Great Western Coffee Shop

Confusion at Reading round 18:30. My wife was expecting to catch the 18:48. There were no annoucements or staff around but  she made her way to the platform showing a train stopping at Taplow as the 2nd train the first being an 18:30 (running late) shown as Padd only which not in the timetabe for the 3rd Jan. This then cleared and the the stopper moved up to first train and a Turbo appeared. Everyone piled on an assummed it was the stopper. Until it sailed through Twyford. However, somebody in Control? must have realised as it stopped at Maidenhead . The Twyford people were not happy and had a word with the Maidenhead staff who were heard to remark that it wasn't the first time Reading had done that.

It didn't matter to her as she waited a few minutes for the following stopper.

No announcements/staff at Reading, is this Network Rail trying to save money?

It's the lack of attention to detail that gets me.

............are the station staff not employed by FGW rather than NR?

Did happen to me once, a year or so ago, train was advertised as the stopper and it actually sailed all the way through to Paddington! Some very upset people when we arrived.

I wonder whether what you are describing is a hangover from the amended timetable which meant we all had to get buses to and from Taplow to Maidenhead at the back end of last week?

Not ideal but to be fair actually worked quite well, the buses were spot on time both ways and made all the connections OK.........I did hear the driver of the bus on Friday talking about the same system being put in place for Easter when there is more work going on (apparently)......we shall see I guess!

There's the last major block at Easter, so likely

I travelled from Maidenhead to Reading and back yesterday and it looks as if there was an amended timetable.. I don't look at the actual timetable these days though (as the Maidenhead one in particular is always hidden in amongst branch line ones and I can never find it!) and I just use NR site or realtime trains..

Having said that.. wrong or lack of information at the station is not good.. When I was heading home about 4.30 there were  staff around but that was a couple of hours before your other half travelled