Light Aircraft crashes on WCML!!!

[Dave]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/staf ... 808254.stm

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service_d ... b4ec6f4d35

Ta Vulcan's Finest on WNXX Forum

57 thunderbird on route to drag some sparkies.

Ta 47222 on WNXX Forum

Major delays at Stafford. There are Pendolinos and LMs everywhere, which isn't helping the New Street trains.

[Dave]

Developments!

Seems to be worse than the BBC assume? Trains reported as far as Rugeley or Colwich but not beyond are:

1H20 1047 London Euston-Manchester Piccadilly [Virgin] (from Rugeley - Fast)
1U29 0946 London Euston-Crewe [London Midland] (from Rugeley - Probably Slow)
1F15 1059 London Euston-Liverpool Lime Street [Virgin] (from Rugeley - Fast)
1M09 0840 Glasgow Central-London Euston [Virgin] (from Stafford)
1A26 1055 Manchester Piccadilly-London Euston [Virgin] (from Stafford)
1A29 1135 Manchester Piccadilly-London Euston [Virgin] (from Stone)

The Liverpool train is last reported at Armitage, the other four are last reported at Colwich. Assume the Liverpool train is just stuck at the reds whilst the other four are actually in the mire?

Ta Dave Worley on WNX... oh, wait.

EDIT: Extra train in it all.

[JamieLei]

Delays not looking too bad atm, although this is all subject to change. I doubt these figures anticipate the huge problems when a Pendo every 5 minutes tries to run through New Street.

Delays at Euston.png (28.66 KiB) Viewed 458 times

[Dave]

The 1406 arrival from Liverpool actually arriving at 1534 isn't too bad?

I'd be fuming!! Haha.

Euston-Brum/Wolves services running unaffected, although some cancellations might be necessary due to displaced units.

Euston-Liverpool/North West/Glasgow services still running, subject to delays of up to 45 minutes due to being diverted via Coventry, Stechford and Bescot (staying well away from Birmingham New Street thank god), before encountering further delays of about 30-45 minutes on the WCML south of Stafford due to congestion. Then another 20 minutes or so picking their way through train after train north of Stafford.

Manchester trains are worst hit, having lost not only their most direct route but also their second most direct route, standard delay of up to 90 minutes can be expected here, for sure.

All this of course is after the trians still making their way up/down from Stafford have arrived - I wouldn't be surprised to see one or two trains being delayed by 200-300 minutes.

The signalmen at Stafford 4 and 5 are having a 'mare. All non-stopping trains will have to be sent on the fast lines til the very last moment so that stopping trains can still use platforms 4 and 5. Obviously the option of 3 and 6 remains, but platform 1 is out of the question as there's no path from there to the line towards the West Midlands. On top of this, they'll have to be terminating trains literally on top of each other - it'd be quite feasible to see three or four London Midland 350s in the same platform today. Odd.

[Griff]

BBC news are now reporting that three people have died..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/staf ... 809194.stm

[JamieLei]

Oh dear... my little brother was travelling from London on Virgin's services today, and hasn't come home yet. His train was advertised as calling at New Street en-route to Manchester, but had to bail at International and get a connecting train. In addition, every Birmingham and Wolverhampton Virgin train seems to be cancelled...

The line should be back to normal on the 5th *fingers crossed* and we can only hope that disruption like this doesn't wreck Virgin's VHF timetable again.

[Brianetta]

This is where the line redundancy that Beeching eradicated would have proved its worth.

[andel]

Insults and retaliation removed.