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The 15:11 from Hereford to Paddington is on the FGW live update list as going to be an hour late from Hereford. 'Live departure times' then has a very optimistic set of expected times:

I don't use the line any more BUT



hahahahahahahahaha

There is loiter time at evesham and worcester but..... even so

Just left HFD 93  mins down. Still some pretty optimistic timings in 'Live Departures'. And it's got to pass down services at suitable locations as well.

Broken down train between Hereford and Great Malvern apparently.

Having 60 secs between departure from WOF and departure from WOS is impossible, seeing that it takes (even a 150) much longer than 60 secs to travel between the two! For an HST, 3 minutes would be the minimum, although 5 minutes is probably needed due to the staff.

18:25 and things are getting worse. The 15:11 from Hereford is now behind the 17:00 from Malvern (itself starting from W Foregate St tonight), so it's the best part of 2 hours late out of Shrub Hill.

And the halts train from Oxford to Worcester has been cancelled.

The 15.11 was two hours down approaching Oxford, in turn delaying the Cathedrals Express by 25 minutes.

There appeared to be some sort of track fault on the Cotswold Line at Evenlode Grounds, between Kingham and Moreton-in-Marsh, where we slowed to what felt like about 15 or 20mph, FGW website has had a notice about safety checks since about lunchtime.

Not a day to be proud of for FGW and the Cotswold Line today!  True, that two incidents (a bad track bump reported between Kingham and Moreton mid-morning, and a serious failure with the 14:51 GMV-WEY 'West' service at Great Malvern), were largely outside of anyone's control, some of the decisions were however shocking!

Firstly, the 15:51 PAD-WOS was once again a three car Turbo.  I managed to see it leaving Oxford 10 minutes late and at a quick glance I reckon about 80 people were being forced to stand.  It was in the platform for about 5 or so minutes trying to squeeze everyone on!

Then, with literally seconds to go before departure, the Halts train at 17:31 from Oxford was cancelled.  The train was loaded and ready to go.  Apparently NR (or FGW) control didn't want it getting in the way of this heavily delayed 15:11 HFD-PAD further down the single line.  What a stupid decision, as the line to Ascott was clear.  This train should have run to Moreton-In-Marsh and a decision taken there as to whether to run it further.  As around 90% of the passengers on it aren't going further than Moreton there would have been little inconvenience had it terminated there and sat in the sidings until its booked return working. 

Instead of that everyone had to pile on the next HST at 18:16 which stopped at all the halts.  That knocked it by about 20 minutes, which in turn put 15 minutes into the 17:50 GMV-PAD, 15 minutes into the 17:50 PAD-WOF which then further clobbered the 15:11 HFD-PAD at Ascott (it eventually arrived Paddington 140 minutes late!), and that of course meant the 18:22 PAD-HFD had to sit in the Down Loop and was knocked by nearly 30 minutes.

Redoubling will help recover these delays much quicker, but better decisions need to be made from the relevant control offices too!

Thanks for that, II.

As you say, cancelling the halts train (which I think was reported on the FGW site as being a train fault) not the most sensible decision. Presumably the "train fault" was actually the one on the Malvern - Weymouth, 2-3 hours earlier.

Do you know why the failure of the Malvern - Weymouth had such a big impact on the HST to Hereford? I'd assumed that the HST had been trapped by a failure between Hereford and Ledbury.

I know that the train in question (a 158 I think) could only be driven from the wrong end cab - I believe the brakes were stuck on - so it blocked the show for quite some time?  Also, I think the 10:22 PAD-HFD which then forms the return 15:11 train was already quite severely delayed by the track defect I mentioned before it then got stuck behind this failure.  Apparently it was fairly chaotic at Worcester with no trains able to run towards Malvern and Hereford for quite some time!

Shocking is putting it politely.

I hadn't realised the 17.31 was cancelled. This train would have been well clear of Ascott-under-Wychwood long before either train from Worcester arrived and not that many of the passengers would have been inconvenienced if, as you suggest, it went no further than Moreton-in-Marsh. There are worse places to get stuck for 40 or 45 minutes on a summer evening.

I couldn't quite believe my eyes when I arrived at Oxford to see they had decided to run the 17.00 from Malvern, when the HST must have bearing down on it fast after finally getting under way. When the Turbo arrived at Oxford, to a packed platform 1 under the canopy, it was carrying more than 200 people off the Cotswold Line. As I was up the far end of platform 2, I could only assume, given how empty platform 1 was after it left and the strain in the engine note as it started, that this Turbo was also grossly overloaded. As we passed the Hereford north of Oxford, I couldn't see how many were on board. Not that many I'd guess, given the numbers on the 166.

I will admit cancelling the turbo at worcester might have caused a problem at Paddington in mid-evening but by that time there are surely Turbos coming spare after the peak. If the crew weren't out of hours, then this Turbo could have taken up the path of the halts return working from Worcester to Oxford.

I would like to think someone, somewhere, might sit down with the train logs and try to work out some better 'what do we do if' scenarios, but in nine years of travelling between Oxford and the Cotswolds, I have to say I see precious little evidence of lessons being learned from these kind of situations, either by Thames Trains or FGW after they took over.

And today there's been some sort of problem at Carmarthen with the 10:00 from Pembroke Dock to Paddington, which has ended up running non-stop from Cardiff:

From FGW:

Made up 22 minutes in the process. Pax for other stations will then have been put on the 1425 to Paddington.