Great Western Coffee Shop

1740 slough to PAD - you know the one that had a window blown out near hayes tonight - yes I was on it again - thats a stuck SDO and a blown window in two days!  Do they do individual discounts for piss poor performance?

I digress.......

I swear it came into slough - the CIS boards were saying the front carriage was not for customer use but when it came in - the front coach was SC , the next 2-3 (I'm not sure how many) were FC - hen SC at the back.

All coaches were in use

Not seen that before!

That's a mystery to me. I've seen 9-car sets in the past with a vehicle out of service tucked behind one of the powercars, but never seen a 9-car set with all in use.

thats the 2/7 set with the new TSB Vehicle in it..making it up to 2/8..it been placed between H and P/C for staff training initially and thus when the training is taking place its not in use but when the training has finished the its able to be used

  2 + 0 ?

(http://i42.tinypic.com/av3c4h.jpg)

mad thing is people would pay to go on that

Train enthusiasts from Cornwall, you mean?  ;) :D ;D

no comment  ;D

Who might that be then ;)

Bet that HST formation goes like stink... FGW did operate a "2+1" HST (two powercars and a TGS, or "coach A"-type vehicle) in passenger service (although they may have been invited guests) as a special between Oxford and Didcot Parkway a little while back. This formation ran on 09 Feb 2007, in connection with the naming of the then-newly-refurbished power car 43 198 Oxfordshire 2007. For the photographic evidence go to http://www.rharchive.info/issues/RHUK/Issue72.pdf (http://www.rharchive.info/issues/RHUK/Issue72.pdf) and skip to the bottom of page 4.

Might be anyone, devon_metro: there's more than one train enthusiast in Cornwall, after all. ;)

a couple of months ago i saw single power car with tail lamp on rear going from SPM to Laira i believe.

the 2+0 used to be quite common in the early greater western days due to maintainance the coaches had exams in Laira while power cars were done at SPM.
power cars chopped off in plymouth coupled and sent to bristol,then when done they returned to re attach to the rake of coaches.

The strangest formation I have heard of for the HST is passengers being carried in a decoupled power car due to a HST derailment. The derailment occured on the 25th May 1991 the train was the 1130 Newquay to Paddington service.
http://www.luxsoft.demon.co.uk/village/hst.html (http://www.luxsoft.demon.co.uk/village/hst.html)

Wasn't there a 2+2 formation  on the cotswold line running a while back as shuttle during engineering works? i'm sure i've seen a photo somewhere, either that or i'm just imagining it.

Last summer I noticed that the HSTs on the Paddington-Newquay Saturday through services had an extra TGS on the First Class (i.e. London) end specifically for accommodating surfboards (the seating area was locked out) making the sets 2+9 formations. I wonder if the same is happening this year?

Yes, same this year.

Back in 1997 for a period there was a 2+2 HST operating on some sort of shuttle service from Manchester Airport (I forget the details). I think the HST was used vice a 158. Quite sensibly, it only operated with one powercar running!

http://www.daves-trains.fotopic.net/p1736653.html (http://www.daves-trains.fotopic.net/p1736653.html)
http://www.daves-trains.fotopic.net/p1736652.html (http://www.daves-trains.fotopic.net/p1736652.html)

that brought back memorys its been a while since i been there! its all changed now tho extra platform

No, you are not imagining it.There's a picture on page 29 of the Cotswold Line Promotion Groups' Summer/Autumn 2008 newsletter. It  happened on 15 June 2008. The story goes like this....On Sunday 15th June , NR was doing track work in the Oxford area which prevented trains running between Oxford and Hanborough. A bus service was planned, with trains from Hanborough to Worcester SH. The plan was to get 2 Fully fuelled turbos on the 2151 Padd to Shrub Hill on Saturday evening. However FGW was unable to get them fuelled, as it was short of drivers to make the move to the fuelling point.. The back up plan was to get them fuelled on Sunday morning at Worcester which was agreed with London Midland. However, the local electric supplier disconnected the power supplies to Worcester depot as part of planned work in the area. So altho the two sets were available, they hadn't enough fuel to do any work. The possibility of getting units to Tyseley for fuel was explored but nither LM or Chiltern (?) were able to provide a conductor. In the end, a shortened (2+2) HST set was sent from Bristol to Worcester to cover some services, but a number of other services were lost.

The Saturday / Sunday 2+9 sets also make diagrammed apperances on Bristol and Cheltenham trains.