let me know.
Best wishes
Mike Gibson Public Affairs Manager Southeastern
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London Midland 102 New Street Caroline Pidgeon AM, Birmingham Chair of the Transport Committee B2 4JB London Assembly City Hall Tel: 0121 654 1101 The Queen’s Walk Fax: 0121 654 1236 London Midland SE1 2AA
2 March 2011
Dear Caroline,
Many thanks for your letter of 7th February in which you ask for information relating to the snowfall event on the 4th February 2012. I am sorry that our response has been delayed and hope that the information contained in this letter is useful.
I thought the best way to respond was by answering each of your points raised in turn.
How many and what proportion of your services into and out of London on Saturday 4, Sunday 5 and Monday 6 February were affected by the bad weather?
In total we had 9 services directly affected by the weather conditions on Saturday 04th February which did not make PPM (0-5 minutes) of the 182 booked services. 8 of these failures were due to points failures and 1 was due a coupling issue caused by snow at Northampton on our Class 350 fleet. It is worth noting that our service on the 04th February was severely impacted by an overhead wiring issue near Tring that was not weather related.
On Sunday 5th February we had 6 trains in total fail PPM of the 108 booked services which were directly affected as a result of the weather conditions. Again the service was further impacted as a result of the overhead wiring issue at Tring with 21 PPM failures attributed to this incident.
Monday 6th February was not impacted at all by the snowfall event but we did have a further 5 services of the booked 224 trains affected by the overhead wiring issue near Tring.
What plans were put in place prior to the bad weather to prevent service disruption?
We have a comprehensive set of plans for dealing with Winter events and this was enacted when the forecast for the snowfall was known. We do as part of this plan have a contingency timetable for implementation but on this occasion, as per our internal processes we decided not to implement. The contingency plan would have reduced the service dramatically and with the levels of snow we had forecast we decided that the other measures we have in place would mitigate the service risk. These included additional technical support teams to respond to unit issues, staff deployed to de-ice doors and other actions contained in out Winter Plan.
28 Which parts of the plans worked well and which parts, if any, did not?
We are very happy with our response to this snowfall event but as always lessons can be learned. No single issue was noted to have had a detrimental issue on customer delivery but we are progressing with work streams to try and mitigate the effect of snow build up in unit couplers.
Where services were changed because of the bad weather, what particular circumstances led to the changes, in particular any reliance on track and signalling services beyond your control?
We did not remove any services from our plan as a result of the snowfall event. We did however thin services between Milton Keynes and Euston by one train per hour as a result of the overhead wiring issue at Tring.
How effective were your communications with passengers during this period of bad weather?
This event gave London Midland an opportunity to test our new arrangements for PIDD (Passenger Information During Disruption). On the whole we are very happy with our response in terms of customer information. Our new processes worked very effectively in tandem with our investment in new technology. A full review of the outputs of PIDD was carried out following this event and some minor issues for improvement are being progressed. We fully engaged with Social Networking during the event using our Twitter feed and we sent 1100 tweets over the affected days. We also had modified plans on our website prior to their implementation.
What, if any, further lessons have been learned to inform future preparations for bad weather?
We have a structured weather preparedness working group which takes all lessons learned from weather related events and progresses actions to mitigate further risk. We have also fully engaged with Network Rail in their weather forums to drive improvement of their delivery during snow events.
Again I hope you find the information contained in our letter useful.
Yours sincerely
Patrick Verwer Managing Director
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