Great Western Coffee Shop

Interesting to read Barry Doe in Rail Magazine report that the National Rail Timetable shows the 2020 and 2148 ex Paddington both replaced by buses, but this is subsequently amended in the late changes supplement to show trains running as normal. Does this mean they are going to do the re-doubling work after the last train has run (unlikely?)  or are they delaying the work until later in the year?

That would be consistent with the rumours I heard about last week in that they are delaying the work

:-(

Delaying the work....not sure how long for, but I can find out.

The last two trains along the Ciotswolds were being replaced by buses from Oxford.

Which looks therefore like it won't be May 2011 when we see the benefits.

 :(

The only thing that got me through those 6 weeks last summer, standing at Newport station late at night, getting home at silly oclock was the thought that it would be worth it in the end......

This makes me very  >:(

Depends how long the work was scheduled for - it nmay only be a few weeks before restarting.

That and I'm sure work wasn't scheduled *every* week from now until May 2011....so the weeks with work being done have just been juggled possibly.

I'll ask the question....

But if anyone actually cared to consult the pocket timetable pdf on the FGW website, both services are marked in red type, with note A above them. The same applies to the last two weekday trains from Worcester.

Note A reads as follows: "Rail improvement work may affect this train. You are strongly advised to check before travelling".

Not quite "running as normal", I'd say. It's unlikely the engineers would need complete occupation of the line every night for weeks on end, so hedging your bets like this makes rather more sense than just saying there won't be a train, full stop - something that tends to deter a great many people from travelling in the first place, because they don't want to go by bus!

After all, the May-December timetable featured both bus and rail timings for these two services beyond Oxford, though in the event, the trains ran most of the time, once relaid track sections had bedded in and been retamped but every so often, the engineers have taken possessions affecting these trains.

I - and others - have been told by Network Rail that it will be possible for them to do a great deal of the work with trains still running. You can drop a lot of rails, sleepers and ballast in the normal overnight window between passenger services - it's a nice short run from Hinksey yard - and there are of course lovely windows in the service in the middle of the day when there isn't a train to be seen for a couple of hours.

They have operated in a similar way when redoubling two long stretches of track in Scotland in the past couple of years, with the whole idea being to keep as many trains running as possible throughout the project.

As I posted in the redoubling thread on the other day, there won't be a new timetable until May 2011, because the work programme calls for all the points and signals to be connected up and tested somewhere around February-March 2011, in between the two timetable change dates. The double track should be brought into use once all that is signed off, but no retiming can be done until the May change, due to the need to work the trains in with everything else running south of Oxford and west of Worcester.

Barry Doe seems to be making a bit of a mountain out of a molehill on this one. I reckon just about every SWT timetable permanently shows the last couple of down services each day as 'may be subject to engineering works'.  That's without anything major planned, it just seems to be a get out clause for various NR inspections and/or early starts for normal overnight planned maintenance...

Paul