Travel advice 4th January onwards

[whole diary]

[Worcester_Passenger]

As of 08:05, JourneyCheck's 'line updates' section is showing as attached.

That feels like a full house - and ought to have a 'do not travel'.

[Timmer]

The 0745 Bristol to London is heading towards Westbury presumably to join the Berks and Hants at Hawkeridge Junction.

Pewsey Departure board is blank.

Westbury departure board showing London trains as running via Berks and Hants.

Cancellations of services that were due to be leaving Paddington now appearing on journeycheck.

[Electric train]

Apart from Ollies valid point about route knowledge retention you are assuming there is line capacity on the Chiltern Route

I assume one could replace a MYB^▸ (London (Marylebone))-OXF^» (Oxford - next trains) service with a PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains)-OXF service in the same path if required.

That would require Chiltern to cancel one of there services for the benefit of one of their competitors, when you could just send the passengers to Marylebone for an Oxford service and they could change  at Oxford  

On a different note, is the line between Old Oak Common and Greenford going to be restored post HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s))?

No.  Best they may happen is a terminating platforms for Chiltern, but that is not in scope other than passive provision.   The space where the diverging junction at Old Oak was is going to occupied by the alinement of the western throat of the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) HS2 station which will have 8 GWML platforms

[TaplowGreen]

The 0745 Bristol to London is heading towards Westbury presumably to join the Berks and Hants at Hawkeridge Junction.

Pewsey Departure board is blank.

Westbury departure board showing London trains as running via Berks and Hants.

Cancellations of services that were due to be leaving Paddington now appearing on journeycheck.

Very little appears to be leaving Paddington - details on my earlier post on the Infrastructure failure thread - even the Elizabeth Line seems to be affected so GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) can't rely on that to bale them out at the moment (forgive the unintended pun!)

[Timmer]

Becoming clearer now. The Berks and Hants IS now open but expect delays and cancellations as there has been damage to infrastructure:

Cancellations to services between Reading and Westbury

Due to heavy rain flooding the railway between Reading and Westbury fewer trains are able to run.

Train services running to and from these stations will be cancelled, delayed or revised. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.

Customer Advice

The route between Reading and Westbury is available for the resumption of train services. However, owing to damage to some lineside components fewer trains are able to operate. There are issues in other areas of our network which will prevent an early resumption of services but we, together with our industry colleagues, are working tirelessly to enable services to operate.

Initially, passengers from Reading for destinations via Theale to Newbury should use the Reading Buses JetBlack 1 bus service on which GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) rail tickets will be accepted. Note that the JetBlack 1 bus service does not call at locations immediately adjacent to all the local railway stations and operates an houry service on Sundays.

A limited shuttle train service will operate between Reading and Theale but please note that there are no onward connecting services from Theale.

A very limited rail replacement mini-bus service will be operating between Newbury and Bedwyn.

[IndustryInsider]

There’s been a welcome improvement in the ‘finer details’ of incidents of late.

[TaplowGreen]

This just from National Rail - more reliable than Journeycheck - obviously in addition to all the flooding related chaos.

Route(s) affected
Elizabeth line between London Paddington and Heathrow Terminal 4 / Heathrow Terminal 5 / Reading, and between Abbey Wood and Heathrow Terminal 4 / Heathrow Terminal 5, and also between Shenfield and Heathrow Terminal 4

Great Western Railway between London Paddington and Didcot Parkway / Oxford / Worcester Shrub Hill / Worcester Foregate Street / Great Malvern / Hereford / Swansea / Carmarthen / Bristol Parkway / Bristol Temple Meads / Weston-super-Mare / Taunton / Exeter St Davids / Newton Abbot / Paignton / Plymouth / Penzance

Heathrow Express between London Paddington and Heathrow Terminal 5

Description
Damage to the overhead electric wires between London Paddington and Heathrow Airport / Reading is causing disruption to journeys running to and from these stations.

As a result, trains may be cancelled, revised or delayed by up to 60 minutes..

We anticipate major disruption will continue until 12:00.

Customer advice:

Elizabeth line

There is no service between London Paddington and Ealing Broadway. Stations between Ealing Broadway and Heathrow / Reading are receiving a reduced service.

You may use your ticket on London Underground and London Bus services via any reasonable route at no extra cost.

Great Western Railway

No trains are currently operating between London Paddington and Reading.

You may use your ticket on the following services at no extra cost:

London Underground via any reasonable route

London Buses via any reasonable route

Southern via any reasonable route

Thameslink via any reasonable route

[Timmer]

Things aren’t going well for the 0745 Bristol-Paddington which appears to be stuck in the Westbury area due a points failure.

[grahame]

Things aren’t going well for the 0745 Bristol-Paddington which appears to be stuck in the Westbury area due a points failure.

07:45 Bristol to Paddington, due 09:40, arrived at 11:39. 
Pity anyone who got up early, taking advise that's been flying around in recent days to "start your journey as early as possible".

Weekday timetabled comparison - first Bristol to London trains:
04:53, arriving Paddington 06:28 (via Bristol Parkway)
05:10, arriving Paddington 07:37 (via Westbury)
05:23, arriving Paddington 06:57 (via Chippenham)

[froome]

With the flooding in Sodbury Tunnel and on various other lines last week, we were left with just the line through Bath for any London to Bristol/south Wales trains to use last week.

Given that we had bad flooding near to Chippenham closing this line only last month, and recent floods in Box Tunnel, how did we manage to escape a complete closure of all lines in this area? There has been a real deluge of rain in the Bath area in the last week, including all of Wiltshire, and the river Avon was at its highest level I have ever seen it at the end of the week, so the fact that this line did remain open seems surprising to me. If it had closed, what would then have happened?