Great Western Coffee Shop

With services reduced to hourly between London and Bristol because of Reading works, serving as a Padd-Oxford service, as well as connecting with a service for Cheltenham, tis a shame that the following train had to be cancelled this afternoon:

From FGW website:
12:45 London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads due 15:43
This train has been cancelled.This is due to a member of train crew being unavailable.

I would imagine the 13:45 is quite cosy right now.

Yes, an unfortunate cancellation, but in the main the diverted trains via Banbury seem to be coping quite well, although most seem to be a few minutes late as the 1h45m allowed from Paddington to Oxford via Banbury is perhaps a little on the tight side unless there's green signals all the way.  HST's are being restricted to a maximum of 75mph from Aynho to Princes Risborough, and 70 mph from Princes Risborough to Northolt Junction.

I'll be having a look at loadings a little later.

I notice that FGW are ignorning the fact that Reading is shut, and today the 1600 Penzance - Paddington is running normal route!  ::)

I did a Westbury - Waterloo - Westbury...  ::)

Up train was the 1118, left Westbury about 20 mins down, arrived Waterloo, via Richmond, 20 mins down, about 1415 or so.  Left Waterloo 1445, 12 mins down, (I'm asssuming after the pilotman's PNB as he was last to rejoin the train), went round via Brentford and Hounslow, arrived Westbury again about 20 mins down at around 1715.

Good value on a route Warminster/Salisbury Super Offpeak Day, less than ^20 with a suitable railcard.  If only my Network Card was valid in the 'wild west'...   >:(

Paul

That would be handy.

The diversions via Banbury went reasonably well yesterday.  From what I saw most trains were running about 80-90% full - just about right.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, timings are very tight, and as the day went on the delays started to get worse and worse with 10 minutes creeping up to 30 minutes and most trains heading out of Paddington were nearly an hour late come the late evening.

The xx:29 arrivals from Paddington were often missing the xx:40 connection at Oxford for the Cotswold Line.  In case anyone is travelling from Paddington to the Cotswolds over the next couple of days is reading this, if you can, I'd get the previous train from Paddington at xx:15 or you might find yourself with an hours wait at Oxford.

They seem to be running a little better today though, and nothing like the levels of disruption some of my more pessimistic colleagues were predicting!

A few more unfortunate cancellations, particularly the last one being the last train of the day out of Paddington to Bristol:

16:28 Swansea to London Paddington due 21:07
This train will be terminated at Oxford.It will no longer call at: London Paddington.This is due to a member of train crew being unavailable.

19:45 London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads due 22:43
This train will be started from Oxford.It will no longer call at: London Paddington.This is due to a member of train crew being unavailable.

21:45 London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads due 00:44
This train will be started from Oxford.It will no longer call at: London Paddington.This is due to a member of train crew being unavailable.

Looks like this diversion because of it's length is stretching FGW crew resources?

Anyone reading this who was planning to get the 21:45 travelling to Bath and Bristol there is a service at 21:33 out of London Waterloo.

Edit: You can leave Waterloo at 22:05 and join the 21:33 at Basingstoke. Only a 5 minute connection time though.

Also, if the xx29 arrival from Paddington is late at Oxford, it holds up the xx37 arrival from Worcester, which could make pax miss the xx45 from Oxford to Paddington. I caught the 1013 from Foregate Street to Oxford today which arrived Oxford just as the 1145 to Paddington was pulling in, and there were a fair few people who would have been crossing over the bridge with luggage etc which would have taken a number of minutes to get on board.

  

There were a few teething troubles yesterday, a number of issues contributed, but feedback has been much more positive today.  Services through Banbury have been running better and with one exception (power car technical) the SW services have operated well.  Buses have run smoothly around Reading too.

We are all geared up for a busier day tomorrow as some more people return to work....