02.12.14
Snow Hill services running again after signalling problem re-occurs
Services on the Snow Hill lines in the West Midlands are back up and running today after the re-emergence of signalling problems yesterday, which were thought to be fixed after nearly a week of disruption at the end of November.
Network Rail notified London Midland about the problem on Sunday 30 November, which meant that the operator was unable to run train services between Shirley and Stratford upon Avon from the start of service on Monday 1 December.
During the original investigative work around 21 November, Network Rail brought in teams of engineers to work on the fault, which narrowed the problem down to a 15-mile area of track. After exhaustive testing, engineers identified two faulty data cables.
When the problem re-surfaced on 30 November, a London Midland spokesperson said: “We were very disappointed when Network Rail reported further problems on the line.
“We are really sorry to our passengers who have had to put up with another day of disruption on the Snow Hill line. We aim to run a near full service in this evening’s [1 December] peak and will take a view on tomorrow’s service after that.”
RTM was told today by London Midland that Network Rail had restored the signalling system, and that “so far” everything is working fine.
“During the original work, Network Rail finger-searched every inch of the cable and renewed a lot of the renewable items, whether they were faulty or not, and it is now back up. There was a slight wobble yesterday, but that has been rectified,” a spokesperson from the operator told us.
“It is a very busy junction and line nowadays, so the effect on customers is a lot more than it would have been a few years ago. But we’re happy to say that services are up and running again.”
RTM approached Network Rail for an update on the latest fault and the work undertaken to rectify it, but at the time of publication had received no reply.
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