Great Western Coffee Shop

From the FGW website: hope that Henley commuters weren't too inconvenienced by their late arrival home this evening:

17:12 London Paddington to Henley-On-Thames due 18:13

This train will be delayed at Twyford and is expected to be 2 minutes late.
This is due to train crew having been unavailable earlier.

Message Received :18/09/2012 17:27

Not as inconvenienced as they might have been from the earlier message!

Quite often get short delays reported when the service was previously shown as cancelled but was in the end reinstated, or shown as delayed indefinitely, but in the end only delayed for a short period.

Cos I'm a "closet controller" I was trying to work out what happened.  A return trip to Shalford was cancelled due to a train fault around the same time and I wondered if they managed to get a guard to work the service forward from Twyford.  I assume it can be worked as driver only from Paddington to Twyford but not on the branch.

Believe it was booked a driver change at Twyford, but the relief driver was not available. Another driver who had been working on the Henley branch worked an additional round trip so the service was able to run through. The Henley branch is, I believe, DOO. It is the Marlow branch which requires a guard.

Correct (both), the regatta line does have a fair revenue presence (Student issues mostly) however.

Do the Bourne End services require guards when they run in the peaks, or is it just for the Bourne End-Marlow section? The reason guards were retained on the line was to operate the ground frame at Bourne End to change the points wasn't it.