Silverlink creeps back into service

Silverlink County Trains gradually reinstated its Class 321 trains today after engineers worked through the night to fix problems with the braking system.

The entire fleet of trains was withdrawn from service yesterday, causing chaos for rail passengers between Birmingham and London Euston.

All trains were suspended between Birmingham, Northampton, Milton Keynes, Watford and London Euston.

But this morning two 321 trains were back in operation. One left Milton Keynes at 7.35am.

Jonathan O'Neil, a spokesman for Silverlink, said the company's own engineers, independent engineers and Her Majesty's Inspectorate engineers were called out to examine the problem.

During a routine maintenance inspection, it was noted that the bolts which secured the brake disc to the train had worked loose, he said.

He said: "The creme de la creme (of engineers) were examining this issue, trying to work out a solution.

"They have been working through the night and have come up with a solution that
has been approved by HM Inspectorate. We agreed that this was a workable and safe solution to the problem."

Mr O'Neil said engineers immediately started work on the fleet - containing just under 40 trains - and had completed two.

But he warned that most Silverlink 321 trains would not be back in operation until Monday at the earliest.

"It is going to take a while to work our way through all the fleet," he said.

"The service is still very sketchy and it is going to take a considerable time to put the solution in place. We are not going to see the bulk of the trains until after the weekend.

"We are going to pull out every stop. We have our three depots fully staffed and working continuously and we thank all our passengers for bearing with us."

Services are still suspended from Birmingham, and the only services to run today will be from Milton Keynes.

Mr O'Neil said the fact the proem was spotted before anything unfortunate happened was proof the maintenance system was working well.

"This problem must have occurred between checks," he said. "We need to understand it so we can prevent it happening in the future.

"The engineers have come up with a way of working on these brake discs and we are going to carry out extra checks above and beyond what is required."