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There's something going on in the Pangbourne/Goring area, presumably the fatality incident - 1C90 1703 PAD» -PNZ has been stuck there for 3 hours now.

This is shown on Journey Check as "terminated at Reading......due to flooding", but is apparently a Hants & Berks routed service that should not be going via Goring & Streatley. It is however still Open Train Times as halted at signal 805 just east of Goring.....

@GWRHelp I'm on the static train that had the fatality at Pangbourne. Can I do a public shoutout for the amazing staff on this train who are doing all they can for us, and remaining positive in a clearly distressing situation. Please pass on my huge admiration of them.

Cancellations to services on all routes
Due to heavy rain flooding the railway all lines are disrupted.
Train services running across the whole Great Western Railway network will be cancelled. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.
Customer Advice
We apologise for the disruption to your journey today.

We are currently experiencing significant disruption on the network and customers are advised NOT TO TRAVEL.

Flooding has closed several routes and a person has been hit by a train near Reading.

Disruption is expected until the end of the day and you may not be able to complete your journey. If possible, please return in your direction of travel and make alternative arrangements. Please keep receipts for future reimbursement.

GWR and Elizabeth Line services will continue to operate between Paddington and Reading.

Customers should check before travelling in the morning as we expect further disruption to services from the severe weather forecast overnight.

Tickets for travel today will be valid tomorrow.

Cancellations to services on all routes

Due to forecast severe weather:

What's Going On:
Train services running across the whole South Western Railway network may be cancelled, delayed or revised. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.

What We're Doing About It:
Extreme rainfall is currently causing disruption to train services in the South of England and we expect this to continue until the at least the end of the day. If you are travelling tomorrow (05 January) we would advise you to check before you travel as we expect that our services may be impacted by the disruption this evening.

The following changes to our train services will apply this evening:
Waterloo to Portsmouth via Eastleigh services are cancelled in both directions
Waterloo to Bournemouth / Weymouth services will start and end its journey at Southampton Central
Waterloo to Exeter St David's services will start and end its journey at Salisbury
Southampton to Portsmouth via Netley services are cancelled in both directions
Salisbury to Southampton via Romsey services are cancelled in both directions
Guildford to Farnham services are cancelled in both directions
Ascot to Aldershot services are cancelled in both directions
All Island line services are cancelled

If you are travelling to stations West and South of Basingstoke and have not yet started your journey, we advise you not to travel. Tickets dated for today (04 January) on SWR services will be valid for travel tomorrow on SWR services only (05 January).

Cancellations to services between Winchester and Micheldever

Due to a landslip between Winchester and Micheldever all lines are blocked.

What's Going On:
Train services running through these stations may be cancelled, delayed or revised. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.

What We're Doing About It:
We have been informed that there is a landslip between Winchester and Micheldever. This means that all lines are currently blocked.

There's a more helpful post on National Rail as follows - "The emergency services are dealing with an incident between Didcot Parkway and Reading. Whilst they carry out their work, all lines are currently closed. As a result, trains may be cancelled, delayed by up to 90 minutes or revised.

Disruption is expected until the end of the day."

I appreciate that there's a lot going on this evening, but surely whatever is happening here merits a separate mention on the GWR Line Update section?

Knowing the almost certain severity of the weather and that disruption was almost inevitable, why, I wonder, did GWR not put out a warning to travel only if absolutely necessary first thing this morning, to coincide with the Met Office message and other weather forecasts?

Cancellations to services on all routes
Due to heavy rain flooding the railway all lines are disrupted.
Train services running across the whole Great Western Railway network will be cancelled. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.
Customer Advice
We apologise for the disruption to your journey today.

We are currently experiencing significant disruption on the network and customers are advised NOT TO TRAVEL.

Flooding has closed several routes and a person has been hit by a train near Reading.

Disruption is expected until the end of the day and you may not be able to complete your journey. If possible, please return in your direction of travel and make alternative arrangements. Please keep receipts for future reimbursement.

GWR and Elizabeth Line services will continue to operate between Paddington and Reading.

The weather today has been significantly better in Cardiff today than it has been all week. The panic about the weather today quite frankly felt bizarre.

11 different line updates merged into one:


95 cancellations currently listed.

Earlier in the evening you could witness the service completely unraveling by various station departure boards showing more and more services down as DELAYED followed by CANCELLED and now they are blank. The Paddington departure board just showing Heathrow Express services.

It has to be said the rainfall this afternoon and evening over Southern England was pretty exceptional in terms of intensity over a wide area and longevity. This coming on top of many days of rain previously.

To be fair to GWR, it was only in the morning that the Met Office upgraded yesterday’s yellow warning for rainfall to another level within the scope of a yellow warning. Based on this, I don't think GWR could have issued their advice regards travelling earlier or starting your journey much earlier than lunchtime.

On a separate but related note, it’s debatable whether it should have been an Amber weather warning given the amount of rain having fallen previously.

The forecast being made at 6pm on Wednesday was very clear - widespread heavy rain across all of southern England, with inevitable flooding risk due to the very high groundwater levels, leading to travel disruption. I don't think it could have been much clearer for GWR to act.

It was a pretty exceptional rainfall event, as it was developing as it arrived and was torrential in many places. But with the chaos of Tuesday still hopefully fresh in their minds, there really shouldn't have been any excuse.

The forecast being made at 6pm on Wednesday was very clear - widespread heavy rain across all of southern England, with inevitable flooding risk due to the very high groundwater levels, leading to travel disruption. I don't think it could have been much clearer for GWR to act.

It was a pretty exceptional rainfall event, as it was developing as it arrived and was torrential in many places. But with the chaos of Tuesday still hopefully fresh in their minds, there really shouldn't have been any excuse.

Even if GWR had issued a ‘Do Not Travel’ alert earlier, how many people would have observed this instruction? Most people haven’t got any choice but to travel for work.

This instruction of not to travel is happening so frequently on the railways for various reasons that its meaning may have been diluted somewhat and would wear thin with some managers of companies people work for. People travel anyway and hope for the best.

It wasn’t until the evening that the service rapidly deteriorated massively enhanced by the tragic incidents at Pangborne. That couldn’t have been foreseen.

Dear Graham
 
Due to a serious incident on the railway between Reading and Didcot Parkway yesterday evening, which involved the police taking control of the main line until around 0600 this morning, today (Friday 5 January) we have multiple trains and a substantial proportion of our crew in the wrong place.
 
Because of this police incident and the continued flooding on parts of our network, we’re asking all customers to check before they travel at www.gwr.com/check because of the significant disruption caused to journeys today.
 
We expect short notice alterations and cancellations, as well as a reduced level of service on our high-speed long distance routes, throughout today.
 
In regards to the flooding, the lines between Swindon and Bristol Parkway, and Reading and Castle Cary remain closed.
 
Tickets for travel today will be valid tomorrow (Saturday 6 January). We also have ticket acceptance in place with CrossCountry, London Underground, Elizabeth line, South Western Railway, Southern, Thameslink and Transport for Wales until further notice to help customers complete their journeys.
 
We’re very sorry for the continued disruption to our customers, it has been a very challenging week. As ever any help you can give to make sure your networks are aware of the above, or sharing the latest updates from our X (formerly known as Twitter) teams at www.x.com/gwrhelp and www.x.com/networkrailwest would be greatly appreciated.
 
Best wishes
 
Tom & Heledd
 
Thomas Lydon | Public Affairs Manager | Great Western Railway
 
Heledd Iolo, Public Affairs Manager, Network Rail Western

The UK Met Office's high resolution model (UKV) has definitely performed quite poorly this week for accuracy in predicting the rain on both Tuesday and Thursday for both intensity and positioning. It has come into line with other models such as the French Arpege late on but this means it wasn't represented too well early in public forecasts (ie just being described along the lines of 'something to look out for').

I turned up at Paddington at 2215 for the 2228 train to Swindon, saw the blank departure boards and then eventually noticed a GWR staff member telling people that there were no services and that the only alternative was Elizabeth Line to Reading and then taxi at our initial expense, but didn't get any idea of the cause, so I assumed it was flooding that hadn't affected my outward journey at 5-6pm. Due to some faffing about with some photos I'd taken at the ROH I eventually turned up to find the next EL train leaving in 5 minutes was also the last service of the day.

With no organised staff at the northern end of Reading to direct proceedings a black cab eventually turned up and £111 later I was at Swindon station. On the M4 I did look to see what the potential cause of all this was and surprised to see it was an incident between Readiing and Didcot, and wondered how this can mean a total closure of all GW departures to anywhere (not even terminating at Reading). What would the people turning up for the last PAD-SWI/BRI have done, taxi from London?

On the flooding front if anyone wants to use Didcot Parkway, consider bringing your wellies. The drainage for the underpass has been overwhelmed again with platforms 4 & 5 presently out of use.

Cancellations to services between Didcot Parkway and Oxford

Due to flooding between Didcot Parkway and Oxford some lines are closed.

Train services running through these stations may be cancelled or revised. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.

Can you tell me more about the incident?
We are unable to use some of the platforms at Didcot Parkway owing to flooding. Due to this our local stopping services cannot run and the majority of our high speed services cannot call at Didcot Parkway either.

What are my alternatives?
To assist you with your journey we will be operating a minimal rail replacement service at stations between Oxford and Didcot Parkway.

Of late, I'm getting the impression that Met Office weather warnings are pretty much only based on what their UKV model is showing. Going back to Tuesday, as you say the French Arpege model was showing higher wind speeds the night before that were worthy of an amber warning. The following morning the UKV showed these higher wind speeds with the yellow warning upgraded to amber. A difficult call I know as you always want a warning to mean something. If you issue too many warnings or too higher warnings, their significance can be diluted, especially by the click bait media!

Of late, I'm getting the impression that Met Office weather warnings are pretty much only based on what their UKV model is showing. Going back to Tuesday, as you say the French Arpege model was showing higher wind speeds the night before that were worthy of an amber warning. The following morning the UKV showed these higher wind speeds with the yellow warning upgraded to amber. A difficult call I know as you always want a warning to mean something. If you issue too many warnings or too higher warnings, their significance can be diluted, especially by the click bait media!

Rob S

Will you be putting a claim for the £111  taxi ride?

If you want to understand what the Met Office is up against in their forecasting, I suggest following their weekly "Deep Dive" on their You Tube (https://www.youtube.com/@metoffice) channel.  They do indeed look at the European and even the US weather models as well as their own.  

Some more background to events in Pangbourne;

https://www.readingchronicle.co.uk/news/24030707.pangbourne-murder-probe-woman-stabbed-man-found-dead/

I have more sympathy with "the railway" in conditions this bad. What annoys me is the endless disruption in only moderately adverse weather.
 Considerable flooding near me, I am not directly affected as atop a small hill, but the odd power cut, and tesco home delivery much delayed.

The bit that I tend to wonder about when something goes awry in the Thames Valley is why route knowledge is not maintained via Greenford and Oxford. Yes, it would be slow, but it would give a realistic alternative route between Paddington and Swindon.

We’re really sorry for the disruption customers have faced after flooding closed some routes.

Rising river levels and already saturated ground means some lines may continue to be affected and customers should check their journeys before travelling.

The line between Swindon and Bristol Parkway is expected to remain closed this weekend, and the line between Theale and Taunton is likely to remain closed on Saturday 6 January. Services will continue to operate on a diversionary route and journeys will take longer.

To help customers with their journeys, those with tickets on affected routes for Thursday 4, Friday 5 and Saturday 6 January can travel up to and including Monday 8 January.

The bit that I tend to wonder about when something goes awry in the Thames Valley is why route knowledge is not maintained via Greenford and Oxford. Yes, it would be slow, but it would give a realistic alternative route between Paddington and Swindon.

Apart from Ollies valid point about route knowledge retention you are assuming there is line capacity on the Chiltern Route

Journey planners are still showing bus services to Swindon on today, Sunday 7th. Trains to Bristol and South Wales are supposed to be diverted via Pewsey. Journeycheck predicts disruption of services via Pewsey until end of 7th.

Anybody know what's being planned?

Looking at journeycheck for clues at the moment (7.34) is a bit pointless ...

I assume one could replace a MYB-OXF service with a PAD-OXF service in the same path if required.

On a different note, is the line between Old Oak Common and Greenford going to be restored post HS2?

The 0745 Bristol to London is heading towards Westbury presumably to join the Berks and Hants at Hawkeridge Junction.

Pewsey Departure board is blank.

Westbury departure board showing London trains as running via Berks and Hants.

Cancellations of services that were due to be leaving Paddington now appearing on journeycheck.

Cancellations to services between Reading and Westbury

Due to heavy rain flooding the railway between Reading and Westbury fewer trains are able to run.

Train services running to and from these stations will be cancelled, delayed or revised. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.

Customer Advice

The route between Reading and Westbury is available for the resumption of train services. However, owing to damage to some lineside components fewer trains are able to operate. There are issues in other areas of our network which will prevent an early resumption of services but we, together with our industry colleagues, are working tirelessly to enable services to operate.

Initially, passengers from Reading for destinations via Theale to Newbury should use the Reading Buses JetBlack 1 bus service on which GWR rail tickets will be accepted. Note that the JetBlack 1 bus service does not call at locations immediately adjacent to all the local railway stations and operates an houry service on Sundays.

A limited shuttle train service will operate between Reading and Theale but please note that there are no onward connecting services from Theale.

A very limited rail replacement mini-bus service will be operating between Newbury and Bedwyn.

Things aren’t going well for the 0745 Bristol-Paddington which appears to be stuck in the Westbury area due a points failure.