Great Western Coffee Shop

Fortunately I don't commute from Worcester, but I do travel regularly. And for the duration of the works, I've been going the long way round by way of Bristol Parkway.

First day back to normal, and here I am on the 17:22 from Paddington to Worcester. Which is about to terminate at Moreton on account of "urgent bridge repairs" (nationalrail.co.uk) or "a bridge that has been hit by a road vehicle" (train manager).

Feels as if waiting for the 18:22, which is going to go the long way round by way of Stroud, would have been quicker.

Who'd be a prophet, eh?

Well, the 17:22 did indeed terminate at Moreton. There was a GWR team waiting for us. They were hoping to run the train through once the bridge had been inspected, but alas that wasn't possible. So they put us on a coach to Worcester Shrub Hill.

The coach went round by way of Honeybourne for three passengers (couldn't they have been put into a taxi?) and then called at Evesham and Pershore.

We got to Shrub Hill at 20:56 (81 late). Not bad in the circumstances. You might've saved 10-15 minutes by putting the Honeybourne passengers into a taxi.

But somebody had been very sensible. The 18:22 had indeed been sent the long way round by way of Stroud. And it was waiting for us, having arrived at its normal time of 20:41. It departed at 21:01 (only 18 late). Gold star for somebody's wallchart.

A couple of things could've been done better. It didn't seem to be possible to switch off the automated announcements at Moreton. And it didn't seem to be possible to use the station PA in manual mode, so the GWR team were having to walk up and down the platform talking to people. The cunning wheeze might well have been for the train manager to make an announcement as we came into Moreton : "we are now approaching Moreton. We're probably going to have to terminate the train here, but I'd like all of you who want to travel beyond Moreton to stay on the train because it'll be easier for us to make announcements about what's happening. Plus you'll be more comfortable."

Earlier, something curious happened at Didcot. We'd already had one announcement about the problems. We were diverted through the station and slowed down as if we were going to stop. By this stage I'd spotted from JourneyCheck that the 18:22 was going round via Stroud, so I closed the laptop and got ready to alight, expecting that we'd be transferred to the 18:22. But although we crawled through the station, we didn't stop. I just wonder if the Didcot stop was a cunning plan that went wrong - that no-one told the driver about what was happening.

[Meanwhile, you might want to move these posts to the Cotswold line topics]

Now done.  ::) :P ;D