Great Western Coffee Shop

JourneyCheck is reporting

    16:22 London Paddington to Great Malvern due 19:26
    Facilities on the 16:22 London Paddington to Great Malvern due 19:26.
    Will be formed of 2 coaches instead of 5.

Sounds cosy. Perhaps it was a mistake to cascade that Turbo towards Bristol quite so soon?

To be boringly pedantic, the extra Turbo wouldn't have helped. It's the 'halts' train which calls at some really short platforms (Finstock, Combe, Ascott, Shipton), so you can only replace it with a 2-car Turbo or something with SDO. But yes, it's rammed out of Oxford even as the usual Adelante, so I dread to think what it was like today...

hmmm, the halts train usually has seats on it when I catch it several times a month, when a 180.

Isn't this down to one of the 180s being given away? Thought I saw something on another thread about it.

Now you mention it - I do think I've seen GWR email advising that this service was one of the losers of a 180, yes

Oh dear - I'm expecting to be on this one this afternoon.

Watch this space.

THey have only lost the one set, so far, but this does mean one less rotation with a 180

Should be a 180 today, set 102.

Finished early and caught the 15:22 just in case!

It was a 180, and yesterday's substitute was definitely an unplanned one.  The 17:18 PAD-OXF was a 5-car Turbo so perhaps that's the one that will change from now on - a 5-car Turbo is preferable to a 180 in many ways on that service.  Depends what has been sacrificed to get those Turbos!

Presumably there's some saving in the Greenford shuttles mow they don't go to PAD?

Yes, though just the one 2-car set.

I wish I'd hung around at Paddington last night and caught the 16:22.

How does a 5-car Turbo work at the short platforms? Does everybody for the short platforms have to travel in the front unit?

It doesn't, does it? I've never seen two Turbos on the Cotswold Line where both are available to passengers. On the morning Worcester/Hereford splitter, the back unit is locked out of use.

The 5car turbo referred to was the 1718 only going to OXF

Sorry - not reading posts in sufficient detail.

Maybe this should be in a new topic but is there a 'shortage' of units?

A couple of trains I catch have been running shorter this week:
The 0657 Paddington to Oxford has run as 2 carriages instead of 3 which makes it very busy between Didcot (0829) and Oxford (0847) and
the 1637 Oxford to Paddington which has dropped from 4 to 3 carriages, not any issue for me but maybe for the 1842 Paddington to Maidenhead, which I believe it returns as.

Those alterations could well be part of the balancing act to replace the 180 diagram that looks like it's now been removed due to going down to just the four units.

... and did one of those fail on the Up Main at Pangbourne this morning?

Well, it's a 2-car Turbo again tonight.

Fortunately, I'm not on it.

Unfortunately, I've just been rung, from Oxford, by my significant other, who is on it. She reports that it is very very crowded.

180106 failed at Tilehurst this morning whilst working the 08:26 WOF-PAD.  That could well be the reason for tonight's Turbo substitute.

And the 1522 Paddington to Great Malvern's 180 was also substituted but, unusually, with an HST rather than a Turbo.