Thames Valley infrastructure problems causing disruption elsewhere - 2024

[whole diary]

[TaplowGreen]

Delays to services between Reading and London Paddington

Due to trespassers on the railway between Reading and London Paddington all lines are blocked.

Train services running to and from these stations will be delayed. Disruption is expected until 22:15 12/10.

[brooklea]

Cancellations to services between London Paddington and Reading
Due to a points failure at Slough the line towards Reading is blocked. Disruption is expected until 11:00 13/10.
Train services between London Paddington and Reading may be cancelled or delayed.

Customer Advice
Due to a points failure in the Slough area, we cannot currently run any trains towards Slough from London Paddington.

This will affect all trains heading to the west country from London Paddington.

Netowk Rail are on site, but we are currently unable to provide any updates as to when we miught be able to run trains through again. We are currently looking at continengies.

We apologise for the obvious inconvenience this morning.

[Timmer]

Only two trains bound for Reading have left so far this morning and they didn’t get very far.

This looks more positive for a resumption of services:

Cancellations to services between London Paddington and Reading

Following a points failure at Slough the line towards Reading will be reopened shortly. Disruption is expected until 11:00 13/10.

Train services between London Paddington and Reading may be cancelled or delayed.

Customer Advice
Due to a points failure in the Slough area, we cannot currently run any trains towards Reading from London Paddington.

This will affect all trains heading to the west country from London Paddington.

Netowk Rail are on site, and it is hoped we can start running trains again at 09:45, but this is to be confirmed.

We apologise for the obvious inconvenience this morning.
Chiltern Railways are conveying passengers via any reasonable route until further notice. Arrangements have been made for Great Western Railway rail tickets to be accepted for these journeys. between London Marylebone and Oxford.

[TaplowGreen]

Following a points failure at Slough the line towards Reading has now reopened. Disruption is expected until 11:00 13/10.

Train services between London Paddington and Reading may be cancelled or delayed.

Customer Advice
Following a points failure and overrunning engineering works, we are pleased to report that trains can start running between London Paddington and Reading once again. However, this has caused some significant disruption, and therefore it is likely cancellations will continue throughout the day.

[TaplowGreen]

Great start to the week.

Delays to services between Reading and London Paddington

Due to a safety inspection of the track between Reading and London Paddington some lines are blocked.

Train services running to and from these stations will be delayed. Disruption is expected until 09:00 14/10.

[GBM]

Delays to services between London Paddington and Reading
Due to a fault with the signalling system between London Paddington and Reading trains have to run at reduced speed on some lines.
Train services running to and from these stations will be delayed. Disruption is expected until 15:30 16/10.
Customer Advice
Due to an axle counter failure at Southall, some trains passing through this location may incur some delays.

[GBM]

Cancellations to services between London Paddington and Reading
Due to a fault with the signalling system between London Paddington and Reading some lines are blocked.
Train services running to and from these stations will be cancelled or delayed. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.
Customer Advice
We're sorry for the delay to your journey today. Due to a signalling fault in the Southall area, some lines are blocked to allow Network Rail staff to fix the fault. Our high speed long distance trains will be delayed between Reading and London Paddington as they will need to share the local stopping lines with slower trains.
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Our local stopping trains between Didcot Parkway and London Paddington will only run between Reading and London Paddington. Our trains between Newbury and London Paddington will only run between Newbury and Reading. Customers travelling to or from London Paddington will need to change trains at Reading. Some of our high speed trains between London Paddington and South Wales ,Bristol and Cheltenham Spa may also need to be cancelled or terminated at Reading instead of London Paddington.
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Customers travelling between Oxford and London Paddington may use their tickets on Chiltern Railways services at no extra cost between Oxford and London Marylebone.
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Customers may use their tickets on Elizabeth Line services at no extra cost between Reading and Paddington. Please note: Elizabeth Line services are also affected by this issue. For more information on Elizabeth Line services, please visit www.tfl.gov.uk.
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Customers may use their tickets at no extra cost on London Underground services via any reasonable route at no extra cost.
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Customers travelling between Windsor and Eton Central and Central London may use their tickets at no extra cost on South Western Railway services between Windsor and Eton Riverside and London Waterloo.
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GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) customers travelling between Reading and Oxford may use Cross Country services. GWR tickets are being accepted on this route.
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For more information, please speak to a member of staff or trigger a help point located at platform level. Our social media team are also contactable on X (Twitter), via @GWRHelp between the hours of 06:00 and 23:00.
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Further Information
An update will follow within the next 2 hours.
If you arrive at your destination 15 or more minutes late because your GWR train was delayed or cancelled, you can claim Delay Repay compensation. Please keep your ticket and visit GWR.com/DelayRepay
Last Updated:16/10/2024 15:36

[Marlburian]

"Our local stopping trains between Didcot Parkway and London Paddington will only run between Reading and London Paddington." 

That seems hard luck on passengers between Reading and Didcot - stranded at stations with few facilities, if indeed any that are open in the afternoons. Usually in these circumstances, I think, there's a shuttle service between the two towns. At least Newbury-Paddington trains ran between Newbury and Reading.

A friend was talking of visiting me from London yesterday and might have been affected had she done so, prompting me to have to drive her into Reading from Tilehurst (direct route down the nightmarish Oxford Road). In previous instances like this, I have been known to lack gallantry and put them on a bus ...

[eightonedee]

Hi Marlburian,

I'd suggest going via Portman Road, Richfield Avenue and Caversham Road to get to the pick up and drop off area on the North side of Reading Station from the Norcot roundabout. One incidental benefit of the reconstruction of the station and junctions to the west last decade was the removal of the Cow Lane bridges bottleneck that made this almost as fraught as the Oxford Road.

[Marlburian]

Ah, the Cow Lane bridges ... Yes, that's the route I would take, though the ambulance that collected me the other day (no need for blues and twos) turned right into Beresford Road, then left, then right into Salisbury Road, emerging near Reading West Station.

The taxi driver who returned me home from hospital used the back doubles south of Oxford Street. (A friend had offered to collect me, but that would have meant her driving into  Reading from M4 JII, finding a parking space at the Royal Berks, finding me and then driving me home in the rush hour. Which might have strained our relationship.)

Fifty years ago (gulp!), my office was in Market Place House in Reading. There was a terrible Vauxhall Viva office car (smelly plastic seats, three gears with the lever on the steering column) that we were expected to use on business rather than our private ones. I have grim memories of taking it home to Tilehurst in the evening rush-hour for use next day:thirty minutes to cover four miles ...

When my office closed in 1982, we ended up in a grubby London office with "Holborn Viaduct"in its address.The office car was even worse, spending most of the time covered in pigeon poo in a triangular courtyard. For a while, the new boss expected me to drive the car 40 miles to my house, to use it rather than mine the next day for a 19-mile journey on the outskirts of Basingstoke. Eventually he saw sense ...

(I was tempted to laugh when the office car broke down on the M3 when he was driving it; a decision was taken to scrap it.)

[didcotdean]

"Our local stopping trains between Didcot Parkway and London Paddington will only run between Reading and London Paddington." 

That seems hard luck on passengers between Reading and Didcot - stranded at stations with few facilities, if indeed any that are open in the afternoons. Usually in these circumstances, I think, there's a shuttle service between the two towns. At least Newbury-Paddington trains ran between Newbury and Reading.

Fortunately for those concerned this advice was wrong. GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) on social.media corrected this to them running between Reading & Didcot Parkway as would be expected in this kind of disruption.

[Chris from Nailsea]

So, GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) social media over-rides the official GWR online updates?   

[didcotdean]

Apparently in this case 

[Chris from Nailsea]

 

[eightonedee]

I think that should be   Chris....