Great Western Coffee Shop

Flooding Train Plan Friday 10th January 2014    Issued at 09/01/14 11:53   
   
Principles of service
 
Class 1 Paddington/Oxford/North Cotswolds
All Class 1 services between Paddington ^ Oxford/Worcester/Hereford and v.v cancelled with the following exceptions;
 
1P07 0511 Worcester SH ^ Paddington formed turbo and will now terminate at Oxford
1P13 0450 Hereford ^ Paddington operates as booked.
1P21 0528 Hereford ^ Paddington diverts via Kemble (timed to run in booked path from Didcot)
1D09 0620 Paddington ^ Oxford terminates Didcot
1P24 0807 Oxford ^ Paddington services starts Didcot (Ex 1D09)
1P26 0642 Hereford ^ Paddington diverts via Kemble (timed to run in booked path from Didcot)
1W08 1822 Paddington ^ Hereford diverts via Kemble
1W09 1922 Paddington ^ Hereford diverts via Kemble
 
Class 2 Paddington/Oxford
All Class 2 services between Paddington ^ Oxford and v.v operate between Paddington and Didcot Parkway only.
 
A shuttle service will operate between Didcot PW and Oxford using a fleet of 3 dedicated turbos to prevent vast majority of fleet passing through flood water.
The shuttle service will operate at xx26 and xx57 from Didcot PW ^ Oxford (with the intention of connecting with the services ex Paddington). They will operate at xx07 and xx37 from Oxford ^ Didcot (with the intention of connecting into the services to Paddington).
 
Oxford ^ North Cotswolds
The service will run with current headcodes and be timed to depart Oxford as they currently do in the advertised times shown. These services will run as far as Worcester Shrub Hill only to form return workings.
 
The exception from Wednesday 8th, being that we will also run the Morton In Marsh services, starting from Oxford and terminating at Oxford.
 
Oxford ^ Banbury
Services will operate as booked between Oxford and Banbury and v.v. Services will not operate South of Oxford.
 
Note ^ Cross Country Trains will not operate between Oxford and Reading

Emails received from Journeycheck don't quite tally. Didcot & Oxford & v.v down to one/hour.


and

This was posted from TyrellCheck which is the internal staff messaging system.

I am more inclined to believe Tyrell then JourneyCheck.

JourneyCheck is sourced from National Rail who in turn source it from FGW and other TOCs. TyrellCheck messages are sent direct from FGW Control without being edited etc by National Rail Enquiries.

However as this message was posted at 12pm It might have been updated.

Also misinformation on Radio Oxford, tonight stating that FGW has cancelled all trains except for the hourly shuttle between Oxford and Didcot. No mention of arrangements from Oxford westwards.

AFAIK, Journey Check is basically the public version of Tyrell Check. The information on Journey Check is all derived from that on Tyrell Check, just a public rather than staff version of the information. The Oxford-Didcot Parkway shuttle has gone down to 1tph today, but as far as I can tell is planned to run twice an hour tomorrow.

It was planned to run as two trains per hour today but had to be reduced after the height of the water increased and closed the up line (towards Didcot).  Single line working had to be introduced on the other line which reduced the capacity.

Latest amended plan for Friday 10/01

Class 1 Paddington/Oxford/North Cotswolds

All Class 1 services between Paddington ^ Oxford/Worcester/Hereford and v.v cancelled with the following exceptions;

 

3D16/1P16 WILL RUN ^ 1P16 to call additionally at Reading, Didcot to issue SSO


1P07 0511 Worcester SH ^ Paddington terminates Oxford (Formed Turbo)

1P13 0450 Hereford ^ Paddington operates as booked.

1P21 0528 Hereford ^ Paddington diverts via Kemble (timed to run in booked path from Didcot)

1D09 0620 Paddington ^ Oxford WILL RUN and will terminate Didcot

1P24 0807 Oxford ^ Paddington service starts Didcot (Set Ex 1D09)

1P26 0642 Hereford ^ Paddington diverts via Kemble (timed to run in booked path from Didcot)

1D53 1718 Paddington ^ Oxford, terminates Didcot and forms 2P78 (Turbo)

1W07 1722 Paddington ^ Hereford WILL NOT RUN

1D57 1735 Paddington ^ Oxford, terminates Didcot and forms 2P80 (Turbo)

1W08 1822 Paddington ^ Hereford RUNS AS BOOKED, set to stable overnight at Hereford, Crew to taxi back to Bristol. t.

1D69 1918 Paddington ^ Oxford, terminates Didcot and forms 2P87 (Turbo)

1W09 1922 Paddington ^ Hereford diverts via Kemble, terminates WSH, Set to stable overnight

1W75 2020 Paddington ^ Gt Malvern WILL NOT RUN

1W81 2148 Paddington to WSH WILL NOT RUN

 Class 2 Paddington/Oxford

All Class 2 services between Paddington ^ Oxford and v.v operate between Paddington and Didcot Parkway only.

 AMENDMENT

A shuttle service will operate a further reduced service between Didcot PW and Oxford and VV. *** After morning Peak two hourly service**

The shuttle service will operate at xx57 from Didcot PW ^ Oxford

The shuttle service will operate at xx07 from Oxford ^ Didcot. 

This shuttle service will be supported by Rail replacement road transport where required .

 

Oxford ^ North Cotswolds

Operating utilising 3-car Turbos from Oxford ^ Worcester FG and v.v. Services will run at booked departure times.

 

Oxford ^ Banbury
Services will operate as booked between Oxford and Banbury and v.v. Services will not operate South of Oxford.

And from the FGW Homepage

Next Update at 06:30      Friday 10th January 2014

First Great Western services between Worcester, Oxford and Didcot Parkway continue to be affected by flooding.  Due to current restrictions in the area between Oxford and Didcot Parkway we have had to suspend our train shuttle service for the remainder of this evening. Limted road replacement will operate until midnight  (09th January).

For start of service on Friday 10th January we are having to further reduce our service between Oxford and Didcot Parkway to a two hourly shuttle service. From Oxford to Didcot Parkway we shall operate 06:07.07:07,08:07 10:07 then two hourly throughout the day. From Didcot Parkway to Oxford we shall operate 06:57, 08:57,10:57 and then two hourly throughout the day.  These services will not call in either direction at Appleford or Culham and customers for these Stations are asked to seek road replacement from Didcot Parkway .  The two hourly shuttles will be formed of 6 coaches and be supported by road replacement , subject to road conditions. Customers travelling between London and Oxford and North Cotswolds (in either direction) are advised to travel on Chiltern Trains Services between London Marylebone and Banbury and change for Oxford.

The current estimates are that these conditions will remain unchanged until at least Saturday 11th January 2014

**************new info*************


Water levels in Hinksey area have dropped. Single Line Working Cancelled.

Hourly FGW shuttle Oxford-Didcot-Oxford will now run, as per journey check info.

A 5 Mph speed is still in place but both Up & Down Lines are open as of 0300

remainder of train plan still in place.

6.41 and 7.08 departures from Maidenhead both cancelled again today although the conflicting information between Journeycheck/Realtime trains/NR departures board is making my head hurt  ::)

They have removed a fair chunk of Maidenhead's fast trains so it's not been the best week unless you like overcrowded trains/no trains at all. Fortunately the 7.59 which I get is usually ok as it comes from Old Oak Common to Didcot Parkway where it starts (now WHY did I say that, hope I've not Jinxed it today).

Can't feel much for Maidenhead - Oxford have it *far* worse.

I think FGW have dealt with this disruption very badly. Cancellations and ammendments for stations north of Didcot is understandable, but the pathetic service Twyford and Maidenhead have received this week in the peak is much less forgivable. This has had a nock on for other stations as Twyford and Maidenhead commuters have been forced on to (sometimes short formed) stopping services which have been frequently been leaving people behind east of Slough.

I'm perplexed as to why so many services have been cancelled completely - surely they could have been run to/from Didcot (3 platforms available to turn round services) or Reading using some of the recently added platform capacity. The cancellations must have freed up some units, but these don't seem to be used to strengthen the remaining services.

Information distribution has again been a massive problem with cancellations appearing to be last minute. Basically I think they are using the flood as an excuse to cancel lots of services because it is the easy and cheapest option. Not good enough! <Rant over>

Perhaps a better service could have been provided - I haven't got detailed access to the information, but it's worth pointing out that around a third of those early morning LTV services between Reading and Paddington are crewed by Oxford drivers, which, due to the difficulty in getting to Didcot by train or bus in time to work a service that usually comes from Oxford but has instead started at Didcot, has made crewing problematic to say the least.

I suspect the usual 'every decision large and small has to get authorised through Swindon Control' has, again, not worked very well when disruption hits hard and the telephones keep ringing.  Control staff can't cope, and when simple things like a stop order at Shipton (I witnessed three people in various locations literally waste minutes on that topic earlier in the week when they all had bigger fish to fry), could and should be decided at a local level.

I agree with you completely autotank. I'm getting a lot of deja vu this week, this is the third time in recent years when this situation has occurred and I think too that FGW are taking the easy solution by just cancelling trains. I'm finding it difficult to believe that anyone in FGW cares about overcrowding issues at local stations east of Reading, unless they're really not aware of them??? OK, so this morning's failure of the 180 at Twyford was an unfortunate coincidence, but it made an already bad capacity issue quite dire.

If the flooding south of Oxford is going to be a regular event then FGW should draw up a contingency plan involving the evacuation of Turbos from Oxford sidings to other locations - but didn't that happen once with Turbos moved out via Banbury, High Wycombe and Greenford? Why not this time? And again, if this is going to be a regular event why doesn't Network Rail look for a solution as they did at Cowley Bridge? With apologies to Devonians, surely this flood at Oxford is having a greater effect on the rail network (including freight)?

OK, my own rant over!  :)

EDIT - just seen II's posting about Oxford drivers, but again surely a proper contingency plan for a regular flooding occurrence could include transferring drivers by road.

That particular issue is completely understandable, and I have no problem with that at all. I also have sympathy for weather disruption which is completely out of their control (yes, the results are controllable (raising the trackbed in the flood area as previously discussed), but the causes aren't).

What I do have an issue with, is when the trains are running, they are (mostly) 3 carriages. Yet every time we pass Reading Depot, there are 10's of carriages sitting there. I appreciate that some of those are in for maintenance, but are they all so urgently requiring maintenance that they can't be used for a couple of days to strength the few services that are able to run ?

In times of disruption, I wish that ruddy great fence they built along the depot, was on the other side of the tracks - at least our noses wouldn't be rubbed in it as we crawl past the depot with our faces jammed against the window!

Just a couple of points to raise, whilst wishing to reiterate that many areas of service provision this week could have been improved!

1)  There are hardly any units in the Oxford area (at least there weren't on Wed/Thu).  There are a couple that are specifically being used to run through the flood water and the others (five or so) are required to work the Banbury and Worcester service.  The line has stayed open, so at least fuelling issues are not so much of a problem as units can be swapped overnight if necessary.

2)  Transferring drivers (and indeed passengers) by road is very difficult when both of the routes out of the city for the south (Abingdon Road/Botley Road) are both shut due to flooding (they still are).  So going up the Woodstock/Banbury Road is the only option and those are heavily congested and take much longer at the best of times.  I think I remember seeing a tweet from the Oxford Bus Company saying that one of their buses took 1h 20m to get down the length of the Woodstock Road in rush hour on Wednesday evening - that's 80 minutes to cover 2 miles!

Whilst have a lot of empathy for Oxford passengers, but what FGW have successfully expanded the misery when there is no need too; yesterday and this morning the 07:02 (6 car turbo) which is a Didcot start was cancelled it was shown as right time but was capped at Reading why?  The 07:08 (8 car HST) was also cancelled this is understandable as it has to travel over the flooded route then the 07:16 (a 5 car turbo) cancelled which left the 07:13 (a 5 car turbo) which also calls at Slough to pick up several hundred passengers.

FGW must have planned to fail because the usual number of platform staff to see off the departure the HSS from Maidenhead have been absent just leaving the poor old station manager to deal with a lot of irate people.

There has been a total lack of communication or apology to the Maidenhead passengers from FGW most of the accept the fact there may be some disruption but as far a Maidenhead early morning peak fast services abandonment is the word I would use. 

Exactly.. Issues created where they weren't necessarily needed.. no info as usual  ::) ;D

Also this morning..  The info boards at Maidenhead showed 7.45, 7.46, 7.48 and 7.49 stopping trains to London.. Quite impressive and also impossible.. On NR departures board the 7.45 showed as cancelled.. It ran.. 7.46 and 7.48 were fictitious it seems.. Meanwhile the 7.59 and 8.02 passengers got the chance to play musical platforms.. All good fun  ::)