A few from the last couple of days:

Fri 25 April

1453 Paddington to Worcester Foregate Street cancelled between London Paddington and Slough due to a points failure (IB) and  cancelled between Oxford and Worcester Foregate Street due to unknown cause (ZW)

1726 Worcester Foregate Street to Paddington cancelled between Worcester Foregate Street and Oxford due to unknown cause (ZW) and was cancelled between Reading and London Paddington due to an issue with the train crew (TG)

Sun 27 April

0844 Paddington to Great Malvern cancelled between London Paddington and Worcester Shrub Hill due to an issue with the train crew (TH)

0858 Great Malvern to London Paddington was cancelled due to the train operator's request (TB)

1312 Worcester Foregate Street to London Paddington was cancelled due to an issue with the train crew (TH)

Might it be worth having this in a separate thread? Whilst the annual delays and cancellation thread is a useful historical record, there is sometimes the risk that the issues behind particular delays (e.g. regular flooding in a particular area, the issues with the bridge at Yarnton last year) simply get buried when, perhaps, they deserve a little more air.

Guess what?

A few from yesterday:

1P16 0753 Oxford to London Paddington - This service was cancelled between Worcester Shrub Hill and Oxford due to an issue with the train crew (TG).
1P38 1632 Great Malvern to London Paddington - was diverted between Worcester Shrub Hill & Didcot Parkway missing out the north Cotswolds.
1W03 1734 London Paddington to Ledbury - This service was cancelled between Ledbury and Hereford due to a person hit by a train (XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise))).

The "disruption is expected until..." time has been gradually extended throughout the day - currently expected until 16:00 at present.

Once again


This is becoming quite a regular occurrence recently. This service was also held Charlbury for 18 minutes due to the late running 06:50 Paddington to Great Malvern service. It departed Hanborough at roughly the time the following 06:43 Worcester Shrub Hill to Paddington train was supposed to arrive, leaving a very full platform of passengers who decided to wait for that train (or, quite possibly, simply couldn't board the crush loaded HFD^» (Hereford - next trains):PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains) short-form).

with the following 17:34 London Paddington to Hereford service running 16 minutes late and a five car short formation. Not surprisingly the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) app is showing no unoccupied seats.

And the following service, the 1552 London Paddington to Worcester Shrub Hill train departed Paddington 28 minutes late and left Oxford 38 late.

I wonder what the logic was for retaining the Charlbury and Evesham stops whilst missing out some more used intermediate stations between Oxford and Worcester.

There's an article in The Times today (behind paywall) headed "Fresh rail row as Labour signals crackdown on private services" beginning "In a letter to the rail regulator, the transport secretary has warned that open-access providers pose competition to other, soon-to-be-nationalised operators..." which suggests the government is thinking the same thing.

And the preceding service:


And after those two cancellations as far as services from London/Oxford to the Cotswolds are concerned:

Realtime Trains reporting


whist JourneyCheck explains the 1921 Reading to Worcester Foregate Street cancellation as "due to a shortage of train crew"