Great Western Invitation to Tender issued today (Friday 27 July 2012)

[whole diary]

[IndustryInsider]

Was the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) service an HST^▸ (High Speed Train (Inter City class 43 125 units))?  When I caught it the train was always a Turbo.  Left Reading around 09:50 as I remember.

There was a daily HST service way back before privatisation, but whilst Thames Trains operated the route it was always Turbo operated, and FGW Link then operated the service for a very short time (still with Turbos) before it went over to Chiltern at the end of 2004.

[stebbo]

Great Western Trains used to run one HST^▸ (High Speed Train (Inter City class 43 125 units)) return from Padddington to Stratford for a while - the "Shakespeare Express" as I recall. I remember catching it from Oxford to Reading back in the very late 1980s. Trouble is you need one early(ish) service and one late(ish) return for tourists. One idea would be a service (Adelante might fit the bill if it works OK and has decent catering) from Oxford to Stratford a couple of times a day between Oxford and Stratford, with a good connection to London.
As I understand it, outside of London, Oxford, Stratford and Bath top the tourist destinations so the demand should be there - and relieve the roads of the tourist coaches.

[IndustryInsider]

Great Western Trains used to run one HST^▸ (High Speed Train (Inter City class 43 125 units)) return from Padddington to Stratford for a while - the "Shakespeare Express" as I recall. I remember catching it from Oxford to Reading back in the very late 1980s.

As stated in my previous post, that service stopped in the BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) days before privatisation when 'Great Western Trains' was born.