UPDATE: Trains are now running normally again
A points failure at Exeter St Davids has blocked all lines, and is causing major disruption across the Western Region.
CrossCountry are being affected between Plymouth and Leeds / Glasgow Central and Edinburgh.
Meanwhile, Great Western Railway services between Penzance and Plymouth / Cardiff Central / Paignton and London Paddington.
Their Paignton and Exmouth services and trains on the Okehampton line are also affected.
South Western Railway services between Exeter St Davids and London Waterloo are also affected.
Major disruption is expected until 4pm. Ticket acceptance is in place with CrossCountry and Great Western Railway via any reasonable route.
GWR passengers can use South Western services between Exeter St Davids and Waterloo and then use London Underground services to London Paddington.
Responses
It does seem that there is some sort of trackwork issue that blocks all lines of a railway somewhere occurring every other week. Is Network rail not keeping up with maintenance and is instead just reacting to failures?
I recall that in years gone by, railways employed linesmen who every day walked “their” section of track looking for potential trouble (loose fishplates, loose rail clips, incipient rail cracking etc). That way repairs could be done before a complete failure took place. I can understand that this type of arrangement may not be feasible in modern times, but what has Network Rail put in place instead of it?
Yes – Network Rail have cut the number of track workers to do preventative maintenance and as a result are now “a firefighting on call force”
When I worked on BR S&T had lots of points failures, BR were installing points that use a hydraulic system to operate, they were always going wrong, I tried to get them abolished.