Great Western Coffee Shop

From an early morning visit to the FGW website service incidents page this morning :-


06:17 Westbury to London Paddington due 07:45
This train has been revised. It will additionally call at: Bedwyn.


06:23 Bedwyn to Reading due 07:12
This train has been cancelled.


06:03 Bedwyn to London Paddington due 07:26
This train will be started from Newbury. It will no longer call at: Bedwyn, Hungerford and Kintbury.


From the first morning FGW e-mail bulletin ;-

Replacement road transport will operate between Kintbury and Newbury in lieu of the 0613 and 0633 departures.



By the time the 0612 Westbury to London Paddington gets to Newbury this morning this service might be creaking under the weight of all those extra passengers picked up as a result of the one cancellation and revision of the other, that is if the 180 doesnt breakdown beforehand under the pressure.

According to the Nationalrail.co.uk site the 180 might be succumbing to the pressure, left Westbury on time, Pewsey left 4 minutes late and Bedwyn 10 minutes late and not left Hungerford at 0720 34minutes late and counting.

Progress, the service was then reported departed Newbury 0728, 33 minutes late but by the time the service left Reading the deficit in lateness had increased to 41 minutes. Lets hope the elastic bands just hold out until Paddington. Well the elastic bands did hold out with arrival at Paddington at 0827 just 42 minutes late on a journey
with a schedule of just 88 minutes. Not bad eh.

The cause of the problem appears to relate to Notwork Rail not working to schedule with their engineering work somewhere en route which will no doubt lead to an annual perfomance bonus for the men at the top.

And whilst all this was being enacted FGW had the audacity to issue a second e-mail bulletin reporting ;-

First Great Western is pleased to report there are no problems and expect to operate the full advertised service on all routes this morning. There are currently no infrastructure or fleet problems affecting our services.


No wonder passengers get uptight at the incorrect information they are bombarded with, with punity.

I guess there was a farce in the Kintbury area, as the Westbury-Padd lost 20 mins between Bedwyn and Newbury!