Great Western Coffee Shop

After delays going home last night I wasn't confident that today would start any better.....

Arrived at Maidenhead at 06:50 with board showing everything as on time to Paddington....great :-)

Then the delays began.... 07:03 delayed, 07:08 delayed.  07:03 further delayed. Passengers joined delayed 07:08 which was then rather full.  At least 07:08 arrived at Paddington only five minutes late.

Don't even know why there were delays this morning - the tannoy system at Maidenhead doesn't extend very far along platform 2, so you can't hear the announcements if you're near the front.

Ho hum.

"Standing near the front" - hope you had a first class ticket sir :D

Yes it was very packed this morning.
Tannoy advised all passengers to take the 7.08, and leave the 7.03
Standing room only in every carriage.
Lucky the journey is only 20 minutes, time enough to read the metro. :P

At Twyford the 6.53 (the 7.03 from Maidenhead) was first shown 3 minutes late, then the delay increased by 2 minutes every 2 minutes until about 7.00 when it became 'Delayed' for a short while, then estimated time became 7.11 and eventual departure was just after 7.12. Apart from a short hold outside Maidenhead there were no further delays and thanks to it being 6 cars I had plenty of room at the back and I was able to be straight out and over the footbridge to the H&C at PAD.

However at no time were there any explanations of the reason for the delay from either the station automated system, the station staff at TWY or the train driver.

The train developed a fault at Reading apparently and was delayed there for 14 minutes.  That would explain the slowly increasing expected time and delayed messages on the screen as it's impossible to give an accurate time when a fault is being assessed and cleared.  No excuse for a lack of announcements though, even if it's to the effect of 'the train is being delayed at Reading, don't know for how long but will give an update when we get some more information'.

Indeed I have a First Class Ticket :-)
Unfortunately I don't often get a First Class service :-(

FGW JourneyCheck reporting now (just before 21.00) that "Owing to signalling problems between Maidenhead and Slough all lines are blocked." Live Departure Boards is showing that the 19:06 Paddington-Henley still hasn't reached Maidenhead and is currently at least 95 minutes late.

Slough Panel has gone black between Maidenhead and Slough, services have started moving now, and once the area is clear of trains the 4 lines will be operated as absolute block sections to the new signalling centre at Didcot.

Correction: as of 2123 normal signalling was restored on all 4 lines.

Forgive my ignorance but what does that mean in practice?

3rd evening in a row I've been delayed, though Monday and yesterday were relatively minor 15 minutes.

This evening was extra 'interesting'. I caught the 19:27 local from PAD going to West Drayton. Left about 5 late and all was ok, apart from a short pause after Ealing. At Southall though the driver announced, to audiable sighs, that we were staying here for the foreseeable future due to signalling problems at Slough. Then about 5 minutes, he announced the Heathrow Connect was arriving on Platform 1, going to Hayes, so I and about half the train, legged it over.

Thankfully the Heathrow Connect driver waited and the air conditioning was a joy  ;D. We left quite slowly then waited before changing tracks so that we ended up in platform 4 at Hayes, with an HST on Platform 1 and Turbo on 3. Whereupon I got off and got a bus to West Drayton, arriving there at about 20:30.

Glad I did get off at Southall; the live departure boards has the 19:27 on the move finally and having departed from West Drayton at 21:20 (instead of 19:48).

Basically the line between the last working signal in each direction on each line, and the next working signal form one big block, like in between 2 signal boxes in the days of absolute block - and in this case 2 signal boxes were involved because of the location of the failure involving the fringe to the Thames Valley Signalling Centre.

So a train from Paddington will be held near Slough until the one in front reaches Twyford?

Yeh, and same in other direction.

I am glad that I, and some of my fellow passengers, decided to give up in the very hot train stuck at Slough just before 8 then and pay (yet again!!) for a taxi home to Maidenhead... Not good... Seriously though if all trains are at a standstill.. there must be some way of moving them one at a time rather than just leaving them all where they are...you'd think

Absolute chaos again tonight.  Usual story: Control at Swindon totally overwhelmed by drivers, guards and stock everywhere, nobody on the ground at the other major stations able/willing to make decisions, total confusion reigning with information systems showing duff information and the usual last minute changes due to unforeseen cock-ups.  Will we ever learn...!?

Should this happen next week, just watch the media land on FGW like a ton of bricks. It's a blessing that the temperature is set to drop by the weekend.

With a complete loss of signalling equipment it's very hard to get things going, signallers won't know where trains are because they have lost the detection of trains, therefore they can't safely allow trains to move. A system was set up to allow trains to move but it takes time to get it set up, and move all trains out of the affected area. Then once it was set up it mean only one train was allowed at a time on a line between Slough and Maidenhead, which severely reduces the number of trains that can be run so will lead to more delays. The principles that the signalling system is built on mean you can't just move trains, everything has to be safe and proven safe and the systems won't allow trains to be signalled and allowed to move otherwise. A recent development in this country is the introduction of Proceed on Line of Sight signals which when illuminated authorise a driver to pass a signal at danger at a severely reduced speed so that they are able to stop for any obstruction within their line of site. They are currently installed on the East London Line core which was newly built, for Network Rail use at least, fairly recently. I'm not sure if any other new signals have them installed. Today's problem was a rather unusual one and there probably wasn't much else that could be done in the circumstances. Obviously what is needed is good communication to front-line staff and on to passengers.

You clearly desire a Railway where safety of passengers is second, and the keeping trains running during failures is a higher priority.

It is at times like last night that the "old" system of manual boxes every few miles would have saved the day as any problem would have been more localised - but then how often do you get a failure on the scale of last night's?

That isn't what I said though.. I was just wondering why they can't move the trains one at a time.. obviously it would have to be done slowly for safety's sake if it was possible at all?

(Btw since you mentioned passenger safety - I'm not sure leaving a 37 week pregnant lady on a very hot train to be terribly safe for her to be honest either - we convinced her to come in a taxi the rest of the way as I don't think any FGW staff members would have done anything)

To be fair it sounds like you are making an assumption about FGW staff there

As for your first point, first thing the signaller needs to work out is where every train is and without detection this isn't as simple as you'd think and then they need to arrange for a pilotman to guide the trains through the section one by one at cautionary speed. This does take time to organise though and trains can't be moved until then

Yes apologies I did think that after I typed it.. I just wonder if she somehow could have got a free taxi.. The Barrier staff certainly saw her going through and it was quite obvious (since the trains had already been stuck for so long) that we didn't really live in Slough and that she was very pregnant..but nothing was said.. To be fair though we also didn't ask..

They were good enough not to attempt to see our tickets mind  ::)

And yes.. I think Southern Stag's reply re what is possible and what isn't re moving trains was very informative to be honest..

I'm just glad we were stuck at a station.. Does anyone know if there were trains stuck in between stations for the hour and a half or so as that would have been most unpleasant on an overcrowded, air-con not working, turbo?

Yes, I was on a non air con turbo which stopped just before Maidenhead.  Fortunately by then it was not overcrowded so if you sat still and had enough battery life on your smartphone/tablet/e-reader of choice (or a good old fashioned book) it was just about bearable.

The driver did his best to keep us informed however with a very poor quality, low volume PA system coupled with the windows open and the engines clattering away it was very difficult to hear the information, however over the course of the hour or so I managed to get:

"sorry...delay...signal problems...all signals at red...power outage at slough"

 ;) some sort of UPS or backup power source would be a good idea  ;)