Great Western Coffee Shop

What a shock this morning: the 8:19 from Reading to Paddington, a normally 3 carriages train which is usually packed to the rafters and a real nightmare when alighting at Maidenhead, was this morning 5 carriages long!!
At last a change in the number of carriages that makes sense.
It did not stop the peops in Maidenhead from cramming right in front of the doors despite there being plenty of seats available on the train but all in all a much better experience than usual.
Thanks FGW!

And, it gets to Paddington on time, without all that nonsense of coupling up to a unit in the station......

On time, hopefully, every time :D

Glad you're pleased.  One of a range of sensible extentions made following the availability of another HST set after the completion of the refurbishment program.  The train you refer to is 1P22 on this list:  http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=16148.0 (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=16148.0)

Sadly the 17 06 from Paddington to Twyford (well it goes on somewhere else but never gone any further) seems to have become a 3 car turbo as opposed to the Intercity 125 it use to be. Initially this was suppose to be because of the engineering works over the summer but tried to catch it today and was pretty crowded. Considering I had to stand sometimes when this was 7/8 carriages it seems a bit of a strange move.

Still should be an HST, was a turbo today because the HST failed earlier in the day.

A one off due to rolling stock issues. A HST set developed a fault earlier in the day and was removed from traffic. Some juggling around of HST sets was done and unfortunately the 1706 to Bristol TM via Bradford-on-Avon was the service to lose out. Most likely it was picked as the fall guy because that was its last passenger run of the day.

Timetabled next week as normal.

It's the Bristol via Trowbridge service, and due to current route restrictions cannot be a turbo all the way.  This service (the only through train of the day from Paddington to the county town of Wiltshire) looks set to be lost post-electification though most of the passengers, Sixty3Closure, seem to use it for the same part of the journey that you do and traffic beyond the Kennet Valley is sparse.   Perhaps part of that sparseness is explained by the early (05:48) departure of the opposite working from Trowbridge into London which must be one of the earliest "last through train" departures anywhere in the country!

Last night saw leaving Slough between 19:20/30 on the Down Relief  a combination of Turbos I've never seen before. 3*2! Is it one of the Bourne Ends or Henley through stoppers?

2R69 18:45 PAD to RDG

This is meant to be 6 car, a recent improvement from 5 cars. Whether the 3*2 is a permanent fixture I do not know.

It's booked to be a Class 166 and Class 165(3) combination.