We recognise that the temporary timetable has disrupted your journeys and affected your plans. Progress is being made, but we need to carry out some engineering work before we can eventually remove the speed restrictions, and later, restore the full timetable.

We'll be carrying out essential repairs between Salisbury and Exeter. ⚠️This means some evening services will finish earlier than usual on Monday 23, Tuesday 24, Wednesday 25 and Thursday 26 November.
ℹ️ What's changing on these dates? 
•   The 20:20 service from London Waterloo to Exeter St Davids will finish its journey at Yeovil Junction. A connecting bus service will continue to Exeter St Davids.
 
•   The 22:12 service from Exeter St Davids to Salisbury will be replaced by a bus service from Exeter St Davids to Yeovil Junction. A connecting train service will continue to Salisbury.
 
•   The 23:06 service from Exeter St Davids to Yeovil Junction will be replaced by a bus service.
Please check before you travel, including your last train home, before you set off. Journey planners have been updated with the latest information.
Journey Planner

Makers of automatic braking system for railways. They had a large facility near Chippenham station in Wiltshire.

See https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Westinghouse_Brake_Co
and
https://www.gazetteandherald.co.uk/news/24185562.westinghouse-chippenham-site-demolished-new-homes/

The opening of a £100 million rail engineering facility is a "vote of confidence" for a region's economy and future, a government minister has said.

The new Siemens Rail Technology Centre on Southpoint Business Park in Chippenham was opened earlier, with the prime minister among those in attendance.

Siemens, which was previously based elsewhere in the town, creates digital signalling technology for the UK's rail network.
Heidi Alexander, the MP for Swindon South and the secretary of state for transport, said: "It's a great vote of confidence in the economy of the West Country

GWR seem less confident about the announcement if their app is anything to go by as I can't get any ticket/prices/times for the 23rd.  Same story with the TrainSplit site.

It will be interesting to see what GWR do with the planned 1Z services to Cardiff for the rugby today.

Customer Advice

As a result of some damage being sustained to the overhead electric wires we are unable to operate electric trains along the slow / stopping lines between Reading and Didcot Parkway.

Passengers who would normally travel on these services as a through train between Didcot Parkway and stations via Cholsey and Tilehurst will need to change trains at Reading; similar arrangements will apply in reverse for journeys from London Paddington.

I would prefer port, but don't expect same to be provided by this forum.

And 2 is Melksham, obviously

(Apologies if there's an existing thread on this, please move as appropriate.)

..........until close of play on Friday.

Alterations to services between Reading and Didcot Parkway

Due to damage to the overhead electric wires between Reading and Didcot Parkway fewer trains are able to run.
Train services running to and from these stations may be revised.

Disruption is expected until the end of the day on 06/11/26.

Customer Advice
As a result of some damage being sustained to the overhead electric wires we are unable to operate electric trains along the slow / stopping lines between Reading and Didcot Parkway.

Spain's rail authorities face European fraud probe after Urda rail disaster


Last month's train crash in which 69 people died was the second deadly accident on the same high-speed line this year - Image © EPA

European Union prosecutors have begun investigating the possible misuse of EU funds meant for upgrading the Spanish railway line where a train crash killed 69 people last week.

Prosecutors backed by a special unit of Spain's Guardia Civil security force said they were conducting the inquiry at the offices of Adif rail infrastructure authority and rail safety agency AESF.

The 28 October accident on the Madrid-Seville high-speed line was one of the worst railway disasters in Europe this century.

It is the second EU fraud inquiry opened into Spain's railways this year, after 46 people were killed on the same line at Adamuz in January.

Last week, a train operated by state-owned operator Renfe ploughed into the back of a stationary train belonging to private Spanish company Iryo outside the village of Urda, around 130km (80 miles) south of Madrid.

The LZB communication system that monitors the position of trains had gone down, and the Renfe train had been given the all clear to start running at normal speed, even though the Iryo train ahead of it had been unable to restart.

The two accidents nine months apart on the same line have claimed 115 lives and dozens more injuries.

(BBC article continues)

October 23rd late morning, a Friday, one of the Oxford trains at Bath Spa. Many people on the platform boarding what was already a rather busy five carriage train. If this was representative of how this new service has found its feet, it's very positive, but what a capacity-constrained system that providing even this service deploys trains that GWR doesn't really have.

GWR seem less confident about the announcement if their app is anything to go by as I can't get any ticket/prices/times for the 23rd.  Same story with the TrainSplit site.

Ah - you're assuming that just because the station is open, there will be trains. Is that necessarily the case?

Maybe that will have to wait until the new timetable on December 13th. Or, at the least, until someone has worked out how to fit some new trains into the existing timetable. Presumably that hasn't been done because whoever that is was convinced it would not open until the later date.

GWR seem less confident about the announcement if their app is anything to go by as I can't get any ticket/prices/times for the 23rd.  Same story with the TrainSplit site.

How are we doing on Welsh 158s?  Can they come, please, without the normal 2 years in a field?  And can we retain enough of the other old stuff as they arrive to have capacity to handle "more trains that normal require repair at the same time"?

From the North Cotswold board, but for wider comment


As a more general thing, we were at Paddington in the peak hour on Wednesday at the peak hour, and noted several trains being called as short formed down to 5 carriages, and on several we were told that there were no catering facilities.  There was a significantly late departure of the Great Malvern train, and neither my ticket nor Lisa's would operate the automatic barrier and we required staffing assistance to get through.  Things are not as we were lead to expect that they would be when the HSTs were being replaced.   Having said which, the staff were exemplary on the barrier and in offering to help us onto (and later off) the train, which ran on time to Chippenham.

Issues are not unique to the British system, mind you, and we experienced delays in every country we had been through.   Only one of those was significant, as a 45 minute late arrival into Ovideo meant that we had missed the 25 minute onward connection to the second (and last) train of the day to Navia and Ferrol.   Paddington to Chippenham on time, and we left there on time towards Melksham but had to wait for the single line.  Some things happen all too often!