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And after the problems in the west, it seems to be our turn today (Fri Dec 06).

05:11 Worcester - Paddington delayed between Evesham and Moreton and is expected to be 60 minutes late at Oxford.
04:50 Hereford - Paddington left Evesham 50 late
05:28 Hereford - Paddington diverted via Stroud

Intriguingly, the first two are both showing as expected into Paddington at 08:18, which should be spectacular!

Think I've chosen a good day to take off. The 0652 WOF:OXF was very very cosy when the 0528 was last sent via Stroud a couple of weeks ago.

Taking Charlbury as an example, this is how trains actually ran on the morning of 6th December:
 
0606 to PAD departed at 0714, having stalled on Campden Bank and had to reverse back beyond Honeybourne to have a run at it.
 
0621 to PAD departed at 0731 having been held at Evesham because the previous train had not arrived at Moreton-in-Marsh.
 
0712 to PAD ^ CANCELLED. A previous train ran in its path.   
 
0731 to PAD - CANCELLED ^ diverted via Stroud ^ but previous train ran in its path.
 
0749 to OXF ^ departed "on time" at 0750.
 
0831 to PAD ^ departed 1010 having stalled on Campden Bank.
 
0939 to HFD ^ departed at about 1046 and terminated at Worcester Foregate Street.
 
0941 to PAD ^ departed 1044 and terminated 70 minutes late at Reading.  This train had been delayed at Evesham.
 
1008 to PAD ^ departed 1113 and terminated at Slough.
 
1042 to WOF ^ departed at about 1110 and terminated at Worcester Shrub Hill.

1104 to MIM ^ CANCELLED.
 
1208 to PAD ^ CANCELLED ^ started from Oxford.
 
After that, things gradually got back to normal.

It seems that HSTs had difficulty in climbing Campden Bank (between Honeybourne and Moreton-in-Marsh), but that the two-car Turbo, which formed Charlbury's 0749 departure, had no problems with it.  It does not appear that a Sandite train ran during the previous night.

I obtained these details from Realtime Trains after I returned home in the evening.

I have not had a chance to quantify it, but there were also problems last night.

Yesterday's 0718 from Kingham was cancelled but was replaced by the 0618 which turned up an hour late. Some slipping at Charlbury and Hanborough; eventually arrived over 60 minutes late at Paddington after cutting out the scheduled Didcot stop.

The 1552 Adelante from Paddington to Worcester was doing fine until somebody pulled the emergency handle at Hanborough so it was about 6 minutes late by Kingham.

Tessa Ceesay (the line manager) was on the delayed Paddington train. I understood her to say a combination of leaves and frost on Campden bank caused the problems and I gather there were problems on Thursday as well.

A minor correction, if I may: she is actually Teresa Ceesay - just to avoid any possible offence being taken. CfN :-[

Yes, Chris from Nailsea appears to be correct.  The 2059 HST from Worcester Foregate Street to Paddington left Evesham 22 minutes late but was 88 minutes late at Moreton-in-Marsh.  I assume this is for the same reason as the two HST delays in the morning - "poor rail conditions".

The FGW website this morning is showing the Cotswold line as a "green" yet reports delays between Moreton in Marsh and Kingham presumably due to leaf fall etc. Given this has been going on for several days isn't it time it was sorted by sanding or the like? The conversation I overheard last week involving Theresa Ceesay implied something was going to be done.

I'm due to go to London later this week so do I get an earlier train, just in case, and then waste an hour?

Stebbo - you've been corrected once - try not to offend - her name is Teresa.

Erm - my fault for typing message too fast. Apologies all round.

No worries stebbo - we all make typos at the best of times....  ;)

From First Great Western JourneyCheck:

From First Great Western JourneyCheck:

So remove the halt to ensure that train can at least coast through....sensible I guess

An additional MIM-OXF special,calling all stations to Oxford ran at about 9am using the set that would have gone to Malvern at 08:39 from MIM. (06:48ex PAD).

Logged on to FGW Journeycheck just after 9.00 to be informed that there is a "good service" Hereford-Worcester-London.  ???

According to Realtime Trains, 1030 Tues 4/11/14

1W12  This service was cancelled between Moreton-in-Marsh and Great Malvern due to it being Autumn (TT)

I wonder if FGW might ask Network Rail to cut back some lineside trees & bushes to make the railway fit for purpose. Isn't that what they are supposed to do?

Network Rail have been doing exactly that just west of Hanborough recently - a notorious sliding spot. Don't know about Honeybourne.

Honeybourne could certainly do with a chainsaw or two.  The area around the station and up the bank for the first mile or so as far as the former Poden Farm Crossing presents few problems, but after that it's pretty much tree-lined for the next 2.5 miles until you reach the tunnel with only the odd break, so the combination of the 1/100 gradient and leaf mulch means you slowly lose speed from then onwards and if you haven't reached 40mph by Poden then it seems to be touch and go in a HST these days - even a notch 1 power application brings instant wheelslip!

Even with sand?

Whilst HST sets have WSP (Wheel Slip Prevention) technology, they don't have sanding equipment.

Another bit of simple Victorian engineering done away with.  :-\

As a trainee loco man on a heritage line, I know that injudicious use of sand can cause traction damage due to it being suddenly very effective on otherwise greasy rails.  Perhaps the designers of this very successful loco did an effect-benefit analysis and said "perhaps not... "

Good sand works well.  Look at all freight locos.

The 0642 from Hereford finally made it to Paddington shortly after midday despite cutting out its Honeybourne stop. A lot of waiting for trains ahead of it to clear the area and for the single line at Charlbury

The real time train times doesn't seem to be able to cope with disruption on this scale - lots of misinformation for several hours

Effectively almost no morning service in either direction

Hope there isn't a repeat tomorrow - I'm hoping to use it

Someone needing to be working at court in London decided to drive to CHiltern this morning - couldn't risk not arriving....

Let's hope they got to sit down and weren't affected by the numerous short-formed services that Chiltern put out this morning.

That's the fault of the old signalling systems that still work much of the line.  Reports are still done manually at some locations and there was at least one manual entry error during yesterday's confusion.

I'm slightly confused as RTT shows it arriving into PAD only a couple of minutes late.

I can understand how the absence of reports at timing points might make it unreliable en route, but once its picked up some actual  reports (which I would expect once past Oxford), I can't understand how it would report a train as broadly on time when it isn't.

Another area where RTT doesn't appear to cope is when a train is diverted en route. There doesn't appear to be the facility to record that it is now going a completely different way.

That is a problem for other systems like the CIS.  If a train from the West is booked to run via the Berks & Hants but is sent via Melksham and Swindon at the last minute the system "loses" it at Westbury and after the default 10 minutes the CIS starts showing the train as "Delayed" until it reaches Oxford Road Junction just outside Reading.  At that point the screens then revert to showing a time.

Thursday 6 November. FGWs home page service updates show a "good service" on the Paddington/Oxford/Worcester/Hereford route.
The first up train, 1P07, 0511 ex Worcester, appears to have got through on schedule, but it appears that the next two services have been diverted from Worcester. Not good news for passengers between Pershore and Hanborough who have no idea when the next up train may appear.
Why can't FGW just be honest and say they can't operate a reliable service at the present time, and stop posting lies on their homepage?

Well, the 1P26 has got through as far as Hanborough without a glitch so far. My lucky day?

The second up train, the 04:50 from Hereford, is shown on JourneyCheck as being diverted between Worcester and Didcot, but is shown on Realtimetrains as running from Charlbury to Didcot in 15 minutes without stopping at Oxford.

It did run via Swindon.  Times in the Ascott/Charlbury area are those for the following train 1P21 (0528 HFD-PAD), which seem to have been confused with the previous one.

I'm pretty sure there is way to figure that out with the data from the network rail data feeds. I've been nerding out with them over the last couple months. But I'm guessing that discussion would be the place of a dedicated board/thread for it. If that could be done, MODS?

As a software developer it has interested me how these things work, but I haven't been able to see under the covers, only the data Network rail has made available which even in itself is very interesting.