Can you help with connection question?

[whole diary]

[greenman]

Can anyone help me with a bit of advice please. We are coming back from france to worcester by train on 25/2/11 and have tickets to catch the 20.45 from paddington which takes us to swindon. We arrive there at 21.43 and then need to change to the 21.54 to worcester. This only gives us 11 minutes and there are no other trains to Worcester that night. If the London train was delayed would the swindon train wait or could we be heading for possible problems. Both trains are run by Great Western.    Hope someone can help . Thanks

[eightf48544]

Official connection time is 5 minutes so 11 minutes is plenty.

As it's the last train I believe it should be held for the London train.

I would be more concerned about getting the 20:45 from Padd have you allowed enough time if your Eurostar is late?

Are your Pddd Worcester tickets  St. Pancras International CIV^▸ (International Convention for the transportation of Passengers) tickets in which case they can be used on any train from Padd It's best to get them endorsed at St Pancras there is a thread on here somewhere about it.

[greenman]

Thanks I am hoping the train will be held tickets say we have to go via Evesham or Stroud otherwise we could of taken the Euston to Brum train the Euro train gets in at 19.34 so should have plenty of time. Mind you on the way there we were delayed for an hour because someone had taken the copper out of the signals near Evesham luckily we had left loads of time.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Welcome to the Coffee Shop forum, greenman!

Chris from Nailsea. 

[greenman]

Thankyou

[inspector_blakey]

To confirm what eightf said, if it is the last official advertised connection of the day then one of two things will happen - either the connecting train will be held for you (in which case if you find your train to Swindon running late find and notify the guard that you're making that connection), or alternative transport will be provided to your ticketed destination, most likely in the form of a taxi.

[JayMac]

As your tickets are routed: Evesham/Stroud, I assume they are not Advance Purchase. Therefore you could travel home from Euston via Birmingham on payment of a 'Change of Route Excess' fare. If your ticket is the Off Peak Return (SVR) or Super Off Peak Return (SSR) then no excess would be payable as the Evesham/Stroud routed fare are more expensive than the nearest equivalent (SVR) Birmingham routed fare. If that's the case it is perfectly acceptable to use the ticket from Euston via Brum without additional cost - what's known as a 'zero excess'. If you hold a different ticket type (Single, Anytime, First Class etc) then an excess fare would be payable to travel from Euston via Brum.

Not much additional time as the latest you could leave Euston would be 2103, but worth bearing in mind if you are late into St Pancras and your chances of getting to Paddington are slim.

[greenman]

Well it sounds as though we will be ok I bought the tickets about a month ago on line with a friends and family railcard and return can be used until 18th week march and can take any train via evesham.