Cotswold Line - 2018 cancellation and amendments log

[whole diary]

[charles_uk]

The pain was merely delayed:

11:22 London Paddington to Worcester Foregate Street due 13:44 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train drivers.

13:55 Worcester Foregate Street to London Paddington due 16:27 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train drivers.

Last Updated:15/03/2018 10:54

This is getting beyond a joke now. GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have either simply given up or don't give a **** for their Cotswold Line customers:

14:21 London Paddington to Worcester Foregate Street due 16:44 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train drivers.

17:26 Worcester Foregate Street to London Paddington due 19:59 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train drivers.

Last Updated:15/03/2018 12:29

And the 15:22 PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains):GMV which is going to have to pick up those displaced from the cancelled 14:21 is a two car Turbo. Hearing from those who travelled on Tuesday in the same circumstances, it was crush loaded.

Further edit. Thoroughly predictable too:

16:22 London Paddington to Great Malvern due 19:26 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train drivers.

19:42 Great Malvern to London Paddington due 22:31 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train drivers.
Last Updated:15/03/2018 12:49

and now the 15:52 Paddington to Moreton-in-Marsh is delayed at Paddington...

[Witham Bobby]

This is getting beyond a joke now. GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have either simply given up or don't give a **** for their Cotswold Line customers

I think both apply.  Nobody with half a chance of an alternative would use this "service" nowadays

[charles_uk]

And here we go again:

11:22 London Paddington to Worcester Foregate Street due 13:44 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train drivers.

13:55 Worcester Foregate Street to London Paddington due 16:27 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train drivers.
Last Updated:16/03/2018 08:30

[14:38 edit] and as sure as night follows day and bears doing what bears do in woods:

16:22 London Paddington to Great Malvern due 19:26 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train drivers.

19:42 Great Malvern to London Paddington due 22:29 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train drivers.

Last Updated:16/03/2018 14:23

As someone posted on Twitter yesterday, "this is now deliberately provocative and indefensible behaviour by GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)." Very hard to disagree with those sentiments.

[Worcester_Passenger]

Saturday March 17:

12:18 London Paddington to Moreton-in-Marsh due 14:00 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.
Last Updated:17/03/2018 03:27

13:18 London Paddington to Great Malvern due 16:04 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.
Last Updated:17/03/2018 03:27

14:50 Moreton-in-Marsh to London Paddington due 16:38 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.
Last Updated:17/03/2018 03:27

16:35 Great Malvern to London Paddington due 19:37 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.
Last Updated:17/03/2018 03:27

17:18 London Paddington to Worcester Foregate Street due 19:44 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.
Last Updated:17/03/2018 03:27

20:04 Worcester Foregate Street to London Paddington due 22:29 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.
Last Updated:17/03/2018 03:27

It is clearly beyond GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) to operate the timetable as advertised at the moment.

Surely the time has come for some sort of emergency timetable, which they could run.

[IanL]

Quote from Mark Hopwood in the latest CLPG^» (Cotswold Line Promotion Group - about) newsletter:

""and I am happy to say that the 1622 service is now operating as an IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) again"


Well if by operating they mean being regularly cancelled more often than running then this might be true!

[IndustryInsider]

What is the cancellation rate for the 16:22 since the turn of the year?  At a guess I’d say it must be around 60% of the time.  Is there a worse train in the country currently?

[didcotdean]

Don't forget that everything is supposed to be sorted by the end of March.

However, I expect to see the Easter Bunny to pop up saying April Fool.

[charles_uk]

What is the cancellation rate for the 16:22 since the turn of the year?  At a guess I’d say it must be around 60% of the time.  Is there a worse train in the country currently?

It's not as bad as that even if it might seem like it. By my reckoning, it's been cancelled (or failed to get beyond Oxford) on 17 out of 54 days. Five of those in the last eight days.

[IndustryInsider]

Quite a lot better than my initial perception then.  But still absolutely awful!

[Worcester_Passenger]

And now a three-hour gap (from 16:18 to 19:18)

18:18 London Paddington to Hereford due 21:35 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.
Additional Information
Customers are advised to travel on the next available train service.
Last Updated:17/03/2018 14:58

[IndustryInsider]

Also, 15:20 PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains)-GMV and return at 18:35 are a 2-car Turbo instead of a 3-car one.

[charles_uk]

The weather has wiped out the entire London bound morning peak service:

04:47 HFD^» (Hereford - next trains):PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains) cancelled
05:11 WOS^» (Worcester Shrub Hill - next trains):PAD started from Oxford
05:28 HFD:PAD cancelled
06:42 HFD:PAD cancelled
07:10 MIM:PAD cancelled
08:25 WOF:PAD cancelled
09:50 MIM:PAD will be started from Reading

Seems a little dramatic given yesterday's service seemed to run without too much disruption.

(edit to add 09:50 to list)

[IanL]

This morning only the two carriage turbo stopping service managed to run.....despite a GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) staff member at Charlbury informing everyone who turned up for this train (as it was the only service running) that there were no trains before 10am....and that the screens and online app were wrong. Lots of people turned around and were halfway back up the hill when the train stopped at Charlbury.

[grahame]

... the train stopped at Charlbury ...

So that's not a cancellation then  as far as the rail industry stats are concerned!

[Worcester_Passenger]

The weather has wiped out the entire London bound morning peak service:

04:47 HFD^» (Hereford - next trains):PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains) cancelled
05:11 WOS^» (Worcester Shrub Hill - next trains):PAD started from Oxford
05:28 HFD:PAD cancelled
06:42 HFD:PAD cancelled
07:10 MIM:PAD cancelled
08:25 WOF:PAD cancelled
09:50 MIM:PAD will be started from Reading

Seems a little dramatic given yesterday's service seemed to run without too much disruption.

(edit to add 09:50 to list)

Yesterday's service (Sunday March 18) had several trains cancelled between Paddington and Reading, but only one train cancelled between Oxford and Worcester (the 14:42 Paddington - Hereford, which started at Shrub Hill).

According to RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website), several of this morning's cancellations are "due to high winds".