17:50 Gloucester to Salisbury due 20:06

17:50 Gloucester to Salisbury due 20:06 will be terminated at Westbury.
It will no longer call at Dilton Marsh, Warminster and Salisbury.
It is being delayed at Gloucester.
This is due to more trains than usual needing repairs at the same time.

I believe that it is a requirement that the investigating authority issues an initial report within 30 days of the accident. Of course, the content of that report will only be what they are able/willing to release -  but often, what they don't say tells you far more than what they do say.

London to Birmingham is 118 miles
At 225 m.p.h., that's 32 minutes
At 180 m.p.h., it's 40 minutes
At 140 m.p.h., it's 51 minutes
And at 125 m.p.h. its 57 minutes

Of course it will take longer - you have to allow for accelerating and breaking, and allow for the two minutes that you need to be there for closing of the doors, and time to get to and from the stations and platform.  Rather more I would ask about the freqency and how long you'll have to be at the station to check in before your train is called - one hopes not as long as Eurostar.

I find myself remaining of the personal opinion that 140 m.p.h. would have been quite fast enough, with half of the extra money spent to raise the speed limit on good access in and out of that backbone.

Questions - for what proportion of the journey will the trains be running at their top speed or even over 200 m.p.h., and are the ends engineered to a less fast standard - Old Oak Common to Perivale  - 4.5 miles - at 225 m.p.h. would take a minute and 12 seconds.

HS2 ran tens of billions of pounds over budget and will open years late because it was designed to be unnecessarily fast, MPs have been told.

Lord Hendy, the rail minister, made the claim as he criticised the decision for the route to be built for trains running at speeds of 225mph, faster than on most high-speed networks overseas.

He said: “It is hard to understand why there was such zealotry about the highest-speed, high-speed railway in a relatively small country when the origination of it was to relieve capacity [problems].

“The case for better connectivity is pretty clear. The West Coast Main Line was predicted to be nearly full, and it is nearly full and under huge pressure.

“But there are two questions that doesn’t answer. One is why we needed an exceptionally fast railway, rather than just a fast railway.

“The other is the speed of delivery. I’m not sure I can make the case that it was desperate. Why it was pursued with such speed – and now we are suffering the cost of it – is hard to say.”

Lord Hendy questioned why HS2 needed to be even faster than the High Speed 1 route that runs between London’s St Pancras International Station and the Channel Tunnel, which at 186mph, he said was “quite fast as it is” and the standard speed for European high-speed lines.

He said about one-third of the HS2 route runs underground or through cuttings in order to keep the line straight and maximise speed, which had created significant engineering challenges.

The former chairman of Network Rail, which manages the UK’s train tracks and major stations, told the House of Commons transport committee that civil engineering work that should have been completed by now was still only about 60pc complete, with just one-third of the wider scheme, including tracks, trains and overhead power lines, finished.

‘Appalling mess’

Last month, the Government said that the opening of HS2 would be delayed beyond 2033 after cost overruns swelled to £37bn, despite the northern half of the project being scrapped to save money.

Heidi Alexander, the Transport Secretary, said the scheme was an “appalling mess” following a “litany of failures” and could end up becoming the most expensive railway line in the world. Some £2bn alone was spent on its now-cancelled second phase to Manchester.

Alan Over, director general for major rail projects at the Department for Transport, told MPs that HS2 was built to such a high specification in part because of a political desire to go one better than Britain’s European rivals.

He said: “If you are going to build a new railway, you might as well make it faster than our historic railways. The speed helps a bit with the capacity as well, because you can get more trains through in the given amount of time.

“The question is, why did the country choose to do it faster than the French or faster than the Germans or faster than the Spanish? There was a bit of ‘we want to join the high-speed revolution’ and be as good as everyone else in that regard.”

Mr Over added: “It’s not bad to have a national ambition. But you have to understand the consequences, that you are then pushing the boundaries and introducing more risk, and that leads to more cost.”

He said that the HS2 was designed for trains faster than all but the speediest Japanese and Chinese models.

Mark Wild, who took over as HS2’s chief executive in December after running London’s Crossrail project, conceded that the project had been too ambitious but said there was now no choice but to persevere with the truncated plans.

He said: “The mistake made here is that the railway is just too fast and too stiff, and that has produced very, very significant civil engineering costs.

“We have clearly got into terrible trouble with the estimate. But the die is cast now and we have to make the best we can of it.”

Pleased to see that speculation is still being avoided!

I recall that it was necessary to kill the weekend demand using... techniques. Slowing the through journey times, breaking the through train at Westbury with a ~20 minute connection there, and of course for much of the spring and early summer... when is it that the timetable switches to 'Summer' services?

Mark

The service was pretty reliable when the service was operated by 37s and Mk2 coaching stock in the days of Regional Railways and later by Wales and West who ended the loco hauled era trumpeting that more modern DMU rolling stock would improve the service.

I was at Bath Spa on the first summer Saturday of the new timetable when the replacement for the morning Weymouth loco hauled service, a 2 car 158 with a 153 attached rocked up almost full from Bristol.

It left absolutely wedged with passengers down the line standing no chance of boarding. This was at the time when Wales and West had reduced the Summer Saturday morning Bristol to Weymouth trains to just one train leaving Bristol around 9am. Next train not until around 12pm.

This was fine when you had a full rake of loco hauled Mk2s operating the solo morning service but not a when it was a 2 car 158 with a dog box attached! Some improvement not!

Many fond memories of day trips to Weymouth from Bath when it was loco hauled. Comfortable Mk2s with plenty of seats for everyone. Sadly the appeal of going to Weymouth on a 165/166 just doesn’t do it for me.

Do you happen to have the cancellation data from those years?

Mark

This morning's Gloucester-Southampton (Melksham 6:32) service was cancelled after reaching Swindon due to a fault on the train. Hopefully delay/repay will cover the cost of the 271 bus I'm currently waiting for...

06:35 Salisbury to Worcester Foregate Street due 09:47

06:35 Salisbury to Worcester Foregate Street due 09:47 will be terminated at Westbury.
It will no longer call at Trowbridge, Melksham, Chippenham, Swindon, Kemble, Stroud, Stonehouse, Gloucester, Cheltenham Spa, Ashchurch For Tewkesbury, Worcester Shrub Hill and Worcester Foregate Street.
This is due to train crew being delayed by service disruption.

05:23 Hereford to London Paddington due 08:24 is being delayed at Worcester Foregate Street.
This is due to a shortage of station staff.
Will be formed of 5 coaches instead of 9.
Last Updated:10/07/2025 06:45

07:13 Great Malvern to London Paddington due 09:42 will be started from Worcester Shrub Hill.
This is due to a shortage of station staff.
Last Updated:10/07/2025 06:50

A Mayday was issued by the pilots. The above doesn’t really gel with that?