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Due to heavy snow in London (approx 10CM) Current at 13:38GMT 37 FGW services are cancelled, There are also 33 Short Workings.

Most London Underground Services have been suspended, with only a few lines operating. London Buses are also suspended.

But, the best bit, Mayor Boris Johnson has waived the days congestion charge ;D

More info at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7864315.stm

I think a word of congratulation is due to the FGW staff who kept some sort of service running today in trying conditions, such as the driver on the way into Oxford who pulled back five minutes of a 20-minute delay waiting at Evesham for a late-running Malvern service, so that, aided by the timing allowance, he was only 10 late out of Oxford.

Also whoever at Reading rustled up a replacement Turbo from somewhere (even if the heating was not really doing its job - how much longer will the Turbo refresh take?) after a windscreen on the 17.51 to Worcester got damaged.

And before we start on the 'other countries don't grind to a halt' line, places like Scandinavia get lots of snow all the time, so prepare and equip themselves to deal with it, with lots of snowblowers, ploughs, seriously heavy-duty point heaters, and men with shovels on call to dig out the points as well

And if they use third rail, eg Oslo Metro, they use bottom contact power pick-up so snow doesn't get between the rail and the collector shoe see http://www.subways.net/norway/124-2459_img600x800.jpg (http://www.subways.net/norway/124-2459_img600x800.jpg) - if this approach had been adopted by the Southern Railway, trains would have been running today in Kent and Surrey, but I shudder to think what it would cost to make that change across the 750v DC lines.

Modified FGW timetable tomorrow, details at http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Content.aspx?id=3649 (http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Content.aspx?id=3649)

The Oxford fasts being cancelled today is more to do with the failure to commission the new points leading from Up Main to Down Relief at Didcot East Junction - they're still not in use which means that all Oxford bound traffic has to either be on the Relief lines from Reading, or face a cumbersome reverse at Foxhall Junction.

Other alterations; Greenford's cancelled, Reading-Padd locals halved in frequency, and South Wales trains halved in frequency are harder to justify today I'm afraid!

Devon had worse snow today ;)

I suspect that the S Wales trains are cut because there is so little layover time in the diagrams and it allows FGW to run their limited srvcie more reliably by releasing a few "spare" sets.

The S Wales HSTs are usually less busy than the Bristol TM ones (and the Bristol ones can take up some of the displaced passengers until Swindon) so it makes sense to axe those rather than the BTM trains.  Also the Swansea-Paddington journey is longer and more liable to delay and there is more snow in S Wales.   Not sure about Greenford but it may well have been a decision taken by FGW in conjunction with TfL (teh central line shares the station)

And what a farce that was this morning not fasts from Maidenhead only all stations stopper so the train I was on was full and standing at Slough and at Hayes no one could get on but they tried holding the doors open delaying the train for 10 mins and the same happened at Southall, what was even more gulling was the HST's speeding past almost empty yet we were teated worse than sardines.

Why oh why is the emergency time table still an all stations to Reading when it could quiet easily be a Ealing Broadway, Hayes and then all station especially as the Heathrow Connect service was running.

On Monday FGW 11 out 10 for operating a service Tuesday you only get a 4 out 10 for the farcical service from and to Maidenhead

Year in year out for as long as I've been commuting, Thames Trains and now FGW have run this apology of an emergency service whenever there's been any disruption. An hour-long scheduled journey from Twyford is bad enough but it inevitably gets extended by 20-30 minutes as people try and jam onboard at the stations nearer London and delay the trains. Thank goodness that at least the 17:06 from PAD to Westbury (first stop Twyford) still ran tonight! In the mornings I splash out ^3.40 on a return to Reading where I get one of those near-empty HSTs fast to London. I object to having to do that, but for the sake of my blood pressure I've no other choice!  >:(

But by pulling the Oxford fasts off, you already have two or three spare sets in hand.


Well looking at the forecast, I hope NR aren't going to wait for warmer weather before they get round to sorting this out. And if all the Oxfords are stuck on the relief lines anyway, and no through Cheltenham trains ran either, it makes dropping the second South Wales service even worse, when the fast lines were so sparsely populated.

Oxford fasts reinstated today, but the points still not in operation leading to delays. At least twice fasts were routed out of Reading within minutes of the stoppers and followed them all the way to Didcot, instead of knocking the stopper by a couple of minutes.

Not very impressed with the cancellation of the Henley - London trains today when everything else seems to be running OK. They are running a Saturday service on the Henley line which is a farce as it doen't connect with many of the Monday-Friday mainline trains!

Well done for Monday, but as mentioned above Tuesday and Wednesday have been a bit annoying from my point of view.

From the BBC, this evening:

For full details, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7873307.stm

Again assorted pre=planned timetable tweaks from FGW tomorrow:

http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Content.aspx?id=3682 (http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Content.aspx?id=3682)