West Oxfordshire rail passengers left stranded - 4 May 2012

[whole diary]

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the Witney Gazette:

Commuters on the Cotswold Line were left without a train into Oxford for more than two hours yesterday after a delayed service ran non-stop from Worcester to Oxford to make up time.

The 6.43am Cathedrals Express from Hereford to London was 70 minutes late and passed straight through stations including Kingham and Hanborough.

Network Rail spokesman Kevin Groves said the decision was taken to get the train to London as soon as possible to help minimise disruption to other services throughout the day.

[grahame]

Err .... I think that's only part of the story.   If the 6:43 is an hour late, then the next train is darned close behind it.   There may have been a two hour gap, but even if the delayed train was stopped there would still be almost a two hour gap, wouldn't there?

[Southern Stag]

This sort of thing isn't rare, trains quite often run fast to make up delays. Hardly worthy of making the newspaper.

[JayMac]

Perhaps there was a very important local resident who was unable to board the Cathedrals.... although I suspect he bunked down in SW1A on Thursday night.

[IndustryInsider]

Of course now there is no need for token exchange, it's now an option to run a service non-stop - and for the journey to be done from Worcester to Oxford pretty darn quickly. 

[grahame]

This sort of thing isn't rare, trains quite often run fast to make up delays. Hardly worthy of making the newspaper.

I'm advised, by email from the journalist who wrote the article, that:

You are indeed correct that there is more to the story about the events of Friday morning on the Cotswold Line but there is also a limited amount of space in a newspaper, so that was all we had space for yesterday ....

and

There will be more about this one to come ....

We'll keep our eyes pealed to post a link (I suspect Chris may get an email notification) to the follow up story/ies!

[Richard Fairhurst]

This sort of thing isn't rare, trains quite often run fast to make up delays. Hardly worthy of making the newspaper.

Not on the Cotswold Line, they don't. I've never heard of a Worcester-Oxford fast in 12 years of living here.

[IanL]

MIght explain why the friday evening trains were all over the place, the 1649 Oxford to Worcester was a 5 car turbo, splitting at Oxford to let the front 3 cars trundle up to Worcester. This is usually a HST^▸ (High Speed Train) and even then packed and standing on a friday, especially a bank holiday wekend, 3 cars on this service was a joke!

[TerminalJunkie]

We'll keep our eyes pealed

Ding-dong! 

[CLPGMS]

My understanding is that, although the intention was to run non-stop from Worcester to Oxford, this proved to be impossible as the train was originally running more or less in the timings of the following 0826 from Worcester FS.  Having not stopped at Pershore, Evesham, Honeybourne, Moreton-in-Marsh and Kingham, it arrived at Charlbury about 10 minutes before the 0822 Paddington to Hereford cleared the single line ahead (due 0940) and permission was obtained from Control to open the doors and allow the large number of waiting passengers to board -passengers who were still there for Charlbury's "cancelled" 0831 had been joined by those for the 0940 to London.

I do not know what happened to the 0826 from Worcester, but I understand that the next train to arrive at Oxford from the Cotswold Line was the 0951 from Moreton-in-Marsh.

[Andrew1939 from West Oxon]

Latest update on this incident from the Oxford Mail:

Your train's here at last... but you can't get on

2:00pm Saturday 12th May 2012 in News By William Crossley

PASSENGERS who had been waiting an hour at Charlbury station for their late-running train thought rescue was at hand when it finally drew up at the platform.

But as they tried to open the doors, the guard told them he could not release the locks, because the service was supposed to run non-stop to Oxford to make up lost time.

Amid angry scenes on Friday last week, the guard eventually contacted managers in Swindon and was given permission to let the passengers on board before they left 70 minutes late, at 9.40am, almost two hours after the last train into Oxford had departed.

The delayed train was supposed to get a clear run to Oxford but a westbound service was instead allowed on to the single-track section from Oxford, forcing a 10-minute stop at Charlbury.
Train operator First Great Western and Network Rail have apologised to Cotswold Line passengers for the problems, which resulted from a freight train breaking down in South Wales early in the morning.

This held up an empty FGW^▸ (First Great Western) train that was on its way to Hereford to form the 6.43am Cathedrals Express to London via Oxford. By the time it got back on the move, it was on course to clash at Worcester with the next service along the Cotswold Line towards Oxford.

Managers looked at sending the express non-stop to London via Cheltenham and Swindon but discovered that a crew member had not gone on a refresher course needed to allow him to take trains on this route, so it had to stick to the Cotswold Line.
The Charlbury commuters were luckier than those at other stations on the line between Worcester and Oxford, including Kingham and Hanborough.

They were left without a train into Oxford and London for even longer, because the next Worcester to London train, which should have followed straight behind the express, was also held up when a westbound service was sent on to the single track section between Evesham and Worcester first.

A train that started its journey from Moreton-in-Marsh, in Gloucestershire, eventually called at the other west Oxfordshire stations 95 minutes after the express was due.

An FGW spokesman said: ^We would like to apologise to all our passengers who were affected.^

Asked why no alternative road transport was arranged, he said: ^The time taken to procure buses and then run them would have resulted in longer journey times than if the customers had waited for the delayed train.^

A Network Rail spokesman said: ^We and the train operator make such decisions very reluctantly, recognising that it will inconvenience a number of passengers.

When significant delays occur, we have to look to do the best thing we can to cause the least amount of delays while we recover the service. This is, of course, no succour to those waiting to board the 6.43am train.^

Comments(3)
medicine man says...
3:43pm Sat 12 May 12

I may be being a little thick here,but if the train was supposed to run non stop,then why didn't it ?


thamestrains says...
3:46pm Sat 12 May 12
Because trains have to stop at RED signals,ie at Charlbury as explained in report,please read before commenting !.

[Btline]

Evidence, perhaps that further redoubling is still needed when funding becomes available. Especially considering the major problem of the Evesham to Worcester single section.

[Oxman]

Its very easy to get into unintended situations. A few years ago I was at Goring and Streatley in the morning and a failed  down local service between Pangbourne and Goring had stopped all movements on the relief lines. There was a group of thirty or so passengers waiting for a train to Reading. The failed train was in a bad way - the plan was to couple another unit to it and drag it back towards Reading. The passengers onboard had already been sat there for 90 minutes or so.

I volunteered to go to the train to deal with any passenger issues - there were already engineers on site, but no customer service staff. It was arranged that an up service would be stopped at Goring on the up main to pick me up and drop me off at the site. So, I happily told the waiting customers that I had arranged for a service to stop specially at Goring, and suggested they go over to Platform 2. The turbo rolled in, and the driver opened his door to allow me to board, but refused to open the passenger doors - he had not been instructed to do so by Control. Cue frustrated customers on the platform pressing door open buttons and demanding to know why they would not open. Two minutes later, after a quick call to the Senior Controller, the doors were opened and we were all on our way.

Seemed like a good plan at the time!

[TonyK]

If you are late, and stopped at a red light light at a station you have been told to miss out, which actions result in the least additional delay?
1) Open the doors, and let the passengers on;
or
1) Tell the passengers they can't get on;
2)Have angry scene with angry passengers;
3) Phone a manager in Swindon;
4) Open the doors, and let the passengers on.

Use of the Mk1 human brain in problem-solving mode is rare these days.

[dzug]

I did wonder why running non stop from Worcester to make up time didn't result in any time being made up