Dealing with Disruption

The only thing you can really do is if possible send the train the other way and change ends if it can be routed back towards Stourbridge Junction.

I'm not sure if I really understand you, wellgroomed. Are you saying that I should make the train go towards Birmingham and start service at Rowley Regis?

I was playing on Stourbridge Junction when I had a track cicuit failure at the station. I think this has also locked the points which just recovered from a points failure as well, as I can't set a route from the Down Goods Loop to platform 3, which is needed to get a train out of the depot. I tried cancelling the route, but the route still can't be set. I have attached a picture, and was wondering if I have done something wrong, or how I could sort this issue out. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Depending on the date of your timetable, it would have been normal for a member of station staff (usually the Chargeman or Supervisor) to be trained in cranking and clipping up to the large-scale introduction of MOMs (early - mid 1990s), so in those days you wouldn't have to wait very long at all.

Also, this got me wondering about how to deal with other problems and failures, especially when you don't have another track to send trains on. Is there anything you can do in these situations (e.g. points failure at a key junction), or do you just have to wait for it to be fixed? Is there a way to modify timetables to terminate trains short if they are very late?

Sometimes however no timetable location is provided and you have to right-click on the train in F2, go to signalling options, reverse direction and get it to turn around that way, but that isn't quite as nice as the train will be going along at full speed (or whatever speed it's accelerated to anyway) and then instantly stop and turn around without a pause for the driver to change ends or anything so it's always a bit of a shame.

DanH14 in post 153698 said:

I'm not sure if I really understand you, wellgroomed. Are you saying that I should make the train go towards Birmingham and start service at Rowley Regis?

Yes, that's right.

Now SimSig allows you to do all of this yourself with a few clicks if you want to. What you can do is go to the Incident Control Panel (F11), click on the Points tab and then click on the little mouse icon next to the words Points List. Left click on the crossover between the Down and Up Kidderminster between platforms 3 and 2 and you will find that these points are PSJ356A and B and those points will now be selected in the points list. You can now click on Reverse under Hand crank and hey presto the points are where you need them. Revers the points between the Down Kidderminster and the DGL normally, you don't need to hand crank them, and you're away.

Yes absolutely you can modify the timetables. You can modify the timetable of a train in sim by bringing up the F2 train list, right-clicking on the train you want, going to timetable options and there you are you can edit the timetable and all sorts. That will allow you to terminate a train short, form it into a new service, divert it or change its platform so that it will then do what you want, you can use that to do all the kinds of things that would really be done by control staff, signallers, drivers and everyone talking to each other and working it out. You can also use that to terminate a train short and maybe make use of a shunting move or little-used crossover.

As a general minimum - when they are late enough that letting them run to the end will pass on delay on their next run. The lower the frequency, the higher the threshold gets. An express train to Penzance will probably run to the end even if 90 minutes late, but an Elizabeth Line train might be turned short after "just" 10 minutes of delay.