Network Rail is advising passengers of a limited service today (8th December) at London Paddington after an overhead wire cable came down yesterday evening (Thursday 7th December).
The overhead wire cable came down in the Ladbroke Grove area and left a number of trains without power and passengers had to be evacuated.
Engineers have worked to get two out of the four tracks into London Paddington open for electric trains this morning.
A Network Rail spokesperson said: “We are so sorry for the difficult journeys passengers endured on our railway last night and we will be investigating how and why it happened. The knock-on effects from last night mean operators will not be able to run a full service from Paddington today and passengers should check before they travel. Repairs are ongoing and we hope to have the railway fully open by the weekend.”
Responses
Zaphod is correct…a manager driving a train lowering the rear pantograph and raising the front at speed…
Nothing to do with thieves….
Its called being there being used and oh something gave up just like they do on the rest of the network which had had OHLE for years.
Just ciz the gwr route has o ly received this equipment doesn’t mean its not going to get pull dine by its own doings like the rest of the national network.
Get a life people and welcome to the modern railway and theres nothing great about the western to guve it special treatment. As for those that got stuck tough! Get used to it because its going to happen all the time 👍🏻
Come back steam
I suspect it was due to Sods Law.
Maybe a poor design.
It was due to a strikebusting manager incorrectly switching pantographs on a GWR train as it travelled through the junction at 50mph. This raises genuine health & safety issues which the TOCs are trying to brush under the xarpet.
Is there proof of what you say?
Yes, ideally power lines shouldn’t come down and hopefully the investigation will establish why, but (as so common with these incidents) the key failure was the glacially slow pace of Network Rail engineers and Emergency services. After the cable came down, all electricity and traffic was halted within minutes and NR engineers on site shortly after, so what was going on for the next 4 – 5 hours before passengers finally disembarked the train?
What ever created the huge issue,must be checked out.Is it due to poor workman-ship,vandalism or poor quality cable?
Please make the findings public.
Thank you.
Thieves out in force nicking live AC 25,000v OHLE and causing major disruption to trains. I wonder why they risked their own lives to cause such havoc on the railways. Hope they are found, guilty and sent to prison.
The power lines of the OHLE come down for a number of reasons. Theft is the most unlikely. There are a lot of opportunities for wire theft, even the dumbest wire thief won’t mess with the overheads and that’s from someone with 34 years Railway service.
Sorry meant was damaged. Not stolen.