Thames Valley infrastructure problems causing disruption elsewhere - 2019

[whole diary]

[TaplowGreen]

.....and a good start to the first "working day" of the new timetable......

Cancellations to services between Reading and London Paddington
Due to a fault with the signalling system between Reading and London Paddington fewer trains are able to run on some London Paddington bound high speed lines.
Train services running to and from these stations may be cancelled, delayed by up to 30 minutes or revised. Disruption is expected until 08:45 16/12.

[NickB]

... until 11am now. 

[Thatcham Crossing]

.....and a good start to the first "working day" of the new timetable......

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) flooding the media with the "this is nothing to do with the new timetable" comms.
They must be cursing the timing though.

[eightf48544]

Just received a forwarded email from Mike Gallop Route Managing Director Network Rail Wales and Western and Mark Hopwood


Vey unfortunate.
 

[charles_uk]

.....and a good start to the first "working day" of the new timetable......

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) flooding the media with the "this is nothing to do with the new timetable" comms.
They must be cursing the timing though.

But what will be interesting is the mix of the signalling problems and the new timetable. Under the old timetable, services could often make up time once they'd got through the problem area. Now a lot of the slack has been removed that "elasticity" is no longer there.

Oh, and delays are now expected until 12:00

[bobm]

Up main now re-opened.  Passed through Slough a couple of minutes ago.

[IndustryInsider]

But what will be interesting is the mix of the signalling problems and the new timetable. Under the old timetable, services could often make up time once they'd got through the problem area. Now a lot of the slack has been removed that "elasticity" is no longer there.

And of course there's more trains being squeezed in, meaning congestion builds up quicker when there is a problem such as this morning.

It's not all doom-and-gloom though as there is still recovery time in the schedules, not as much as before, but still some.  A good example is the 09:28 Paddington to Cheltenham train this morning, which was delayed by 28 minutes leaving Paddington, but even on a schedule that's a whopping 14 minutes quicker than the equivalent 09:36 departure in the old HST^▸ (High Speed Train) based timetable, it got to Cheltenham just 15 minutes late.  So an old schedule of 2h 16m, was bettered by 27 minutes, being completed in 1h 49m, 13 minutes quicker than the current schedule.

[didcotdean]

It may have revealed some of the services that are considered to be the first in line to be sacrificed. The rather unusual Swindon-Paddington service 1A11 that was cancelled could be one of these.

[Timmer]

It may have revealed some of the services that are considered to be the first in line to be sacrificed. The rather unusual Swindon-Paddington service 1A11 that was cancelled could be one of these.

The non-stop Bristols went as well but you would expect that they will always be the first to go at times of disruption.

[Adelante_CCT]

It may have revealed some of the services that are considered to be the first in line to be sacrificed. The rather unusual Swindon-Paddington service 1A11 that was cancelled could be one of these.

The stock for this got caught up in the signal failure and arrived Paddington 27 late, before it is then due to run empty to Swindon, hence the cancellation

[TaplowGreen]

It may have revealed some of the services that are considered to be the first in line to be sacrificed. The rather unusual Swindon-Paddington service 1A11 that was cancelled could be one of these.

The non-stop Bristols went as well but you would expect that they will always be the first to go at times of disruption.

Non-stop Bristols? Isn't there a place in Soho that offers that too? (........asking for a friend)

[stuving]

.....and a good start to the first "working day" of the new timetable......

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) flooding the media with the "this is nothing to do with the new timetable" comms.
They must be cursing the timing though.

I seem to remember that one aspect of the Western Route upgrade, all of which this timetable capitalises on,  was signalling renewal. So along with electrification, new trains, and new Reading, came replacing all that old kit that keeps failing with something new and reliable. So ...

Another important upgrade that I don't think ever happened was to GWR's excuse generator. With the current one, if you feed in what happened today (Monday) - or yesterday - plus "the service would have been just as bad with the old timetable", and even if you turn it up to 11, it doesn't come up with anything management will allow to go out.

[Wizard]

There is some kind of problem at Slough this morning.

[grahame]

There is some kind of problem at Slough this morning.

Just updated on Journey Check:

Cancellations to services between Reading and London Paddington

Due to a speed restriction over defective track between Reading and London Paddington fewer trains are able to run.
Train services running to and from these stations may be cancelled, delayed by up to 20 minutes or revised. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.

Customer Advice

Owing to a short section of defective track in the Slough area, which requires some remedial work, a speed restriction has had to be imposed on the London bound fast line in that area. As a result of this we are unable to operate the full timetabled train service between Reading and London Paddington.

A small number of services which would normally operate non-stop from stations West of Reading / Slough will be cancelled or revised to terminate at Reading. In order to accommodate as many trains as possible through the affected area some alterations will also need to be made to other services which serve intermediate stations.

It will be very interesting to see which services are amongst the small number selected.

[TaplowGreen]

Another triumph for the new timetable

Everything London bound from Taplow/Burnham cancelled for the foreseeable future