I am looking forward to reading the preliminary and full investigation reports when the are released to find out what happened. 

Don't see the point in speculatution, informed or otherwise.

 


Would be helpful if they stated in what way it doesn't meet the criteria. I've appealed, asking them to clarify.

I did worry about supplying the ticket PDF with Uber at the bottom, but I couldn't spot anything in the policy (actually the FAQs) about it only applying to tickets bought from GWR. Or do they assume that's obvious?

https://www.gwr.com/help-and-support/faqs/compensation-and-refunds

 

I was being unfair to Reuters in saying that - their report was a bit later, and about the subsequent bickering between REE and the generator operators about whose fault it was. REE has been saying some big thermal generators disconnected improperly, and so failed to provide the voltage regulation they were contracted to. Those operators (via Aelec) have disagreed. REE have put out their own report into the event. And the government ... a bit preoccupied at the moment, I gather.

 

I've got a very on/off connection here at the moment ... will take a look when at my next hotel later today unless it's sorted by someone else by then.

 
Wasn't it observed too that the A55 link along the north wales coast pulled economic activity eastwards to Chester and surroundings.

Mark

 
When the railways were first built in Devon they depopulated the small towns and villages and the arrival of the railways as the greatest revolution since the Black Death.  (Aspects of Devon History page 50).

A modern day road example is the Kingskerwell By Pass campaigned for 50 years as the saviour of Torbay bringing jobs and prosperity into the bay.

When built it did the exact opposite and allowed residents to commute out to Exeter where the real jobs growth is. Torbay is a commuter town now, much like Exmouth, and has benefited the Paignton- Exmouth line which is thriving.

 
Apologies - I did 'report to moderator' Graham's reply to my picture post in an attempt to get my post removed (you can't report your own posts ), as I realised it was spoiling what started off as a nice thread. Perhaps someone can split these off into a separate thread?

 

It failed the night before as well, I believe it was terminated at Plymouth
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:P08204/2025-06-18#allox_id=0

 
At first I thought we were heading for a severe taste of thread drift. Then I realised it wasn't all that far from what I saw on the eastern side of Gorlitz/Zgorzelec on the Polish side !

 
21:45 Penzance to London Paddington due 05:07
19/06/25 21:45 Penzance to London Paddington due 05:07 has been delayed at Penzance and is now 130 minutes late.
This is due to a fault on this train

Currently left Reading 84 minutes late (having left Newton Abbot 143 minutes down)

 

Requests to the backroom server have doubled in the past few days ... but looks like me tweaks last night have reduced the load somwhat.  Hard to tell on a Friday morning before dawn as this is the time that the big site back up happens and it makes intensive cpu use as it compresses all the stuff - ongoing as I write.

 

Yes - it's Oybin at the "top" of the narrow gauge steam railway from Zittau, visited 18th June.   Now - where was I yesterday?   These are two different stations ...

 
Whilst the following is speculation, it's informed by reading/watching analysis from professionals in the airline industry.

Bird strikes now seem less likely given that there has been an official announcement that no bird carcass debris was found on the runway or immediately beyond it.

Dual engine 'failure' still seems the most likely cause, although this 'failure' now seems unlikely to have been due to external factors. Nearly all informed professionals have agreed that the Ram Air Turbine (RAT) deployed. This would happen automatically in three scenarios at the stage of flight of this aircraft:

- If it detected complete failure of flight critical electrical systems.
- Very low/no pressure in all three of the hydraulic systems that are on the 787.
- Engine thrust on both engines dropping below idle.

For one (or more) of those to happen at this stage of flight, without an external factor, is almost unheard of.

Now, I don't know if the pilots could instigate one or more of those failures accidentally. Pilot error is a leading cause of air accidents. But it's usually errors in responding to something the aircraft is doing or telling them.

From the flight dynamics there's no evidence that just one engine 'failed'. There would be almost immediate asymmetric thrust causing the plane to yaw. So, it's unlikely the pilots shut down the wrong engine.

There's been analysis of the landing gear position. That suggest that 'gear up' was selected but the process didn't complete. The trucks had swivelled forward, as they are meant to do before they are stowed. Not completing their retraction suggests loss of hydraulic power.

The surviving passenger mentioned lights flickering before the crash. Eye witness accounts are notoriously unreliable, particularly from someone who has survived a traumatic event. But if there was light flickering that suggest an electrical issue.

So with possible hydraulic issues and potential electrical issues that begins to point to a loss of power generation for those systems. That can only mean both engines 'failed' almost simultaneously. As I said, almost unheard of. Even with US Airways Flight 1549 the engines didn't spool down in tandem. One of their engines briefly spooled back up.

Pictures of the post crash wreckage also appear to show the Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) door partially open. This could of course be post crash damage, but if the APU was being deployed this further suggest a complete loss of power from the engines. The RAT provides power for critical systems. The APU provides electrical power for more systems to come back online. On this flight though there wouldn't have been enough time for the APU to fully start up.

It seems that something in this plane decided to shut down both engines. There has been a lot of technical explanations on specialist forums, and from professionals on social media, that explain how this might have happened. It wouldn't surprise me to hear in the preliminary report that a system controlling engine function or fuel delivery designed to do one thing, erroneously did another. Or activated when it shouldn't have.

 
It's the same building, isn't it (albeit somewhat rebuilt and restructured)?

I'll go for https://pixabay.com/photos/oybin-zittau-mountains-train-tracks-7243600/

Chris. 

 
The report of the official Spanish government investigation into this event has been released. It's very long and in Spanish, a mixture of officialese and very technical, with quite a lot of blanked out names. There is also an English version (181 pages), obviously done by computers which struggled with the nature of the text. However, some bits make some kind of sense, and it it clear that the transmission network was showing significant instabilities during the morning. Oscillations of both voltage and frequency were detected, within acceptable limits but still worrying. Various steps were taken to try to improve stability, but in the end the oscillations got too big and generators tripped out (for overvoltage and low frequency).

Paradoxically, disconnecting generators was itself a cause of rising system voltage. This is attributed to the fact that the big thermal generators that disconnected were the ones that regulate the voltage of the whole system. The report concludes that there was too little of this voltage regulation capacity in the first place, which was a planning error by the operator (REE). REE disputes this.

There are a number of news reports based on this document, some of them as hard to make sense of as it is. This one from E&T is quite good.

 

Better than I expected though considering air temperatures hit over 32°c in London

 
It is interesting to compare HS2 with schemes elsewhere.

Denmark's first high speed line (Copenhagen-Ringsted) had a slight head start on HS2, the idea being considered from 2007 (vs. 2009 for HS2). Again, capacity was a primary motivation. Speed aspirations were more modest, with 250kph being considered.

Much of the route runs parallel with motorways. There is some tunneling in urban areas; also some viaducts; but not on the scale of HS2. The work was planned as multiple contracts in the range of Euro30m to Euro200m.

Construction started in 2012 and it was opened in 2019. Operations had a very gradual start due to problems with the ETCS. The route forms an integral part of the Danish network and will, a few years from now, connect to the European network via the Fehmarn Belt link to Germany.

Outturn cost for the 60km double track electrified line? DKK10bn, or about £1.2bn (give or take a bit on the exchange rates)

(edited to correct the name of the link to Germany)

 
It should be built through to Plymouth asap to further broaden educational choices for Okehampton students.

With a secure bus link from North Cornwall so that people from there and from Tavistock can then look to educational opportunities in Okehampton. :-)

Mark

 

I'm highlighting the impact it's had on Okehampton College,  as per the article I linked & the feature on BBC Southwest News earlier tonight.

 

Are you saying the railway shouldn't have reopened?

 

Naughty boys may be throwing stones ... but ineffective now, and the server is recovering.

References to "Naughty boys" should of course - for political correctness - be to "Naughty People".

 

OK ... I have just looked at the server and it seems heavily overloaded ... looks like a (distributed) denial of service which probably means that certain things get blocked.   I have add some locations to my "naught boy" list and expect the issues to be reduced at least.  Watching ...

 

I just got the same message again. 

 
That could prove to be expensive. From the BBC, yesterday, in Wiltshire:


Not an exactly similar situation, I agree, but it does show that councils can be quite determined (perhaps when it suits them). 

CfN.

 

Take a careful look at my picture though.  Yes, that's the prototype, I'm sure ...

Here is the locomotive if it helps