Thames Valley infrastructure problems causing disruption elsewhere - 2016

[whole diary]

[TaplowGreen]

I was later this morning and heading to Reading but I understand that there was nothing London bound from Taplow till around 0730?

One poor chap on Twitter had been there since 0530 and was asking for hot drinks and blankets by 0700!!!

[eightf48544]

Understand several trains from Taplow to Reading cancelled during the morning.

[TaplowGreen]

Understand several trains from Taplow to Reading cancelled during the morning.

I got the 0822 to Reading which (as always) was about 5 mins late and I noticed a few other 10-15 minute delays heading West but no cancellations (unless it was the earliest services), think it was London bound that suffered more?

[IndustryInsider]

I was later this morning and heading to Reading but I understand that there was nothing London bound from Taplow till around 0730?

One poor chap on Twitter had been there since 0530 and was asking for hot drinks and blankets by 0700!!!

Bit of a mystery that one, as realtimetrains and my internal system reports plenty of departures - though mostly delayed:

There was nothing until 06:26 when the 06:00 departed, and was followed by the 06:24 departing at 06:28, the 06:32 departed at 06:38, the 06:57 departed at 07:00, and additional stop on one that departed at 07:26, and the 07:27 departed at 07:37.

[ChrisB]

time flies when you're having 'fun' (telling your mates)

[BBM]

Looking at RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website), every Up stopper scheduled to call at Taplow before 0730 this morning is shown as having called at platform 2 (the Up Main) with the exception of the 0600 which called at platform 4 at 0626. Maybe a lack of information at the station for the chap on Twitter? Or perhaps these trains didn't actually stop in order to keep the UM moving?

[TaplowGreen]

I was later this morning and heading to Reading but I understand that there was nothing London bound from Taplow till around 0730?

One poor chap on Twitter had been there since 0530 and was asking for hot drinks and blankets by 0700!!!

Bit of a mystery that one, as realtimetrains and my internal system reports plenty of departures - though mostly delayed:

There was nothing until 06:26 when the 06:00 departed, and was followed by the 06:24 departing at 06:28, the 06:32 departed at 06:38, the 06:57 departed at 07:00, and additional stop on one that departed at 07:26, and the 07:27 departed at 07:37.

.....Nothing for the first hour, GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) Twitter apologised for the 0624 being cancelled, and the 0657 was announced as cancelled at the last minute & then roared through without stopping (again apologies given for poor comms), guess the additional stop was to make up for it? Hypothermia seems to be affecting everything!!!

[TaplowGreen]

Looking at RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website), every Up stopper scheduled to call at Taplow before 0730 this morning is shown as having called at platform 2 (the Up Main) with the exception of the 0600 which called at platform 4 at 0626. Maybe a lack of information at the station for the chap on Twitter? Or perhaps these trains didn't actually stop in order to keep the UM moving?

Nothing stops at Platform 2 at Taplow so I think the answer to your last question is "yes".......

[Gordon the Blue Engine]

Until the XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) has gone round the curve at Didcot, assuming it's only a small delay then the turbo gets held at Didcot.

So blame services that are 100 miles away for your train being delayed 

The congestion at Didcot is slowly getting worse as more and more trains are squeezed through.  Although there's less freight trains overall due to the drastic reduction in coal trains, the number of freight movements through Didcot seems to increase year on year.  I've mentioned it before, but now Reading has been largely sorted, Didcot is the new pinch-point and a grade separated junction east of the station is looking likely to be the best solution, and would be more beneficial IMHO^▸ (in my humble opinion) than 4-tracking Didcot to Oxford which has been getting some mentions recently.  Both would be nice of course!

You only have to watch the opentraintimes map to see how the London bound stoppers are often delayed by a few minutes (at least half of them I would say) waiting for either delayed XC trains in either direction or for freights to pass by, or (worst of the lot) for a freight to crawl into Didcot Yard.  The performance implications don't get highlighted as much as they might - most of the stoppers have five or so minutes layover at Reading - but that's not much consolation to users of the Thames Valley stations.

… a problem which, as a Thames Valley station user, I’ve moaned about here many times before.  The benefits of electrification will be lost unless NR^» (Network Rail - home page) can produce a more resilient timetable which is more able to recover from delays and which doesn’t condemn stopping trains in the Thames Valley to being delayed, for example, by late running stopping trains 100 miles away in the West Midlands.

Just because a line is busy doesn't mean you can't build in some timetable resilience.

[IndustryInsider]

Looking at RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website), every Up stopper scheduled to call at Taplow before 0730 this morning is shown as having called at platform 2 (the Up Main) with the exception of the 0600 which called at platform 4 at 0626. Maybe a lack of information at the station for the chap on Twitter? Or perhaps these trains didn't actually stop in order to keep the UM moving?

Nothing stops at Platform 2 at Taplow so I think the answer to your last question is "yes".......

Yes, platforms 1 and 2 are out of use.  Too low and in a poor state of repair so deemed uneconomical to bring back up to scratch.  Could well be that a few of those I quoted missed Taplow, though that wasn't registered on Tyrellcheck/Genius so a bit of a puzzle, but if they were running ML they won't have called at Taplow - or Burnham which is FAR busier!

There's a massive difference for a commuter station like Taplow having no trains until 06:30 or 07:30 mind you, so hopefully it was the former.

[lordgoata]

Flicking back through it appears to be the XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) service 06:04 from Birmingham which the turbo waits at Didcot for that causes the problem, which is caused in itself by the occasional late running of the 05:53 Birmingham to Euston which runs semi-fast to Coventry and holds up the XC.

Until the XC has gone round the curve at Didcot, assuming it's only a small delay then the turbo gets held at Didcot.

So blame services that are 100 miles away for your train being delayed 

Hehe, nice. Thanks for that though! I have noticed the XC come through on the relief line a few times, but never put two and two together (I don't function properly until after 9am ).

I did have a poke around on recenttraintimes.co.uk I think it was, and (if I read it right), for the past 12 weeks the punctuality was just 74% for this service 

[BBM]

Flicking back through it appears to be the XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) service 06:04 from Birmingham which the turbo waits at Didcot for that causes the problem, which is caused in itself by the occasional late running of the 05:53 Birmingham to Euston which runs semi-fast to Coventry and holds up the XC.

Until the XC has gone round the curve at Didcot, assuming it's only a small delay then the turbo gets held at Didcot.

So blame services that are 100 miles away for your train being delayed 

Hehe, nice. Thanks for that though! I have noticed the XC come through on the relief line a few times, but never put two and two together (I don't function properly until after 9am ).

I did have a poke around on recenttraintimes.co.uk I think it was, and (if I read it right), for the past 12 weeks the punctuality was just 74% for this service 

I didn't get the 0653 from TWY^▸ (Twyford station) today (0550 from OXF^» (Oxford - next trains)) but I see from RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) that it arrived at DID^» (Didcot Parkway - next trains) 5 minutes late, was still 2 minutes late leaving in spite of the scheduled 11-minute stop there, then lost a further 6 minutes between there and Cholsey. I can't see any obvious reason for that but the preceding service from OXF (the 0543 from there) was held at DID for 8 minutes instead of its scheduled 2 so something must have got in the way.

[Adelante_CCT]

I didn't get the 0653 from TWY^▸ (Twyford station) today (0550 from OXF^» (Oxford - next trains)) but I see from RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) that it arrived at DID^» (Didcot Parkway - next trains) 5 minutes late, was still 2 minutes late leaving in spite of the scheduled 11-minute stop there, then lost a further 6 minutes between there and Cholsey. I can't see any obvious reason for that but the preceding service from OXF (the 0543 from there) was held at DID for 8 minutes instead of its scheduled 2 so something must have got in the way.

There appears to have been a problem on the relief lines between Tilehurst and Didcot between around 05:30 and 06:30 which resulted in trains using the mains including all freights and a stopper each way (missing Pangbourne obviously). The 05:50 from Oxford was the first one to be routed 'correctly'

[Andrew1939 from West Oxon]

The lack of capacity at Didcot has a major impact on the growth of rail use in Oxfordshire. There are many West Oxon residents that work in the Didcot area but only a minor proportion use rail from the Cotswold Line to Didcot to commute. This is because almost no CL trains serve Didcot and require users to change at Oxford with very poor unguaranteed connections. My daughter is one of these and she now uses her car (as do most other people) on the ever increasingly congested A34. It is however usuall quicker from Hanborough than using the rail service.increasing the Oxford/Didcot line capacity with the suggested additional platforms on the Didcot loop could be a major improvement increasing the viability of rail use.

[didcotdean]

Didcot is a growing travel-to-work destination as well as a travel-from. Maybe the service patterns need to keep up with this.