Happened to be on the Ill-fated 16:30 from BTM^▸ (Bristol Temple Meads (strictly, it should be BRI) but BTM is a commonly used alternative)) last night - Kink in the rail was the given reason, but I didnt detect it being any kinker than normal when we did finally get moving.

Handled well by train staff I thought - plenty of announcing / walking thru the train / free water - coffee - tea ; would have been nice to have had a little more info about what the process was (presuably someone needed to do an inspection & it just took time to get out there) but I guess they were as much in the dark as we were.

Hey - Im a long time lurker here but never had anything worth saying, but I thought I should sign up since I happened to be on the 16:49 on Tuesday so may be able to add some insight.

Was dozing in carriage B (about 3/4 full, lots of empty reserved seats..) and making good time until there was a big bang going thru Hayes station (5pm), lots of ballast thrown up as we went under the bridge there, & the train comes to a gentle stop by the side of the Heathrow spur - pretty clear we had hit something.

And there we sat for just under three hours. Crew were very good at keeping us informed, using both the tannoy at the regulation 15min intervals + walking thru the train & repeating the messages / talking to people every so often. Wasnt too busy at the front of the train thankfully so there was space to get up & wander around + they opened the buffet for water / Tea (definitely no Alcohol!) - Ive had worse delays, may have been worse up the back 'cos people do tend to cram in back there.

From what I could see, which wasn't all that much being alongside the Heathrow spur bridge, it took about an hour for the police to do their inspection & for the relief line to open, mainline being blocked by us - about another hour for two fitters to be delivered from Reading on HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train (Inter City class 43 125 units)), at which time trains started going up to London on the mainline past us slowly. Fitters did their thing shutting off the leaking air lines & fuel line (we were told there was a big hole in the front of the train which had done quite a lot of damage) & releasing the brakes manually. Just before 8pm we chugged off slowly to Slough where we all got to pile on to a turbo to Reading & then onwards.

I wandered up to the front of the platform @ Slough & had a quick peek at the front of the train - there was indeed a big hole where the grill normally is on the top of the power car nose; must have been head on & thus really unpleasant for the driver. Never the less he had the wits to let the train coast until it was past the junction for the Heathrow spur so that the HEX could get going again ASAP - good man !

Quite impressed with the way we were treated whilst we were stuck, so will be dropping a nice email to FGW^▸ (First Great Western) today since I expect that they could do with a bit of positive input. Cant really say the same about the hour it took to get from Slough to Didcot, but at least I got to see how the Reading works are coming along (thats a big job!) & finally got home just before 10pm, a full six hours after I left my office for the day.