Random Transport Chatter

[Pilot]

Just think, we might not need you much longer

They'll always need me. It'll be too boring and quiet otherwise

I dunno, they might see their fleet reliability go up massively without you!

[Redirect Left]

A few week ago Transport for London had a hack of some kind, they found the hacker, a 17-year-old male was arrested for doing it, I guess he got bored or something.
Whilst little data was stolen (some were, you may have got an email about it if you have an account with TfL or Oyster).

Since that hack they have closed off a lot of their APIs.
Unfortunately that means my London Underground traintrackr is only displaying Elizabeth Line & Docklands Light Railway (DLR) services. Little odd to see it so dark in central London.
It also means my full size Departure Board (I'm bad with money ok) is only doing regular railway stations.

TfL have given no data regarding the unlocking of the API. My little signature for journeys below has no access to Tube data either, and honestly that signature stuff is just endpoint after endpoint and scraping my semi-realtime location data from my phones & tablet. Thankfully I'm not going to London anytime soon I think.

[CTarana45]

Elon Musk is still working on his projects!

Christopher Tarana

[Redirect Left]

It's pretty uncommon it happens here in the UK. But alas, it has. Two trains have collided at seemingly low speeds, which resulted in (at least) one fatality.
The collision occurred near the village of Llanbrynmair, a fairly rural area of Wales. 15 others have been taken to the hospital, with what is reported as non-life threatening or life-changing injuries.

Exactly what happened will take a while to establish of course, but it appears both trains were Transport for Wales services running class 158s.

sources: Sky News & BBC.

[Geo Ghost]

Exactly what happened will take a while to establish of course, but it appears both trains were Transport for Wales services running class 158s.

From what I've read so far, it seems one of the units entered the section/single line without authority due to poor rail adhesion. So basically it quite literally slid through the protection point and into the other train.
On the face of it, it seems almost identical to incident at Salisbury in 2021. Even more interesting is that both incidents involved a class 158 and I've heard mutters about them being notoriously bad in low adhesion conditions. Although how true that is of course remains to be seen.

The line around there is also ETCS/ERTMS which should allow for low adhesion in the braking curves and a greater protection distance. So it'll be interesting to see how that may have played a part and if any changes come about.

Although it's fortunately there were no fatalities or serious injuries from the crash itself, it's very sad one person died in the aftermath from a heart attack I believe

[Pilot]

From what I've read so far, it seems one of the units entered the section/single line without authority due to poor rail adhesion. So basically it quite literally slid through the protection point and into the other train.

This is certainly what the RAIB are suggesting from their preliminary statement: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/coll ... mmediately

On the face of it, it seems almost identical to incident at Salisbury in 2021.

Although, unlike the Salisbury crash, where the RHTT did not run, the RHTT in this instance ran as booked, and I'm led to believe jetted everything without issue.

It is however worth noting, it was around 20 hours before the accident, and the weather the night before was noted as poor, which may have impacted how effective it was.

Even more interesting is that both incidents involved a class 158 and I've heard mutters about them being notoriously bad in low adhesion conditions. Although how true that is of course remains to be seen.

Certainly seems that way from reading what a lot of GWR drivers, in particular, are saying.

Unlike more legacy BR stock, I'm led to believe that 158s don't have tread brakes, that have the added bonus of cleaning any crap off the wheel itself.

We could well start to see the Unions take an interest in 158/159 operation, and whether they are inherently more prone to slides (and thus, dangerous) in leaffall conditions than other trains.