Most trains delayed by hours or cancelled to/from Paddington and
points west of Slough. FGW services in complete disarray. Been going
on on most of Sunday afternoon, evening. BUT few announcements at
intermediate stations, cancellations at short notice despite birng
planned many hours in advance, and NO buses subsituted round the
blockage. Typical reponse of a company that doesn't give a st*ff about
its long suffering paying pax. HEX and Connet apparently running to/
from LHR OK. CJB.

CJB wrote:
Most trains delayed by hours or cancelled to/from Paddington and
points west of Slough. FGW services in complete disarray. Been going
on on most of Sunday afternoon, evening. BUT few announcements at
intermediate stations, cancellations at short notice despite birng
planned many hours in advance, and NO buses subsituted round the
blockage.

According to the National Rail site, some buses ARE being laid on:

"Train services between Slough and Reading are being disrupted due to
signalling problems. Alterations and delays of over 60 minutes are
occurring.

A limited train service is operating between London Paddington and
Reading. An amended train service is operating between London Paddington
and Slough, with replacement road transport operating between Slough and
Reading. Road transport is operating between Maidenhead and Marlow.

There is no estimate for a normal service to resume." (timed at 19:30)

Typical reponse of a company that doesn't give a st*ff about
its long suffering paying pax.

Typical comment from someone with an axe to grind? Since some trains
are getting through, how do you know that some short-notice
cancellations were actually "planned many hours in advance"? Are you
sure they were definitely planned to happen rather than being planned as
a contingency in case the failure hadn't been cleared in time?

HEX and Connet apparently running to/ from LHR OK.

As expected, since the signalling system failure is between Slough and
Reading.

I would be interested in an *objective* report on FGW's response to this
Network Rail failure.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

In message . com, at
11:38:07 on Sun, 15 Jul 2007, CJB remarked:
Most trains delayed by hours or cancelled to/from Paddington and
points west of Slough. FGW services in complete disarray. Been going
on on most of Sunday afternoon, evening.

Must have missed that: I departed Reading at 14.33 - the train was
nearly 10 minutes early arriving from Paddington.
--
Roland Perry

On 15 Jul, 21:17, Roland Perry wrote:
In message . com, at
11:38:07 on Sun, 15 Jul 2007, CJB remarked:

Most trains delayed by hours or cancelled to/from Paddington and
points west of Slough. FGW services in complete disarray. Been going
on on most of Sunday afternoon, evening.

Must have missed that: I departed Reading at 14.33 - the train was
nearly 10 minutes early arriving from Paddington.
--
Roland Perry

Sounds like cable theft again to me! THere was some major problems at
Barnes a few weeks back for the same reason. I suppose on a Sunday
there are more hi-vis wearing bods about so they wouldn't look so
suspicous. I mean generally a signal failure or signalling problems
wouldnt amount to this level of disruption would it?

Roland Perry wrote:
In message . com, at
11:38:07 on Sun, 15 Jul 2007, CJB remarked:
Most trains delayed by hours or cancelled to/from Paddington and
points west of Slough. FGW services in complete disarray. Been going
on on most of Sunday afternoon, evening.

Must have missed that: I departed Reading at 14.33 - the train was
nearly 10 minutes early arriving from Paddington.

I finally got back to London well over two hours late. Train from
Ledbury at 1646 was running fine as far as Oxford, where the train
manager sounded very surprised to announce that the service was
cancelled (after loads of people had gotten on and it was full and
standing).

Then, after about ten minutes of general confusion, the service was
announced as continuing to Didcot so everyone piled back on again to get
to Didcot (in retrospect, a bad idea... I should've followed my instinct
and gotten straight on the coach from Oxford).

More hanging around at Didcot with hundreds of passengers being advised
to wait for the next London train, a 35-minute-late service which was
being reported on the displays as "full and standing from Bath". A
London stopping service from Oxford turned up after about 15 mins, which
about half the passengers decided to gamble on since it was actually
there; it travelled along without incident as far as Reading when it was
announced as terminating there just before arriving.

Mayhem at Reading with various London services standing in the
platforms, a queueing system in operation for Waterloo trains, but
little in the way of announcements other than a scrawled noticeboard
next to the (empty) information desk.

I tried to get on a Railair coach to Heathrow which was about to depart
but my ticket (London Terminals) was rejected ("we don't get any revenue
from that") so I went off and bought another ticket and then waited for
the next coach 30 mins later, boarded with about two other passengers,
and then trundled into London by Tube from Heathrow.

I was not impressed by the poor level of information (except from the
train manager of the original service who cheerfully gave out all the
information he had), and I'll wait with baited breath to see if First
will refund my Railair ticket as well as my original ticket...

Ironically I was almost due a refund for the outward journey on Friday
evening thanks to a racially abusive (and slightly violent) passenger in
my carriage who had to be carted off the train at Slough and delayed it
by about 55 minutes.

--
Dave A
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

Standing at HN28 signal wrote:
On 15 Jul, 21:17, Roland Perry wrote:
In message . com, at
11:38:07 on Sun, 15 Jul 2007, CJB remarked:

Most trains delayed by hours or cancelled to/from Paddington and
points west of Slough. FGW services in complete disarray. Been going
on on most of Sunday afternoon, evening.

Must have missed that: I departed Reading at 14.33 - the train was
nearly 10 minutes early arriving from Paddington.

Sounds like cable theft again to me! THere was some major problems at
Barnes a few weeks back for the same reason. I suppose on a Sunday
there are more hi-vis wearing bods about so they wouldn't look so
suspicous. I mean generally a signal failure or signalling problems
wouldnt amount to this level of disruption would it?

Might well have been weather related. There was an almighty thunderstorm,
with torrential rain, that passed across the area and up through the
Chilterns and across towards Milton Keynes and Bedford at around
16:30-17:00. Could well have been the result of a lightning strike.

H&H 16.45:

Turned up at 16.45 Hayes & Harlington for 16.59 train to Oxford. VDU
in foyer said train was on time. Then at 16.55 an announcement stated
that it was cancelled. VDU now saidf it was cancelled - no reason
given. Question: why did they wait until it was almost due to announce
that it was cancelled since all Oxford trains had been cancelled all
afternoon (and still are at 02.00 am next day). Then at 17.05 a
'special' arrived for Slough - but no announcements were made. The
ticket office at H&H wasd closed. There were no station staff on duty.
No announcements were being made. destinations screens remained
uninformative.

Paddington 23.15:

All trains into/out of cancelled or 'delayed.' Last Connect left at
about 23.00. Only ONE local service to Reading 00.35. Question: why
couldn't Connect have laid on an extra service for local stations to
H&H at say 23.45? No NR / FGW customer service staff visible on
concourse. No info. on display screens. NO BUS SUBSTITUTIONS for local
stations - zero, zilch, sfa. No audible announcements (a few inaudible
announcements drowned out by echos as usual).

Typical lack of customer service for a trainco that really does want
to lose its franchise - and the sooner the better.

CJB.

On Jul 15, 11:56 pm, Dave A wrote:
Roland Perry wrote:
In message . com, at
11:38:07 on Sun, 15 Jul 2007, CJB remarked:
Most trains delayed by hours or cancelled to/from Paddington and
points west of Slough. FGW services in complete disarray. Been going
on on most of Sunday afternoon, evening.

Must have missed that: I departed Reading at 14.33 - the train was
nearly 10 minutes early arriving from Paddington.

I finally got back to London well over two hours late. Train from
Ledbury at 1646 was running fine as far as Oxford, where the train
manager sounded very surprised to announce that the service was
cancelled (after loads of people had gotten on and it was full and
standing).

Then, after about ten minutes of general confusion, the service was
announced as continuing to Didcot so everyone piled back on again to get
to Didcot (in retrospect, a bad idea... I should've followed my instinct
and gotten straight on the coach from Oxford).

More hanging around at Didcot with hundreds of passengers being advised
to wait for the next London train, a 35-minute-late service which was
being reported on the displays as "full and standing from Bath". A
London stopping service from Oxford turned up after about 15 mins, which
about half the passengers decided to gamble on since it was actually
there; it travelled along without incident as far as Reading when it was
announced as terminating there just before arriving.

Mayhem at Reading with various London services standing in the
platforms, a queueing system in operation for Waterloo trains, but
little in the way of announcements other than a scrawled noticeboard
next to the (empty) information desk.

I tried to get on a Railair coach to Heathrow which was about to depart
but my ticket (London Terminals) was rejected ("we don't get any revenue
from that") so I went off and bought another ticket and then waited for
the next coach 30 mins later, boarded with about two other passengers,
and then trundled into London by Tube from Heathrow.

I was not impressed by the poor level of information (except from the
train manager of the original service who cheerfully gave out all the
information he had), and I'll wait with baited breath to see if First
will refund my Railair ticket as well as my original ticket...

Ironically I was almost due a refund for the outward journey on Friday
evening thanks to a racially abusive (and slightly violent) passenger in
my carriage who had to be carted off the train at Slough and delayed it
by about 55 minutes.

--
Dave Awww.alwaystouchout.com- Transport projects in London

On Jul 15, 4:00 pm, "Jack Taylor" wrote:

Might well have been weather related. There was an almighty thunderstorm,
with torrential rain, that passed across the area and up through the
Chilterns and across towards Milton Keynes and Bedford at around
16:30-17:00. Could well have been the result of a lightning strike.

Yeah we got that here in Luton and it was a pretty widespread event.

Sounds like a bad lightning strike on a trackside eqpt somewhere.

--
Nick

In message , at 21:17:21 on Sun, 15 Jul
2007, Roland Perry remarked:
Most trains delayed by hours or cancelled to/from Paddington and
points west of Slough. FGW services in complete disarray. Been going
on on most of Sunday afternoon, evening.

Must have missed that: I departed Reading at 14.33 - the train was
nearly 10 minutes early arriving from Paddington.

Trains to London from Plymouth (and Penzance) substituted by a 150 to
Exeter St Davids "Auto-announcer: 10.41 to Exter St Davids, this train
does not call at Reading or Paddington"/"Person-announcer: Board this
train for Paddington, change at Exeter St Davids". I suppose FGW are
having trouble getting enough rolling stock down here yet.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 10:45:16 on Mon, 16 Jul
2007, Roland Perry remarked:
I suppose FGW are having trouble getting enough rolling stock down here
yet.

VXC not 100% together, either. Train pretty full and two different
ladies both have a reservation for the seat opposite me (verified by the
staff), reservation displays not working (nor are scrolling displays
over the doors) and they are using the traditional printed seat back
labels. No at-seat service in 1st, with passengers asked to go to the
shop and show their FC ticket.

Oh, and I have a wonderful view (not) through a beige pillar, just the
same as on Voyager the way down - do they deliberately give those seats
to people with really cheap tickets?
--
Roland Perry