Great Western Coffee Shop

We only have three HSTs in the morning.. They take a lot of passengers.

This morning the 7.59 HSTwas cancelled as the doors couldn't be locked.. I don't know how many people usually get on this train but I'd say at least 300.. So then they all  tried to get on the 8.02 fast service from Henley but that is always fairly full when it gets to Maidenhead anyway..

So some of them/quite a few of them got left behind.. The next service is the 8.11 - 3 carriages.. I had to abandon that at Slough as it was so full and incredibly unpleasant.. When it left Slough it was even more full...

So I eventually got to work 50 minutes late..

At least it's a rare thing for me to get to work late these days but some contingency planning would have worked well (e.g. another HSt (Which no longer runs) from Bristol used to stop instead when the 7.59 was cancelled but not any more)

I'm just thankful my first meeting was 10am and not 9am (tomorrow it is 9am so watch this space :-) )

Was the train actually cancelled, ie everybody disembarked, or could nobody get on/ was let on ?

W.E

It ran empty in the end from what I could see.. I am guessing it was at Didcot Parkway that the doors were found to be faulty and was then cancelled..

It went through platform 4 in Maidenhead very fast a couple of minutes before the 8.11 left (so the platform was very full of people obviously) with no warning which wasn't terribly ideal...  this obviously was shortly after the main line platform into London had the 8.02 departure sat there with two trains worth of people trying to get onto a full already train so that was there longer than usual.

The swapping around of the two trains/platforms would have made a bit of sense..

I understand it ran fast from Didcot with the front three coaches locked out of use.