Great Western Coffee Shop

Lots of delays and cancellations last night due to a broken down train (Hayes?). Cotswold line trains very badly affected towards Worcester/Hereford then later in the evening lots of cancellations/short working on the return paths due to delays and shortage of trains in the correct locations.

I was delayed by 65 minutes at Oxford waiting for a train towards Worcester.

1722 was 10 late into Reading and 10 late into Worcester - so not too bad...........

Would have been 8 late from Reading if I had not spotted it sitting in the platform still with the doors unlocked and flung me and my bike at carriage G at speed.

Didnt think I had a hope since my redhill train was late into Readign as well

1551 Paddington departure (1647 from Oxford) was cancelled from Oxford. It finally arrived at Oxford at approx 1740 and formed the stopping service (1731), finally departing Oxford at 1750 and arriving Charlbury 1812 (65 minutes later than I should have been home).

Just to rub salt in the wound the train was in reverse formation and no announcements were made to this effect so the massed crowds on platform 2 had to rush on mass to the opposite end of the platform.

The 1647 from Oxford actually terminated there about 30 minutes late and went empty to the sidings. If it had run through this late, it would have thrown the entire evening service out of sync. The train that ran through to Worcester was the 1723(?) HST arrival into Oxford, which normally terminates there and provides a connection into the 17.31 all stations 2 car turbo to Worcester. Obviously, an HST load of passengers would not fit on a two car turbo, so the plan was to use the HST off the 1723 arrival (which was also running about 15 late) to form the 17.31. Thanks to SDO, its possible to safely stop an HST at the halts such as Combe.

The plan was agreed by 17.00 and the CIS at Oxford was altered and announcements made. The guard on the 1723 arrival was also told to tell passengers for the Cotswold line not to get off at Oxford. This all worked pretty well until the train arrived in reverse formation. The CIS doesn't show the formation of terminating trains, so the first anyone knew about it was when the train arrived on the platform. New driver and guard were in place. Quick discussion with guard about where bikes should be stowed (in the TGS at the rear), and the train was on its way, no more than 5 mins in the platform.

The empty stock off the 1647 was then used for the 1801 Oxford to Padd, which is the normal return working for the 1723 arrival.

This is now normal practice if the 1647 is seriously late. It means that the next Hereford, 18.16 off Oxford is less likely to be delayed (as FA pointed out) and the least number of passengers are inconvenienced. And they get an HST rather than a 2 car turbo!

Was always possible to stop a HST - just new ELf and Safety prohibited it

How many people were ever injured getting off a train carriage in no mans land?  Its a health and safety red tape

I did say "safely" stop!

You could stop HSTs at places like Moreton without SDO, because they had grandfather rights. But the likes of Combe never did, so it can only happen now because of SDO.

Elf and sfety don't like passengers opening doors of coaches that are not platformed. No doubt they would abolish grandfather rights if they thought they could get away with it!

Rare but it does happen. A blind man alighted from a turbo at Reading and went crashing onto the ballast not so long ago. The driver had mistakenly opened the doors of at one of the short bay platforms when the whole train was not at a platform. Could have been very serious.

Any more?

One incident which was NOT very serious......

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Um, doesn't sound trivial to me. That's a long drop if you're not expecting it.

But its the only one I've heard of when I've challenged SDO before.......is one incident on a turbo that doesnt have SDO AFAIK worth the hastle and lost revenue it causes on lines like the cotwilds?

But as soon as it's more than about five minutes late, the 17.22 messes up everything that it meets between Oxford and Worcester (crosses trains at Shipton and Evesham) and everything that follows it, so the 17.51 was 15 late all the way between Oxford and Moreton after sitting in the loop north of Oxford waiting for the train the 17.22 had delayed at Ascott to clear the single line, with further knock-on delays well into the evening. Roll on redoubling.

As for grandfather rights, as I understood it, they ceased to exist once the switch to SDO was made - certainly it was said on here and, I believe, by FGW themselves, that if SDO fails, HSTs would run non-stop between Oxford and Worcester - also through Cornwall - in future.

Actually used to happen all the time on slam-door trains without secondary door locking - Adrian Vaughan mentions at least two times when he experienced it during his railway career in the 1960s and 1970s.


Quite correct, once the equipment is installed it must be used, so if an HST had defective SDO then it can't call at short-platform stations. It's a bit of an academic point since FGW don't have any non-fitted units these days, but I am not sure what would happen should an HST not fitted with SDO (say, hypothetically speaking, on loan to FGW from another operator) find its way onto the Cotswold line.

Thanks Oxman for clarification on exactly which HST ended up forming the 1731 to Worcester, yes it is a better solution to crowding everyone onto a 2-car turbo (which in the past has almost caused a passenger mutiny).

The new dot matrix sigs routinely indicate the orientation of the train (standard to front, first to rear and I have also seen it indicate reverse formation so why not this time as it might have saved time?

Also defective SDO....in recent weeks a number of HSTs seem to have had defective dor panels as unusual numbers of carriage doors have been opened at Charlbury, eg 2 or 3 rather than the usual 4, after a few occurences of this I asked why....apparently some of the door switch panels were not working properly. Hasnt happened for a week or so now so hopefully it is fixed.

in 1855 someone fell to their death from Dinting viaduct believing that the train was in the adjacent station.  It was dark and one wonders if it woudl happen today with better lighting (although it you are blind then it could)

It works both ways though - the odd delay/cancellation when it fails is countered by the fact that the HST fleet is more flexible and now provides commuters with a quality service from stations such as Maidenhead, Twyford, Radley, Cholsey, Goring, Pangbourne, Tilehurst, Theale, Thatcham, Hungerford, Kintbury, Bedwyn and everybody's favourite, Hanborough!

Whether the 'grandfather rights' issue is a bit silly or not, the passengers at these stations are probably very grateful that SDO has been fitted. Even if they don't know it!

IanL.

The HST that was used to form the 17.31 was the 1723 terminator, and formations are not shown on the CIS for terminating services, so there was no prompt for the platform staff. The formation information is entered into the CIS by Control, overnight for the known position at the start of day, and during the day as sets are swapped. I guess this one was missed in the heat of battle!