Great Western Coffee Shop

Cancellations to services between London Paddington and Oxford

Due to more trains than usual needing repairs at the same time between London Paddington and Oxford fewer trains are able to run on some lines.

Train services running to and from these stations may be cancelled. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.

Customer Advice
We apologise for any inconvenience caused to your journey today.

Chiltern Railways are conveying passengers between London Paddington and Oxford via London Marylebone in both directions until further notice. Arrangements have been made for Great Western Railway rail tickets to be accepted for these journeys.

CrossCountry are conveying passengers between Reading and Oxford in both directions until further notice. Arrangements have been made for Great Western Railway rail tickets to be accepted for these journeys.

London Underground are conveying passengers between London Marylebone and London Paddington in both directions until further notice. Arrangements have been made for Great Western Railway rail tickets to be accepted for these journeys.

Replacement road transport services are conveying passengers between Oxford and Didcot Parkway in both directions until further notice. Arrangements have been made for Great Western Railway rail tickets to be accepted for these journeys.

Any particular reason London to Oxford has been singled out to have so many services cancelled?

Shortage of IETs so cancelling Oxford services was the least worst option rather than cancelling/short form other IC services, particularly SW services?

Goodness knows!  On the one hand shelving a load of services to one of your prime tourist hotspots on a Saturday is madness. 

On the other you can use some of the spare 387s to operate some of them to/from Didcot (which is not the tourist hotspot Oxford is, though something I suppose!) and cram everyone on a 2-car Turbo to/from Oxford.  Or pack them on a slow sardine can Chiltern service to/from Marylebone or one of the already full and standing through services from Paddington that extends to/from the North Cotswold Line.

Makes a change from culling the South Cotswold Line on a summer Saturday I suppose?

AIUI (based on a lot of dissatisfied tweets to GWR), the 387 scenario is one which is being used for those running to Didcot at least.............beyond Didcot who knows?

(Actually I think I may just have come up with a slogan for the Didcot Tourist Board!)  :)

 :D

Turbos would have been the old 'go to' of course, but there's not many spares of those now and they're increasingly showing their age as well as only having a 90mph maximum.

The sheer and utter folly of not finishing the job of electrifying to Oxford shown up today where 387s could have provided a through service, nor just today but everyday.

Not "could have", Timmer, but "would have" - it is unthinkable that we would not then have had a complete replacement of diesel traction all the way between Paddington and Oxford on the GW mainline stopping services, except possibly a few Banbury stoppers.

BTW - has this now been entirely been abandoned/shelved, or is it still delayed pending completion of the Oxford Station remodelling?