Except passengers struggled to go that way either. Passenger taken ill (which was unfortunate) meant that there were no trains to Waterloo from 0609 until 0728. I was lucky yesterday - didn't need to be in London until later so was able to get one of the first fasts from Reading at about 0835 - Reading station was pretty much deserted.

Journey check was reporting that some of the Didcot stoppers had been cancelled between Didcot and Reading due to a track inspection.

Looks like the mains are closed in both directions between Reading and Didcot. Traksy is currently showing 7 down services queueing from Morton Cutting.

Not a good start to the Christmas getaway. 

Not all the delay repay claims are related to staff shortages. Infrastructure failures, especially those impacting peak services, are likely to result in a significant percentage of those claims, not least of which because regular travellers will be used to claiming.

To be fair, after heavy rain, the subway at Didcot is often out of action too, so no need for any lifts to be working.

Oxford Mail https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/24504486.oxford-politician-said-botley-road-shut-end-2025/ now reporting that a local councillor has stated that the Botley Road is unlikely to be open until the end of 2025. No official announcement from Network Rail, but I do feel sorry for the residents of Oxford.

The defect is clearly worse because the up main is now closed with the usual contingency plans in place (Didcot and Newbury services terminating/starting from Reading).

This morning’s joy. A trespass incident at West Ealing has resulted in a complete block to services in/out of Paddington. Journeycheck expecting disruption until 0900.

Services looked like they had recovered by about 2030 (the time, not the year). But don't worry, I'm sure there will be another infrastructure issue along soon, especially as temperatures will be rising over the next few days.

Final update.

After a "Letter Before Action", GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have finally agreed to compensate the taxi expense. Contrary to their Complaints Handling policy, it's still taking effort to get Delay Repay for this journey.

In summary, GWR do not appear to have an effective process for dealing with stranded passengers when they cancel services, nor do they seem to have a mechanism that is customer friendly to recover costs when they breach their contract.

@mods can you move this thread to the "Your rights and redress" section of the forum? Thanks

I'm going to correct what I said in my last post.

Darwin sites are showing the service as cancelled, but only from Gloucester (which is correct).

There's probably a training issue in GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) Customer Services where trains are cancelled for part of their journey.

I thought the forum would like an update on this.

After 2 weeks, GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) are now denying that the service ran from Cheltenham to Gloucester (2B98). This is not consistent with the experience of the passengers that were on it.

Interestingly sites that use DARWIN are showing this as cancelled throughout, but it did run and I have opentraintimes images of timing points for that service from Cheltenham to Gloucester.

All valid points but if GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have not got the capability to do this from Bristol, Gloucester or Cheltenham then you have to question their commitment to their obligations.

For context, I have had GWR arrange taxis from a small station with no local taxi service in the past, which required a fleet of taxis to travel from Reading to collect passengers. This was done really well.

In this case it was Gloucester on a Saturday night, rather than a minor station with no available alternative transport.

Lots of taxis were available and even if GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) had an arrangement with a taxi provider in the wider region (say Bristol or Cheltenham), they wouldn't have had an issue sourcing one. However, they never tried because they refused to help their customers.

Passengers didn't have that opportunity. The Swindon service sat at Gloucester and there were no announcements made until after the XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) service had left. As other posters have commented, there were no other services heading south due to other cancellations.

Thanks folks. The train in question was the 2130 Cheltenham to Swindon which was terminated at Gloucester.

Staff at Gloucester refused to help despite the passengers pointing out their rights and a conversation with GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) customer services.

In the end they were forced to arrange their own taxi (in excess of £250).

Will be sending a strongly worded complaint to get the taxi fare refunded, delay repay and an apology.