Midland Mainline Chaos

Last night northbound commuters and travelers were greeted by chaos just before 9pm due to a train fire with an East Midlands Trains (EMT) heading for London St Pancras. The service was the 1928 Nottingham to St Pancras service when shortly before 2100 reports came in that the rear power car was smoking and flames were seen. The train came to a halt just south of Leagrave station at 2057 when all railway lines in the area were blocked as a safety measure. Just after this came reports that the OverHead Line Equipment (OHLE) power was lost between Sanridge and Sundon trapping four FCC services.

The local Fire Brigade arrived on scene around 9pm and managed to put the fire out within 20mins. The train was finally moved to Luton station at 2210 after the Fire Brigade deemed it safe. However the railway lines weren't handed back until 2230 and the 2030 St Pancras to Nottingham service was allowed through under slow speeds to assess the damage. The driver reported that the contact wire on the OHLE was down meaning repairs were necessary.

The four trapped trains in the area were evacuated around midnight with one EMT train being used to pick up passengers off two stranded FCC services. Meanwhile arrangements were being made for buses replace all trains between Bedford and St Albans with approximately 40 buses being involved at its height.

The lines were open again for trains (on the slow lines) by 0230 and a full service between St Albans and Leagrave was possible at 0300 after Network Rail fixed the OHLE. But due to the several hours of cancellations the morning peak was one of delays southbound but FCC managed to run an almost full service. Both FCC and EMT are now running a full service although Friday will see EMT hit by industrial strike affecting services.

No East London Line replacement buses?

ELL/ELR February 2008
Originally uploaded by MackenzieBlu

There's a rumour going around that TfL are going to be dropping the East London Line replacement buses from this saturday. Its been said that the load figures are as low as 200 people a day. Not bad for a lowly used Tube's replacement service that actually doesn't do much. Many its a case of people using local buses rather than taking the alternate buses to link to Tube? Althoug it doesn't show it on the Tube map but Elverson Road (DLR) is walkable from New Cross (and New Cross Gate is a short walk from New Cross Gate). Surrey Quays is the other side of the shopping center from Canada Water. That basically takes care of the need for the ELC bus with people wanting to go into London use National Rail services from New Cross/New Cross Gate, Jubilee from Surrey Quays. Whitechapel, Shadwell & Canada Water are Tube stations so no replacement needed there. That leaves Rotherhithe & Wapping without a link. Rotherhithe has the 381 which links it to Canada Water and Bermondsey Tube stations and is a disable access bus with frequent services. Wapping has the frequent disable acess 100 bus connectioning it to Tower Hill/Gateway, Aldgate and St Paul's among many places. So basically there is no need for these replacement bus services really. But only time will tell.