Great Western Coffee Shop

17:05 Taunton to Cardiff Central due 19:15
This train has been revised.It will no longer call at: Bridgwater, Highbridge & Burnham, Weston Milton, Worle, Yatton, Nailsea & Backwell, Parson Street and Bedminster.This is due to an earlier problem with line-side equipment.


18:07 Taunton to Bristol Temple Meads due 19:15
This train will be terminated at Weston-Super-Mare.It will no longer call at: Weston Milton, Worle, Yatton, Nailsea & Backwell, Parson Street, Bedminster and Bristol Temple Meads.This is due to a train fault.
(from FGW site)

I dont know what the timetable is like for that area at that time of day, but i can imagine there were a couple of even more overcrowded trains in this area this evening with these two cancelations.

1c88 68 late due to some person walking down the 4 foot after having a barney with his misses! no wonder have to miss out stops. anyone now what the final knock on resalt was.

2c46 plymouth to penzance terminated at par. 2e79 penzance to exeter st. davids started at truro. ???

2C46 terminated Par as Network Rail werent happy to have it terminate Truro as it would get in the way of the Orient Express!! 2C46 shumted to down loop at Par to let 1Z67 past then ran ECS to Truro to start 2E79. Why 2C46 couldnt of just been put in p3 at Par then follow 1Z67 to Truro god only knows. More bad decisions by those in Swindon.....

Because that would be proper railway work and would have to be done by railwaymen, not management accountants.

I blame Tom Windsor who was convinced you can manage the railways by tight contracts. 1Z67 being the Orient Express had a contract to run at whatever times it was booked, 2C46 had broken its contract by running late. I don't suppose there was anything in 2C46's contract to say what should happen if it were to run late and possibly delay 1Z67.

In the old days the Par signalman would get a call from control saying put 2C46 in platform 3 to follow 1Z67. Nowadays  you have two train operators and Network (possibly teh ROSCOS if a train failure) all with their fingers in pie and who all have to agree a strategy as to the course of action. The TOCs, ROSCOS and Networkrail all have different agendas, so the optimum solution gets lost.

Networkrail likes late trains due to the TOCs fault as it gets a premium whereas TOCS obviously don't unless they can blame Networkrail when they get the premium.   In this case FGW had a vested interest in minimising delay to 2C46 the Orient Express would be happy to be delayed as they would get compensation and Networ rail need to be able to blame the TOCs for any delay.

Even worse there is a whole body of staff in the TOCS, Networkrail and the ROSCOs (train failures) who do nothing but apportion dealy minutes for trains. What a waste of time and effort.

Orient Express was 50 down today, so it was doing the holding up.

1c46 48 late again leaving plymouth who's fault this time. >:(

That's why they employ an army of clerks to work it out and apportion blame (costs).