On 23 June, 19:45, CJB wrote:
On Jun 23, 7:05*pm, SB wrote:

Trains cancelled to Worcester. Trains cancelled to Wales and West
Country. Trains cancelled to Oxford and Bourne End and also to Henley.
All other trains subject to huge delays. Reason = 'signalling
problems' in the West Drayton area from last night = 'vandalism' in
the Iver area = Pikeys cut the signal cables to burn off the plastic
and sell the copper. SB

Got this email from FGW CS:


Due to the theft of signalling cable at West Drayton, an extremely
limited train service is able to operate between London Paddington and
Reading.

Network Rail?s Engineering Team are working as hard as possible to
resolve this issue, but due to the amount of cable removed, disruption
is likely to continue until 2200 this evening.

Does this area use Solid State Interlocking? If so, they should just
need one twisted pair to control all the locations, it shouldn't take
long to lay a temporary one, there is no risk of dangerous mis-
connections with SSI, either it will work correctly or not at all. If
signalling power cables have been cut, again temporary power can be
laid on from the nearest building, or a mobile generator, using
standard construction site electrics, which conveniently deliver power
at the 110v used at signalling locations, just by modifying
transformers to disconnect the centre-point earth (not doing so would
run the risk of falsely energising apparatus if there was an earth
fault).