Great Western Coffee Shop

There appear to be major delays this morning between Reading and Paddington due to a train being late from the depot and a passenger taken ill (which looks to have been at or just past Maidenhead)..

My usual train was also cancelled due to a train fault (8.00 departure from Maidenhead) but they did stop a later HST additionally at Maidenhead which was very good planning...

The worst affected train appears to be the 8.04 arrival at Paddington which is now expected 74 minutes late.. It left Twyford 25 minutes late and by the time it left Maidenhead it was 71 minutes late...

I imagine that was a challenging day for FGW with more than one issue at once..

Looks like I chose a good day to work from home.. :)

Does this explain why local services on the Kennet line were also up the spout (technical term)?

Normally when I see multiple coupled sets heading at a rate of knots westbound it is a good indicator things are not well!

Dave

received this on twitter earlier this morning

"@NRE_FirstGW: 20 minute delays to First Great Western trains through #Reading due to a trains leaving the depot late #fb"

06:19 Mortimer to Reading arrived at Mortimer 06:33 and then stopped/started arriving into Reading 07:02
The 06:16 Mortimer to Basingstoke was cancelled along of course with the 06:45 return train.

1A73 0546 EXD-PAD (08.08 from Reading) was the HST stopped... a little cosy from all accounts!

and just to add to the list of delays on the above date there was a points failure at Calcot junction (just south of Reading west) which cause delays of about 10 minutes which wasn't too bad and the TM on our service (1736 RDG=BOA/BTM) did a good job of keeping us unformed. As most travellers will know when the announcement "will the train manager contact the driver" comes over the PA it's often bad news :)

and I^m sure my English teacher always taught me never to start sentences with the word "and" :)

I know my English teachers always taught me never to start sentences with the word "and".

But (there's another) it does feel OK in the "telegraph-ese" style that gets used here, and in text messages, nowadays. Don't worry too much about it - it's the English language morphing yet again.

I think you mean Southcote Junction!!  ;D

That one as well :)