Transport for Wales is urging passengers to plan ahead, as slippery rails caused by the autumn leaf-fall season is causing delays across the network.
The lines affected are Hereford – Abergavenny, Shrewsbury – Swansea, Chester – Wrexham General, Bidston – Wrexham Central and Llandudno Junction – Blaenau Ffestiniog.
The Heart of Wales is currently closed until further notice, with a number of bus operators on standby on the other routes should cancellations need to be made.
Trains may be cancelled or delayed by up to 60 minutes. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.
Responses
Here we go again with the advent of Taleddig any excuse buy TFW to run late trains or no trains at all !!! Even with network rails RHTT Trains what a useless company a for warning of Nationalisation Hey the way things are going might as well close the railways altogether !! A Useless company along with the transport Minister for Wales Totally Useless !!!
Shut up tfw is the best service I’ve been
I think you mean that it’s the Cambrian line that is closed until further notice. The Heart of Wales line runs from Shrewsbury to Swansea via Craven Arms and accord National Rail, is not affected.
This news article relates to trains that were affected on the 22nd October which included those lines listed
When we didn’t have trees encroaching on the track ( pre 1970 ) there wasn’t the problem of leaves. The Welsh railways are particularly bad in that the trees brush along the train sides, is it cheap carriage cleaning? Solution – no trees, no leaves
It’s a very real problem…… but almost a quarter of the way into the 21st century, and approaching the railways’ 200th birthday, how can we be in a situation where there appears to be no effective remedy for something that happens every single autumn?
I claim no expertise at all, but I do wonder if the fact that today’s trains are much lighter than the locomotives formerly at the head of trains is a factor?
Lighter trains are indeed one factor. The other one is the change to disc brakes. In the past braking was done by applying brake shoes to the wheel treads. This kept the treads free of debris which did help adhesion even when the rails themselves had leaf mulch on them.
With the move to disc brakes, the wheel treads aren’t kept clean and the resultant build up of leaf mulch on both tread and railhead seriously decreases adhesion.
All those Tory newspapers and propagandists who snigger and sneer at leaves on the line should take note..that’s two high profile rail accidents that look likely to be attributed to poor railhead conditions (Salisbury and now Llanbrynmair). As a former train driver of 30 years, this is a very real problem, Northern’s Autumn Performance Mgr called it the black ice of railways in a recent interview.
Is this issue responsible for the collision last night?
That is yet to be determines. The RAIB is only in the very earliest stages of the investigation. But, it seams likely. Though with the ERTMS signalling which takes into account rail condition data in calculating recommended speeds and braking profiles should has prevented this. It shouldn’t even allow two trains inro the same section. If it was the ERTMS at fault, then the multibillion pound national roll out is in jeopardy.
The RAID has suggested that low adhesion could be a factor, but they have not positively ascribed any reason for the collision as yet.
This collision is a bit different from the Salisbury one though. There the train slid just a bit out of the passing loop so that the approaching train gave it a glancing blow.
At Tallerdig it looks like the train that should have stopped in the loop instead travelled a considerable distance beyond it and completely onto the single track, before colliding with the oncoming train. If that was caused by lack of adhesion stopping the train braking at all, it’s a very serious case of this problem