Great Western Coffee Shop

I had business in Plymouth this week so a return trip from Paddington was in order.  I needed to start a training session at 10.00 on Wednesday morning so it wasn't possible to get there in the morning from London.  I considered using the sleeper but didn't fancy being turned out at 5 in the morning so I opted to travel down on Tuesday on the 18.03 from Paddington and stay in the Holiday Inn.

The journey went well as far as Taunton after which we were delayed by a late-running Cross-Country service (probably the 12.05 Edinburgh to Penzance).  We subsequently ran 20 minutes late through to Plymouth.  It would be interesting to know the source of the delay to the Cross-Country train as an example of how delays spread across the system.  My train was due to overtake the 17.33 Paddington to Paignton at Exeter St Davids but presumably this train got ahead of the Edinburgh to Penzance so we eventually caught up with it at Newton Abbot.  Passengers for Torquay and Paignton were able to transfer at Newton Abbot but any passengers for intermediate stations to Teignmouth would presumably have had to wait for the next service.

The return journey began with a Class 150 on the 11.43 Penzance to Newton Abbot, connecting with the Torbay Express from there to Paddington.  This involves some interesting working at Newton Abbot where the terminating 150 stops at the platform on the Down Main, allowing cross platform interchange with the Paignton to Paddington HST.  At the same time an HST arrives from Paddington for Penzance and crosses to the platform on the Up Main to get past the 150.  A nice bit of timetabling to make things more convenient for customers!  This all went according to plan but we were subsequently delayed by a failed train just outside Exeter (presumably an FGW train as no other TOC was mentioned!) and by getting caught up with a Taunton to Paddington stopper on the Berks & Hants.  However, there must be quite a bit of recovery time on the approaches to Reading as our 10 to 15 minute delay was reduced to 5.  This meant I was able to catch my planned train home from Kings Cross by the skin of my teeth so no time lost on the overall journey.

The overall impression however was that there is still quite a bit of unreliability in the system, which could be off-putting to "floating voters", i.e. those considering the use of other forms of transport.

Seems you had more luck than me travelling from Paignton to Bristol on Wednesday. XC cancelled both of my trains as the sea was slightly choppy at Dawlish.  >:(

The Loco-hauled Paignton-Cardiff failed at Hele & Bradninch due to a bird strike damaging the air pipes linked to the brakes I believe.  The 1357 and 1500 (Torbay Express) departures from Exeter to Paddington were sitting delayed along with the 1425 & 1444 XC services at Exeter.

I saw the top and tailed Class 67s arriving at Exeter St Davids while waiting to depart on the Torbay Express but didn't realise that this was the failed train that was holding us up.  Are bird strikes a common cause of failures and are locomotives more vulnerable to this than multiple units?

I would say bird strikes by trains are fairly common. I've a picture of a Brittania with a pheasant on the front runningplate, but this is the first time I've heard of one causing a failure, unlike with aircraft where large birds sucked into an engine can do considerable damage.

Locos are possibly more vunreable because of the exposed brake pipes on the front buffer beam.

This one seems to be unlucky (for the train) in that the bird must have hit just the right spot to cause a failure.

However, I still find it surprisng because loco equipment is usually pretty robust.

I think you were pretty unlucky as things have been pretty reliable lately!

To be fair a 20 minute delay in one direction and a 5 minute delay in the other is not too bad.  More of a downer for me is that there is no early train from London to Plymouth (first arrival about 11.15) as opposed to an 09.00 first arrival from Plymouth at Paddington.  This is combined with the undesirability of using the sleeper because you would have to alight at Plymouth before 05.50.  Unless you can stay on the sleeper into Cornwall and catch another train back...

Even Air Southwest cant get you from London to Plymouth before 10am(yet).Current transport solutions seem to treat Plymouth(only 225 rail miles from London) as though it were Inverness or Fort Wiliam before 10am.Sad really.

There is the option of catching the 6.45 PAD - Bristol PW, then catching the 8.26 BPW - PLY. It only gets you 30 minutes earlier at 10.46 but it's before 11am which seems much earlier psychologically. It does to me anyway.

Mind you that does involve getting a Voyager, which tend to rank just below Pacers in the popularity stakes on this forum!  ;)