Great Western Coffee Shop

Just received the following text message announcement...

PAD to MAI on your route: 19:12 will have 2 not 5 coaches - disruptive passengers earlier.

I am curious as to how disruptive you need to be to remove 3 carriages from operation! ;D Are the aforementioned passengers still locked away in these carriages? Whisked away to some far flung fgw outpost?  :D

Hopefully, a BTP outpost!

Many reasons given can be most confusing at times and this need not necessarily be a problem with this particular train itself.   The root cause is always quoted and be a reaction to something that occurred hours earlier

17:18 PAD-OXF was formed of the extra 3 coaches vice a 180.  The "disruptive passenger" reason must be linked to the 180 not being available (perhaps assault on the Train Manager and no cover available??)

One possibility would some form of fight or assault that required a 3 car unit to be detached for police examination.
Another possibility would be that the disruptive passengers delayed the whole 5 car train, perhaps whilst awaiting police, and that the booked train was therefore not available to make a punctual start on its next journey, a 2 car unit being used instead.
Yet another possibility would be a 2 car and a 3 car unit coupled together but with the 3 car unit locked out of use because the disruptive passengers had broken a window or otherwise rendered the unit unfit for passenger use, but still fit to move.

Meanwhile - according to RTT, tonight's 1930 PAD-WSM has been "cancelled throughout due to an unexpected number of passengers joining/alighting the service." What does that mean in rather plainer English???

From what I can see, the 2+3 Turbo was available at the correct time, but the 3 car was needed for the 1718 as the 180 was unavailable.

Pass.  Although, the 1939 arrival from Bristol was cancelled due to earlier signalling/points problems at Thingley Junction, so they may have cancelled the 1930 and used the set for something else.

again? ... must be one of the most unreliable points on the system ...

P.S.  I've seen the 19:30 off Paddington so crammed that people can't board ... super-off-peak after all.  What a strange world we live in!

Might not that have been the problem on this particular occasion - the train was so crammed (the "dangerously overcrowded" description so beloved of the press) that the train manager declined to let it start?  :P

My usual (1705 MAI) 5 car was reduced to 3 car tonight as well, no idea why, nothing was mentioned anywhere.

Looks like FGW might be down an HST set again today, apparently the 0511 WOS-PAD is currently stuck in the OOC/Ladbroke Grove area with a loss of air to the brakes.

On Monday (Nov 10) I arrived at Frome at 0750 in order to catch the 0802 to Bristol Parkway only to find that it was running, at that time, 43 minutes late, the announcement was "due to a problem currently under investigation". Unfortunately the live trains feed on the app was not working, otherwise I would have kept an eye on it before leaving home. Every few minutes for over an hour  the announcement was repeated with delays varying between 43 and 56 minutes. It did turn up at 0856. Surely the reason could have been investigated in that time and waiting passengers given more relevant information. Frustratingly, the only information given was that the train would only run to Westbury, once again for "a problem currently under investigation".

That managed to limp into Paddington but now a Swansea service has failed on the Up Relief nearby.

Yep,  I'm on it. Brake problem.

Both the 17:15 and the 17:18 out of Paddington were showing delayed boarding,  with disruptive passengers as the given reason.

Would love to see the latest reliability statistics, I'm not as close to it as some but there seems to be a lot more failures than usual at the moment?

Did you manage to fix the WOS train. I was stuck on it for an hour with 100's of others and heard some tapping under one of the coach connectors, I presume it was the fitter trying to fix things with his tapping stick.
Anyway, problems was resolved and we finally got to PAD, not limping so much so hopefully not out of service for too long.
WE

https://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/About-Us/Our-business/Performance (https://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/About-Us/Our-business/Performance)

This was http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/C40585/2014/11/12/advanced (http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/C40585/2014/11/12/advanced)
It stalled on the relief line a little outside from Old Oak common. According to the train manager the driver was having a look around outside and managed to 'isolate the problem'.
Meanwhile the original broken down service was off on its merry way.
Whilst bad for my commute at least it left the main open again.

To paraphrase Lady Bracknell: To have one HST brake failure (on the Up Main (http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/C40726/2014/11/12/advanced)) is a misfortune; to have two HST brake failures (the second on the UP Relief) looks like carelessness!

At first, I though one had become stuck behind the other.

......surely Lady Bracknell could have used SWT from Reading to get home?  ;D

With a handbag ?   :o

JourneyCheck currently saying that the 17:18 has just 2 coaches tonight...

From my FGW_Alerts, moments ago:


 ::)

HST power cars only  ;D ::)

Indeed - it's been done before:

(http://i.imgur.com/1ifb54F.jpg?1)

 ;D

1. Bristol Temple Meads.

---

And whilst the alert would logically suggest that the HST due to continue beyond Bristol TM was substituted by a 2 car DMU because of the fault, there has been a shorter formed 'HST' used in passenger service (not the first, and probably not the last time, I'll link to this web page):

http://www.luxsoft.demon.co.uk/village/hst.html

Correct.  ;)



And ... I was quite pleased with that photo, taken rather hurriedly when we were there, purely by chance, on our way back from Bath on that Sunday - but Mrs CfN was less than impressed, complaining that I'm always taking boring pictures of trains and stuff ...  ::) :P :-X

From GWR JourneyCheck:

Now, I'm prepared to believe that there was a perfectly logical chain of events from the gas leak to the short train. But doesn't that suggest some startling images of just how that third carriage went missing?

I saw that one earlier  ;D


We have three dogs at the moment, one of whom was passing a lot of very smelly wind earlier ... is there some connection?

The gas leak was between Gloucester and Cheltenham, just north of Barnwood, resulting in a line closure.    The outward working, 10 50 Great Malvern to Brighton, was stranded on the wrong.   This meant that any northbound trains to Worcester or Great Malvern had to terminate Gloucester and one of these forming the 10 50 Great Malvern to Brighton starting afresh from Gloucester and would have been a 2 Car.  The cause of delay is traced back to the root cause which was the gas leak.. 



Edit note: Quote marks / formatting corrected, for clarity. CfN.

As we say in my native Lancashire "Can tha' smell gas, or is it me?"