Delays to services between London Paddington and Reading

Following trespassers on the railway between London Paddington and Reading all lines have now reopened.

Train services running to and from these stations are returning to normal. Disruption is expected until 20:00 27/10.

 

 
I am on a suburban train to Porto (so please excuse any typos)  - been to Braga for a couple of hours.  And coming back to the station, I knew there was a train about every hour.  With that frequency, I hadn't bothered to check on my return train simple turning up at the station.  Murphy's law applied, and I walked into an empty Braga station just after the train had left.   Never mind - for an occasional journey, a 58 minute wait wasn't a problem and my laptop, a chance to observe, and a cup of coffee the time soon passed.   No rush to do anything back in Porto.

So - what IS sufficient frequency for a service? 

A service with gaps significnatly longer than an hour only works for a very small proportion of people (and - Melksham note - thats a gap between when trains run and not when they are timetabled but get cancelled as both the 08:02 and 10:02 were this morning).

With a passing loop around Beanacre, an hourly passenger service could be supported - that's double the current service, and running "clock face".  And today I have received a notification that FIRST Great Western Limited is replaced as operator Great Western Railway Limited from 13th December - nationalisation that we have known is coming.  I - hope - that the reliability issues (trains running to timetable) will be sorted out, but I lack any convictions that they will be for that reason.

What the loop WOULD do is double the service and halve the delay when things go wrong.   Actually, it could be rather better - trains out of step including freights would have much shorter (and less obstructive tendencies) waits when something coming the other way is held up - freight trains are REALLY unreliable to the timetabble - often early or late. Futhemore, only 2 trains would be needed to provide the hourly Swindon to Westbury service; without a loop (and without frwight) it would need 3 trains as they have to pass somewhere, and could not do so on the single line.

Currenly trains leave Swindon at 06:03, 08:45, 11:05, 13:14, 15:14, 17:45, 18:44 20:12 and 22:31 and leave Westbury at 07:05, 07:45, 09:45, 12:17, 14:18, 16:23, 18:37 20:06 and 21:16. Just imagine if they left BOTH ends at those time - so that's from Swindon at 06:03, 07:05, 07:45, 08:45, 09:45, 11:05, 12:17, 13:14, 14:18, 15:14, 16:23, 17:45, 18:40, 20:12, 21:16 and 22:31 and Westbury at 06:03, 07:05, 07:45, 08:45, 09:45, 11:05, 12:17, 13:14, 14:18, 15:14, 16:23, 17:45, 18:40, 20:06, 21:16 and 22:31 ... look at all the gaps filled!



Pictured - the HOURLY train from Porto has just arrived in Braga and - oh look - the crowds are flowimg odd. It works!

 
It was interesting to see how these members of the House of Lords could sit around the committee table, and (notwithstanding their different political allegiances) have a civilised and constructive discussion with a remarkable degree of cross-party agreement. Possibly it was easier for milords Young, Grayling and Harper to support this freed from the departmental and Treasury pressures of office?

But, notwithstanding Lord Hendy's commitment, it is difficult to see priority being given to the constructive re-use or devotion of much valuable resource to these assets if they do end up in GBR's ownership. I have had recent experience of dealing with CRT on a "legacy" site, and temper my disappointment with the slowness of their actions by the thought of the vast estate of current and former canal assets (quite a few of which carry considerable potential liability if something fails, as has happened on more than one occasion in recent years) for which they are responsible. I am not sure that moving assets from one balance sheet to another does much to help safeguard them in a world when cost is king, and there are many calls on resources.

 
Many thanks for all the inputs.     Whilst 100% of you visit from the UK ... at least some of the time ... there's a substantial number from time to time outside the UK and all sorts of technological elements too.    Traffic has been very heavy of late, with numerous automated accesses failing to admit that they are automated - rather faking what type or browser that are, and doing in via all sorts of distributed places.  I am saying "oy" to a number of these - purely to keep traffic down and prevent congestion / gridlock but they are so hard to identify ...

 
From my email ...


and

 
"It is firmly a Government intention” to transfer the Historical Railways Estate to Great British Railways. That was the commitment made yesterday by Lord Hendy, the Minister of State for Rail, during his response to a debate around an amendment to the Railways Bill which is currently going through its Committee Stage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6poAoRnMp8

 




"Pulling the plug" - for however long - on the Melksham (and Westbury, and Beanacre bypasses) does not reduce the amount of freight travelling south-north through Wiltshire. 

It helps make the case for transfer to rail - where that's appropriate, and furthermore it's far less intrusive, less locally controversial, far environmentally better, and far cheaper to put in the infrastructure for rail.   If it can be done BEFORE our population explodes as planned, and with a "metro" frequency rail service in place ahead of time, then our economy and good housing stock will grow with people ready, willing AND ABLE to use rail where appropriate - and that in turn lessens the load and congestion on roads in the area from what it would otherwise be.

 
AI can be pretty good at this sort of thing, although it's not easy to tell whether it's correct or not:

 
I have a sentence on cycle.travel's "contact us" page saying "we don't accept sponsored posts, link exchanges or guest posts". Doesn't stop them incessantly trying. I just mark as junk and move on.

 

Love this! too much info maybe?

 
I'll try and find my copy later but Gerry Fiennes' "I Tried to Run a Railway" is very good on the decisions behind retention of the line. He was not impressed with the support forthcoming, or not, from local politicians.

 
I have lived alongside the Waterloo to Exeter line in or near Pinhoe for all bar three years of my Seventy years and have always been interested in the fortunes of the line. My A-Level Statistics project, which gained an A grade was on the subject of 'Re-doubling the railway between Wilton and Pinhoe'.

However, one significant event in the history of the line puzzles me and I'd like confirmation or correction of my memory please.

Every article I read on the reasons for reducing Wilton South to Pinhoe to mainly single track and thus the route to Secondary status, was down entirely to Dr Beeching. However, my recollection is that was only the beginning - with the closure of several intermediate stations. My recollection is that control of the Salisbury to Exeter route was transferred from BR(S) to BR(W) in the early 60s and that Senior Management of BR(W) did not want two fast routes into the westcountry (the ACE was faster to Exeter than the Cornish Riviera at the time). So, BR(W) throttled the ACE in the timetable and made the decision to reduce the route to Secondary status.

Can somebody confirm / correct my perception please?

*** Correction of unfortunate typo in the first sentence ***

 

 
Roger French also did some walking -
https://busandtrainuser.com/2026/10/27/how-to-ruin-five-more-central-london-bus-routes/
It’s finally happened. After years of controversy with Westminster Council and others objecting, Mayor Kahn’s vision for a traffic free Oxford Street, first launched in his 2016 manifesto, finally got under way yesterday when the 900 yard middle section, between Great Portland Street and Selfridges, of the 1.2 mile long road was pedestrianised with not even cycles allowed to use the road.

I blogged about this proposal two years ago expressing concern at the impact on passengers using the busy bus stops served by the five TfL routes still using the street – routes 7, 94, 98, 139 and 390.

............continues...........

 
Roger French article here -
https://busandtrainuser.com/2026/10/25/marking-40-years-of-deregulated-buses/

Sunday 25th October 2026

To mark tomorrow’s 40th Anniversary of bus deregulation here’s an article I wrote earlier this year for the Omnibus Magazine (the bi-monthly magazine of the Omnibus Society) explaining why deregulation worked so well in Brighton and Hove as well as a number of other British towns and cities. It perhaps also explains why deregulation manifestly didn’t work in other places most of which are now first in the queue for implementing the now available alternative of politically led and publicly controlled ‘franchising’, thanks to previously unheard of generous funding from Government.

.....continues..........

 
09:45 Westbury to Swindon due 10:28
09:45 Westbury to Swindon due 10:28 will be cancelled.
This is due to train crew being delayed by service disruption.

 


"ish" -  a handful of early Monday to Saturday service call at the station in Chippenham having left from Melksham, and a few mid to late afternoon service to Melksham call there.  Otherwise on Monday to Saturday, they don't. All Sunday service to Chippenham will call at the station ON REQUEST, and all outbound services call there.

For Melksham resident "in the know", it works fine as those are the most useful services for rail transfer; what we are short of is evening bus services from (any part) of Chippenham to Melksham.

 

 

You are almost certainly right. However, having a standard answer to hand and in public I can now just say "see here" to the various requests received, occasional ones of which have resulted in one post wonders.   Answer not just (or even really) for this enquirer, but far more general.  Next time it's quicker, and, further, guests / casual visitors who may have wondered are encouraged to join and post.

 
That's an agency trying to find outlets that they can *sell* to their 'clients'. Not that you'll get any money out opf it, and if its free, neither will they, and you won't get any content being supplied.

Don't waste your timer responding would be my suggestion.

 
It would seem that a significant number of people ARE stocking up on essentials as suggested by HMG.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5rmy84np001o

Proper "doomfood" would IMHO be preferable to regular tinned food as it has a warranted 25 year shelf life and should last almost forever.

Needs extra water and means of boiling same though.

 
The Coffee Shop is happy to carry appropriate on-theme content contibutions irrespective of who contibutes it.  That inlcudes, for example, authors adverising their own books on relevant topics, attractions telling us about their locations and events, and transport operators sharing their history and news.   Audienece-wise, we are quite small because we are a bit niche and obscure, so such posts do not flood us.

In my mailbox this morning - and far from the first time:


I have on occasions in the past answered individually to confirm that anyone can post on the Coffee Shop, without any payment, by signing up as a member.  That requires acceptance of our forum agreement which includes the guidelines, a copy of which may be found at https://www.passenger.chat/r1761.html .  But bearing in mind the repeating nature of this request, it's far better to provide a standard and consistent answer - hence this thread, that I or anyone else can refer enquirers too.

As an aside ... the question may open from approaches like this "should be take branded advertising through the site, giving commercial and other organiations high placement for the payment of a fee which would go towards the running costs and future developents of the Coffee Shop".  That would be something for discussion out of public view, but at the time of writing (and nearly 20 years on from our foundation) I've not seen any great need nor desire to do this.  Times do change and many sites that carry news now also carry adertising and/or make a charge for access to their content - it would be foolish to say "never" but it's not exactly likely to happen any time soon.

If you are a content provider, please feel free to sign up and publish content.  The forum agreement will lay down what is and isn't appropriate content, and our members through there interactions many well help your articles bubble up above other content as they like and comment, and events added to the calendar will receive extra ptomotion as "upcoming" a few weeks before they run.  Very occassionally, our moderator team may even make a topic you have instigated "sticky" making it one of the headline topics even as newer posts would normally push it down the page.

 

Err ... not sure what train that is?  Could be the train that's normally the 07:45 Westbury to Swindon, extended back to start from Salisbury this week in place of a Salisbury - Bristol working which can't get through because of the engineering between Bath and Bristol.    And I suspect the "tree blocking the railway" is the one on the Golden Valley line not on the TransWilts, but with congestion at Swindon, no room for it there.   

Never mind - there's another trains from Melksham (for example) at 10:02 and I'm sure your employer will be understanding. You could, of course "If you require further information please speak to our staff at the station or on the train, use the Customer Help Point" use the help point.  Not unknown for station maintenance staff to appear at Melksham occasionally, so it's just possible that's relevant advice.  Speaking to staff on the train is kinda impossible if the train has been cancelled and doesn't turn up.

 

 
Alterations to services between Reading and Newbury

Due to a points failure between Reading and Newbury some lines are closed.

Train services running to and from these stations may be delayed or revised. Disruption is expected until 08:15 27/10.

Customer Advice
Owing to a points failure in the Reading West area we are currently unable to operate train services between Reading and Newbury in either direction; other routes are unaffected.

 
Cancellations to services between London Paddington and Reading

Due to the emergency services dealing with an incident between London Paddington and Reading all lines are blocked.

Train services running to and from these stations will be cancelled. Disruption is expected until 09:00 27/10.
Customer Advice
-
What has happened?
-

A person has been struck by a train, leading to all lines being blocked. It is necessary to bring all trains in the affected area to an immediate stop.

 
When I was supposed to be on the Night Riviera during a storm that sleeping onboard didn’t happen. On the trip down to Cornwall we had taken the South West Trains route via Yeovil which was the only line still open to the South West On the Sunday night before the way back we were told that and the line between Exeter and Yeovil had become impassible, but I cannot remember why. FGW had laid on an HST to get us to Plymouth where we would have hotel rooms.

When I asked why we couldn’t have just have boarded the sleeper at Penzance which could have made it as far as Exeter. Then continued sleeping on-board the train parked up in a platform at St Davids before getting a Replacement Bus to Tiverton Parkway the next morning. The explanation was that the driver had to remain on the train in the cab if we were onboard. We did all get a full refund.

 
An update, from the BBC:

 
I do note your point, ChrisB, but most of the Scottish press, in particular, have already chosen to name it Chloe.

See the Scottish Daily Express, STV News, Edinburgh News, Yahoo News UK, The National Scot and The Herald Scotland - just for example.

I only quote here what is reported by them: I don't decide whether the content of their news item is accurate - or otherwise.

CfN.