Great Western Coffee Shop

Looks like there as a shortage of suitable stock this morning as the following trains were cancelled:

0758 Oxford Didcot (from Banbury)
0834 Didcot Banbury
0700 Worcester to Didcot
0910 Didcot Oxford
0904 Oxford Didcot (from Banbury)
0938 Didcot Oxford
0934 Oxford Didcot

These are all 165 worked, hopefully the introduction of class 175 to the west will allow more 165/166 to move back to Reading.
Failing that can Chiltern loan GWR a 165 (or take over the Didcot - Oxford service  :)) maybe this will be possible once GBR is up and running ;D

I hope it will mean that IETs can resume the through Paddington<>Bedwyn service, thus releasing a Turbo unit currently used on the Newbury to Bedwyn shuttles, and we may well gain another unit if the battery trial train enters service between West Ealing<>Greenford.

Oh, and {whispers it quietly} the once great Chiltern have been pretty woeful of late as well!

And not surprisingly more cancellations this evening:
1534 Oxford  - Didcot
1635 Oxford - Didcot
1607 Didcot - Oxford
1704 Didcot - Moreton in Marsh

No chance of that - Chiltern don't have any spares currently yas one is away for refresh on a rotating basis for a year or so.

Also I believe there are differences which preclude being used on GWR metals, maybe someone could confirm a different ATP system and something regarding the electrical boxes on coupling?

Or is my memory fading me?

Circa 2000, about five Chiltern Turbos were with Thames Trains. Not sure for how long, or what changed at TT to end the need for them. Being 75mph units I think they were generally used on the Thames Valley branches. I've no idea if there have been electrical changes, but I think the ATP difference existed then.  I can't remember if the Thames Turbos had GWR ATP or just HSTs anyway, but again running on just the branch lines presumably avoided it being a problem - is/was ATP just on the main lines? Or perhaps ATP was allowed to be disabled if running only on sub-100 lines.

That "rings a bell" - I recall noticing that there were 165s with the old Chiltern sector logo on the NSE livery, in the place of the "Thames" one on the outside of one side of the end passenger saloon at Reading - possibly used on the North Downs line.

There must be a reason for the shortage of units in the Thames Valley, we have just come out of the "leaves on the line season" this causes flat tyres (yes trains get flat tyres .......... actually flats on the tyre) which any with flats need to go on a wheel lathe; the track engineers do not like trains with excessive flats running, in fact Network Rail has rail mounted detectors.  Also there could be a shortage key components, may be wheel sets if there has been excessive ware on the wheels due to flats.