Service: 09:35 London Paddington to Hereford on 29/06/2008 operated by fgw.
Details: This train has run short formed with 3 carriages.

Service: 10:42 London Paddington to Hereford on 29/06/2008 operated by fgw.
Details: This train will be started from Reading. It will no longer call at: London Paddington and Slough. This is due to a member of train crew being unavailable.

That 1625 ex Worcester will be roughly 1740 ex Oxford. I wonder if FGW will have the sense to tag on another 3 car unit at Oxford, as it will otherwise be an almighty crush from Oxford to Paddington with just 3-cars.

Of course they won't - that would be far too sensible. There's probably three or four surplus turbos kicking around at Oxford all day, but I saw at least three of the up Paddington's off the Cotswold Line arrive today and two of them were chock-full, the third had people standing.

This always happens on a Sunday at it's not helped by the fact that the trains also stop at Didcot Parkway. Indeed, a couple of months ago the local press got involved when a 2-car was used a a substitute on one of the Hereford-Paddingtons in the afternoon. About 30 people had to be turned away at Oxford and nobody at all could board at Didcot. The appalling fact is that there IS plenty of spare Turbo capacity on a Sunday.

Even when the trains are formed by HST's they are full as Oxford only has an hourly fast service on a Sunday, which almost always originates from Hereford/Malvern/Worcester.

That was the exact service in question, Lee. And guess who witnessed it first hand! 

Fair point about stock.

On a sunday:

No Greenford service so that frees up I believe 2 sets.
Reading stopper is hourly instead of half hourly
Oxford stopper is hourly instead of half hourly.

But also need to remember sets get taken out for routine maintenance and such

Yes, but...

Where were all the booked HSTs this weekend anyway, or the Adelantes, come to that?

Anyone know?

And why are the controllers allowed to get way with this kind of thing so often on the Cotswold Line (and at Oxford of course)? Just because the Cotswold Line crews sign for Turbos and you can't send a Turbo off to Bristol doesn't make it right.

After the two-car Turbo fiasco - and there was another one sent out on a Saturday morning all the way to Hereford around the same time, which I saw arriving at Oxford from London absolutely packed - there were lots of promises about it not happening again. But a three-car is scarcely much of an improvement, especially on a Sunday afternoon or evening - which as any fool knows is one of the busiest times for rail travel all week.

Surely someone high up in FGW must realise what a lousy advert for rail travel an overcrowded Turbo is. Hardly the perfect end to a weekend away. And if it's a 165 - one toilet all the way to Hereford and back, lovely!

Stab in the dark, but there were extra services running to/from Castle cary because of Glastonbury, it may be something to do with that?


Here here!

Further turbo substitutions today (30/06/2008) :

Service: 05:51 Moreton-In-Marsh to London Paddington on 30/06/2008 operated by First Great Western.

Details: This train will run short formed with 3 carriages. This is due to a member of train crew being unavailable.

Service: 11:06 Great Malvern to London Paddington on 30/06/2008 operated by First Great Western.

Details: This train has been revised. This train will run short formed with 3 carriages. This is due to an earlier train fault.

Service: 07:51 London Paddington to Great Malvern on 30/06/2008 operated by First Great Western.

Details: This train has been revised. This train will run short formed with 3 carriages. This is due to an earlier train fault.