GWR line closures this Sunday

[whole diary]

[Richard Fairhurst]

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have confirmed there will be no service at all on the north (Oxford-Worcester) or south (Swindon-Gloucester) Cotswold lines this Sunday. From https://www.gwr.com/strike:

Sunday 31 July

Trains will continue to be disrupted. Please make alternative travel arrangements and only travel if absolutely necessary.

There will be no service on the following routes:

Swindon to Gloucester
Oxford to Worcester/Hereford

I don't think I've known this in 20+ years of living on the (North) Cotswold Line - the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) just deciding to give up providing a service when there's no strike or engineering reason.

I do understand that drivers are going to choose not to work overtime on Sunday given that they have a rare opportunity to enjoy a weekend off. But it's entirely GWR's decision to concentrate cancellations here rather than running (say) a 1tp3h service and chopping a couple of Bristol services as a result. There are no buses to Charlbury on a Sunday, and I'm guessing probably not many from Kingham, Moreton et al either; so if you want to go somewhere, let's hope you have a car.

[ChrisB]

Also, the lateness of these specific closure notices (overnight last night, the trains were in the journeyplanners yesterday!) means many will have travelled out today for the weekend thinking they’d be at least some sort of service on Sunday to return on!

I’ve asked GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) to allow travel during Monday’s peak AM service so at least people can return straight to work on time on Monday morning without having to pay more for a peak ticket, otgerwise they won’t be working until after lunch, throughno fault of their own.

GWR shouldn’t have waited until Thursday night to ascertain the number of crew available this Sunday, and should have put out a specific warning on Wednesday latest in my view.

ASLEF^» (Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen - about) knew this would likely happen, hence choosing Saturdays. August 13 is a strike day, so expect similar on Sunday 14th too

[IndustryInsider]

Seems a bit odd to me.  Oxford drivers work half of the North Cotswold Line trains and can’t just throw in their Sunday’s and their daily alterations sheet shows a full allocation of drivers plus a couple on standby.

Unless they are being reallocated Oxford<>Paddington work because there’s no cover from the HSS^▸ (High Speed Services) drivers who can throw their Sunday’s in (with 5 days notice)?  But it seems unlikely to me that all of them would, and there’s only half the number of PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains)<>OXF^» (Oxford - next trains) services anyway.

[didcotdean]

I heard a GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) spokesperson (not sure who) mentioned the North Cots Sunday closure on Friday morning during an interview on Radio Oxford. Just in passing so easy to miss and the interviewer certainly didn't pick up this as anything odd to follow up.

[jamestheredengine]

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have confirmed there will be no service at all on the north (Oxford-Worcester) or south (Swindon-Gloucester) Cotswold lines this Sunday. From https://www.gwr.com/strike:

Sunday 31 July

Trains will continue to be disrupted. Please make alternative travel arrangements and only travel if absolutely necessary.

There will be no service on the following routes:

Swindon to Gloucester
Oxford to Worcester/Hereford

I don't think I've known this in 20+ years of living on the (North) Cotswold Line - the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) just deciding to give up providing a service when there's no strike or engineering reason.

I do understand that drivers are going to choose not to work overtime on Sunday given that they have a rare opportunity to enjoy a weekend off. But it's entirely GWR's decision to concentrate cancellations here rather than running (say) a 1tp3h service and chopping a couple of Bristol services as a result. There are no buses to Charlbury on a Sunday, and I'm guessing probably not many from Kingham, Moreton et al either; so if you want to go somewhere, let's hope you have a car.

Why Bristol? It would be much more effective to cancel the relief lines service between Reading and Paddington. After ail, the denizens of Maidenhead keep messing the railway up: let's close their station for a day. They probably have a bus to Slough and a bus from there to Heathrow for the Piccadilly Line.

[TaplowGreen]

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have confirmed there will be no service at all on the north (Oxford-Worcester) or south (Swindon-Gloucester) Cotswold lines this Sunday. From https://www.gwr.com/strike:

Sunday 31 July

Trains will continue to be disrupted. Please make alternative travel arrangements and only travel if absolutely necessary.

There will be no service on the following routes:

Swindon to Gloucester
Oxford to Worcester/Hereford

I don't think I've known this in 20+ years of living on the (North) Cotswold Line - the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) just deciding to give up providing a service when there's no strike or engineering reason.

I do understand that drivers are going to choose not to work overtime on Sunday given that they have a rare opportunity to enjoy a weekend off. But it's entirely GWR's decision to concentrate cancellations here rather than running (say) a 1tp3h service and chopping a couple of Bristol services as a result. There are no buses to Charlbury on a Sunday, and I'm guessing probably not many from Kingham, Moreton et al either; so if you want to go somewhere, let's hope you have a car.

Why Bristol? It would be much more effective to cancel the relief lines service between Reading and Paddington. After ail, the denizens of Maidenhead keep messing the railway up: let's close their station for a day. They probably have a bus to Slough and a bus from there to Heathrow for the Piccadilly Line.

You could do that.

Wouldn't make an awful lot of difference as we have the Elizabeth Line serving us now, and their drivers have Sundays in the working week so thankfully that nonsense is no longer an issue  

[froome]

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have confirmed there will be no service at all on the north (Oxford-Worcester) or south (Swindon-Gloucester) Cotswold lines this Sunday. From https://www.gwr.com/strike:

Sunday 31 July

Trains will continue to be disrupted. Please make alternative travel arrangements and only travel if absolutely necessary.

There will be no service on the following routes:

Swindon to Gloucester
Oxford to Worcester/Hereford

I don't think I've known this in 20+ years of living on the (North) Cotswold Line - the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) just deciding to give up providing a service when there's no strike or engineering reason.

I do understand that drivers are going to choose not to work overtime on Sunday given that they have a rare opportunity to enjoy a weekend off. But it's entirely GWR's decision to concentrate cancellations here rather than running (say) a 1tp3h service and chopping a couple of Bristol services as a result. There are no buses to Charlbury on a Sunday, and I'm guessing probably not many from Kingham, Moreton et al either; so if you want to go somewhere, let's hope you have a car.

As these are the two lines that cross the Cotswolds, and also passing through some obvious tourist destinations like Oxford, Cheltenham and Stroud, I would imagine they have a particularly high leisure usage, which would suggest a high demand for summer Sunday services.

So this will inconvenience a lot of potential users.

[Electric train]

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have confirmed there will be no service at all on the north (Oxford-Worcester) or south (Swindon-Gloucester) Cotswold lines this Sunday. From https://www.gwr.com/strike:

Sunday 31 July

Trains will continue to be disrupted. Please make alternative travel arrangements and only travel if absolutely necessary.

There will be no service on the following routes:

Swindon to Gloucester
Oxford to Worcester/Hereford

I don't think I've known this in 20+ years of living on the (North) Cotswold Line - the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) just deciding to give up providing a service when there's no strike or engineering reason.

I do understand that drivers are going to choose not to work overtime on Sunday given that they have a rare opportunity to enjoy a weekend off. But it's entirely GWR's decision to concentrate cancellations here rather than running (say) a 1tp3h service and chopping a couple of Bristol services as a result. There are no buses to Charlbury on a Sunday, and I'm guessing probably not many from Kingham, Moreton et al either; so if you want to go somewhere, let's hope you have a car.

Why Bristol? It would be much more effective to cancel the relief lines service between Reading and Paddington. After ail, the denizens of Maidenhead keep messing the railway up: let's close their station for a day. They probably have a bus to Slough and a bus from there to Heathrow for the Piccadilly Line.

You could do that.

Wouldn't make an awful lot of difference as we have the Elizabeth Line serving us now, and their drivers have Sundays in the working week so thankfully that nonsense is no longer an issue  

At times of perturbation in the Thames Valley it is often the GWR Reading - Padd local services calling at Twyford, Maidenhead etc that get capped with the Elizebeth Line services taking on all the passengers

[Worcester_Passenger]

As far as passenger information is concerned, it's a bit of a shambles today (Sunday).

National Rail Enquiries' database (and RealTimeTrains) has no trains operating Oxford - Worcester, but GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) JourneyCheck (and Grahame's map) is reporting no cancellations.

Though Journeycheck is reporting cancellations on Swindon - Gloucester.

Predictably, my other half, who was going to travel back from London tomorrow, now wants to travel today.  Looks like a long wait at Bristol Parkway.

[grahame]

As far as passenger information is concerned, it's a bit of a shambles today (Sunday).

National Rail Enquiries' database (and RealTimeTrains) has no trains operating Oxford - Worcester, but GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) JourneyCheck (and Grahame's map) is reporting no cancellations.

Though Journeycheck is reporting cancellations on Swindon - Gloucester.

Journeycheck and our feed report only short notice changes.  It would appear that GWR canned the North Cotswold service before the cutoff point and the South Cotswold after.  You'll have noticed that our maps aren't a sea of read on rail strike days, even though GWR are failing to provide many services in their published summer timetable and contract.

[Worcester_Passenger]

Journeycheck and our feed report only short notice changes.  It would appear that GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) canned the North Cotswold service before the cutoff point and the South Cotswold after.  You'll have noticed that our maps aren't a sea of read on rail strike days, even though GWR are failing to provide many services in their published summer timetable and contract.

You'd think that GWR would be aware of these deadlines, and that they'd post their changes accordingly.

Meanwhile, what does she do I do about 'Delay Repay' on a day when they haven't bothered operating any trains?

[CMRail]

I do wonder how busy Worcester-Bristol services are today, considering both Worcester-London and Cheltenham/Gloucester-London services are cancelled, as well as people travelling into Wales from Cheltenham/Gloucester due to the line closure preventing XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) and TFW services running

[grahame]

There IS a thin shuttle running from Swindon to Gloucester and Cheltenham Spa still ... bedlam at Swindon when we arrived from Melksham on the first train since Friday ... an IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) from London had just arrived at Platform 4 and crowds busy making their way to platform 2 - the west end bay along platform 3 as the Westbury train arrived there and turned around for Weymouth.  Lots of luggage and the train services seem thinned out more drastically than the passengers.

[IndustryInsider]

There IS a thin shuttle running from Swindon to Gloucester and Cheltenham Spa still ... bedlam at Swindon when we arrived from Melksham on the first train since Friday ... an IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) from London had just arrived at Platform 4 and crowds busy making their way to platform 2 - the west end bay along platform 3 as the Westbury train arrived there and turned around for Weymouth.  Lots of luggage and the train services seem thinned out more drastically than the passengers.

The Oxford route is struggling to cope with its one train per hour all being 5-cars.  They're the ones that are usually 5-cars on Sundays as they only run between PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains)<>OXF^» (Oxford - next trains), but are backed up by the (mostly) 9-car trains to and from the North Cotswold Line that are all cancelled today. 

Speaking of backing up, Chiltern used to take some of the passengers of course, but they offer a very unattractive weekend service nowadays with most taking 1h 29m to reach Oxford, often in the hands of 75mph Class 165/0 Turbos.

Very poor from GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) on one of their prime tourism routes.  A strange decision to cancel all North Cots. trains anyway, but no reason why 9-car sets couldn't have been provided for all the trains that are running at the very least.

[ChrisB]

The GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) strike page was not long ago, & maybe still is, showing South Cotswolds as all cancelled for the day. Journeycheck however, showed hourly services - so must have been added overnight. So they should have at least updated their strike page too!

Not so good this time GWR