The Ticket Collector

Hertford North Signalling Problems Tonight

Services between Stevenage and Hertford North (calling at Waton-at-Stone) were canceled tonight due to multiple track circuit failures.

We have been informed that 5 signals were blank.

Minibuses were provided to take people between Stevenage, Watton-at-Stone and Hertford North.

Qualified Bidders for GNER. As Predicted

THE DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT today announced the parties that have qualified as Bidders for the Intercity East Coast (ICEC) franchise. They are:

• Arriva Trains East Coast Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Arriva Trains Limited. The ultimate parent company is Arriva plc

• First London, Scottish and North East Railways Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of First Rail Holdings Ltd. The ultimate parent company is FirstGroup plc

• inter city - railways Limited, a 50/50 joint venture between Stagecoach plc and Virgin Group of Companies

• NXEC Trains Limited, wholly owned subsidiary of National Express Group plc

DfT issued an advertisement in December 2006 inviting Expressions of Interest in the franchise. Short listed bidders will be asked to bid against a specification based on DfT proposals and the responses to a recent public consultation which closed on 15th February 2007.

The winner of the competition will be announced in Summer 2007 and it is anticipated that the new ICEC franchise will be in place in late Autumn 2007. The term of the new franchise is a maximum of 7 years and 5 months, the last 17 months being dependent on the franchisee achieving performance targets.

Speed Restrictions in Potters Bar Area

Services which have been going through Potters Bar on the Fast Lines have been affected by 2 seperate Emergency Speed Restrictions of 20MPH.

At the moment TheTicketCollector.co.uk has no ideas as to why these have been implemented.

These Speed Restrictions will add around 5 miniutes delay to your journeys.

It just gets worse.

Ok so what a day its been today, there has been some overhead wire damage in the Huntington area.

A train was reported as having hit an insulator, shortly afterwards another train reported that the wires were down on all three lines at Wood Walton (Google Maps).

As a result of this all GNER services were terminating at Peterborough with replacement bus services from Peterborough to Stevenage (fast).
FCC services were running normally from Kings Lynn/Cambridge to London Kings Cross. Kings Cross to Peterborough services were terminating at St Neots for a replacement bus service to and from Peterborough calling at Huntington.

Staff were deployed in various areas mainly Stevenage, Kings Cross and Peterborough. There were some staff at St Neots and these staff were very helpfull from what my contacts have been saying.

The lines are expected to re-open Tomorrow (saturday) but as with all journeys at weekends double check before you travel.

Have a great weekend.

It was a great week……

It has been a great week, nothing much to write home about. Most services running to time and GNER for a change running to a timetable (other then the buses between grantham and further up north at the weekends).

Then it happend, there was a fatality in the Retford area which closed all the lines, GNER services had short minute cancelations due to this and there were delays for the next 3-4 hours. Delays are continuing due to a points failure in the Darlington area.
The week was going oh so well.

Incidents today.

Ive found a new system at work in the past few days. The Incident reporting log. Lets take a few incidents today for example.

A passenger decided to pull the communications cord on 1D43 (1733 Kings X to Bradford Forster Square) at Stevenage station, this caused a further delay at 1800.

Signalling problems in the Finsbury Park area at around 20:20. Planned S&T work, whatever the hell that is.

Oh and there continues to be an Emergency Speed Restriction of 20mph at Offord-Huntington.

Well done NR and FCC

This morning apart from a few minor problems was a normal morning. FCC had decided to keep trains running so that lines and overheads would not freeze over.

Staff are out using thawing crystals on platforms and trains are running with miror delays of up to 30mins. Services this afternoon and evening are expected to continued to be delayed.