Great Western Coffee Shop

0718 from redruth towards Paddington cancelled due to poor weather conditions.

I might be completely oblivious, but we've been basking in glorious sunshine in Cornwall.

My 2237 from truro to redruth last night was around 25 late for same reasons.

One very confused person here as we've not seen poor weather for around 10 days!

I've noticed a number of other journeys cancelled for same reason.

I heard they had a bit of a shower in the far east yesterday, seems to have affected the 0815 Swansea to Carmarthen, and the Swansea to Pembroke Dock services somehow too!

I imagine it's due to the lightning strike at Twyford yesterday.. Journeycheck says

"Owing to the major disruption during Friday afternoon / evening, following the damage sustained by signalling equipment due to a lightning strike, many of our trains are not in the correct position for us to be able to operate a full service of long distance trains on Saturday morning"

Big electrical storm in the Thames Valley yesterday afternoon which resulted in a lightning strike in the Twyford area at approx. 15:15 which took out all the signalling on both the Main and Relief Lines, all services (both TV locals and HSS) were effected all afternoon and evening and I believe still are this morning.

FGW are also stating on their website that long distance services are impacted today because the stock is in the wrong place.

Am on the 07:30 BRI - PAD. Will let you know of progress through Twyford :)

Bath Spa CIS boards were showing disruption between Slough and Reading again today ::) After brief discussions with staff there, I understand that yesterday was awful. I couldn't help but agree, yet sympathise :)

Also another storm predicted in London this Monday...!

And the ultimate train formation update being reported on JourneyCheck:

Should be cosy!

What would be wrong with "This is due to trains being out of position after last night's massive lightning strike on signalling equipment near Twyford, which wiped out our peak-hour services to and from Paddington"?

this service will be formed as an hst from plymouth to paddington.

That will be "cosy" to the point of dangerous, there is no way all the passengers will be able to get on board............why not lay on some road transport to Plymouth?

I would like to think they will because as you say not everyone will be able to board a 1 coach train, not by a long way. Will staff at Newquay determine who does actually travel on this train?

Arrived London 4 minutes late.

With regards to the above. Anyone travelling beyond Par should be bustituted. Allowing those on intermediate stops to board.

Only going to Par or Penzance then travel by rail should be allowed. May need bus from Liskeard too :-\

R U sure about the loading?

I'm playing devil's advocate here ... but I do note that it's the first Saturday of many school holidays and so the morning train from Newquay may still be "shoulder" rather than peak season.   And the days of Saturdays being regulated train after regulated train are long since gone.  Much more (thanks to Devon and Cornwall Rail Partnership and others), traffic on lines like Newquay is much more even through the week;  I suspect that there would have been quite a goodly number of seats from Newquay, with the service building up as it runs through Cornwall and Devon, leading to a fullish 125 into Paddington today.

I note that the 11.00 Penzance to Paddington is calling additionally at Par I assume to assist in picking up Newquay passengers?

This is not helping the public perception of the railways in the South West. After a winter of seemingly continual disruption, now a summer storm brings the entire service to a halt. Meanwhile, traffic flows freely along the roads, as it did all winter, too.

Yes, I understand what happened, but the vast majority of passengers care not a jot for the finer details, they just see yet another disruption.

The intermediate stops between Par and Newquay aren't served on Summer Saturdays.

The 11:30 only stops at Par, Plymouth, Exeter St David's and Reading. Which probably says something about the loadings.

Has the entire service been bought to a halt in the SW?

I live near the A30 close to Exeter, and I can confirm traffic will not be flowing freely on summer saturdays on the roads - there's a reason all the locals use the slightly longer "old roads".  It's just chaos every weekend through the summer, and that's before they even get on the M5.


Nothing to do with loadings.  The same in reverse leaves PAD for NQY at 0736 on Summer Saturdays.  Penzance leaves 0730, you don't need 2 trains stopping everywhere within a short space of time.  You might as well have some 'fast' services where practicable.  The same applies for this 11:30 to PAD which is only 14mins behind the PZ-PAD at Plymouth.

Yes.
This is doing West country tourist businesses no good at all. Not easy to state that the "west is open" when you cant get there reliably or in comfort by train.
I don't think that the recent scenes at Paddington (gross over crowding, multi hour delays, BTP threatening passengers etc.) are going to encourage rail travel.

In years gone by, both road and rail links were affected by adverse weather, railways however often remained open in conditions that closed nearby roads.
These days moderately adverse weather can seriously disrupt hundreds of miles of railway whilst roads often remain unaffected.

But the 07:30 from Paddington to Penzance goes by way of Bristol.

Of the two trains from Plymouth to London, the 13:00 has stopped at major stations in Cornwall and then does five major stations to London. The 13:14 has picked up at Newquay and Par, but then only does Exeter and Reading on its way into London. If it's not carrying as many passengers, then it'd make more sense to run the Penzance one as the fast and let the Newquay do the extra stops (at Totnes, Newton Abbot and Taunton).

I was told by a train manager this morning that 17 HST sets ended up in the wrong depot last night.

Going by road to the SW for your summer hols really any better? Tweet 1hr ago from BBC Points West:

Should be Ok, going against flow on first summer Saturday.
I ended on the 0751 from redruth which stops all shacks to London, a large number joined at St Germans which surprised me

Port Eliot Festival methinks....

Believe at least 2 Class 180s ended up at being stabled at Oxford and Worcester overnight.  Normally they all go back to Old Oak every night and none are used at the weekends. They worked scheduled services back this morning!
Caused a bit of a crewing headache and a few taxi journeys because what should have been an HST was a 180 and the booked crew from Bristol don't sign 180s!

Quite a few customers were caused headaches & endured lengthy and very expensive taxi journeys in order to get "stabled" too!  ;)

That was not the fault of the train crew ............. more the fault of divine intervention Friday afternoon

They should all write in and complain though, just because they say they don't pay compensation because it's an act of god or outside of the railways control doesn't mean to say they wouldn't get a gesture of goodwill, however small, it's better than nothing.

I can imagine it was more than quite a few though.  Some of our traincrew had to get taxis home because they got back after the last trains had departed,  some even slept in the messroom although that's because they don't enjoy weaving down the motorway at 3am with the taxi driver drifting in and out of consciousness at the end of their 13 hour shift!!
We went right up to our 12 hour legal driving limit though.  We even had a crew change taking place at Slough during the evening. 

It does go via Bristol, but is booked only 25 mins behind by Exeter, with local services and XC too, the fast NQY does not need to be all stops.

I understand your logic, but on the down trip it may be a case of needing to get the set to NQY as quick as possible for its return trip, and pathing may be an issue RDG-PAD if you quicken the PZ and slow the NQY.

Regarding the 153 operating the 1130 from Newquay. The decision proved to be well made as reservation systems showed that only 67 people were booked from Newquay. A PNZ-PAD HST was stopped at Par to pick up anyone waiting. A coach was also ordered to take any surplus from Newquay but this was not required as everyone got on the 153. I observed it coming through BOD and although it wasn't spacious, there was no one standing.