24th. Ded again.

Mark

 

So, normal service say from EXD to PNZ.....never in red area.

Dangerous statement.

 
The London/Newquay train seems to have been capped at Plymouth quite a bit recently.

 
Suspect it would have caught up a bit........

23:46 London Paddington to Penzance due 07:55
23/06/26 23:46 London Paddington to Penzance due 07:55 was started from Reading.
It will no longer call at London Paddington.

It is being delayed between Reading and Taunton and is now expected to be 173 minutes late.
This is due to a fault on this train.

 
X-country or formally known in BR days as inter-regional have always been a bit of Cinderella service.  In BR days there was a large dwell time at places like Reading, 15 plus mins.

X-country did have 125's (HST's) which could be argued were over spec as most of the routes operated were 90 mph, but the 125's were at the time BR's standard intercity passenger train stock thereby reducing Driver training on different traction units also for maintenance spares and staff training.

There is no simple fix, as some parts of the x-country routes are heavy commuter use for example Reading - Basingstoke, Reading - Oxford, Coventry - Birmingham; just to name a few.  So do you size the train set to suit these hot spots or for the cross country connectivity?

Perhaps in the new GBR world X-country should revert to inter- regional

 
The biggest problem is short sets, and consequent crowding, too many trains just 4car or 5car at busy times (and there is a reason why end cars are labled A and F, because made provision to extend to 6car, but never did).

It doesn't help that XC cancels so many trains, that passengers get doubled up on next service.  Their latest performance figures show 9.6% are cancelled, and 3.4% are shortformed (which I think they define as single set that should be double, rather than including 4car that should be 5car)

https://www.crosscountrytrains.co.uk/about-us/key-business-performance-indicators

Basically it is a network stuck with using 25 old diesel trains, that were designed for a high frequency service, in 3 classes (the premier standard never happened), so badly laid out for today's passenger flow.  And of course operate huge mileages on diesel whilst on electrified lines.

I understand the units being refurbished have done about 5.5 million miles, and they do around 220,000 miles per year.   Although for such intensive use are actually in fairly good condition, if not the correct product for today's (and going into 2030s) railway.

 
From The BBC


Having spent a decade running a hotel, I can very much see some of what he gets at.   But yet we seem to have had a charmed time for the most part.  People and guests are typically lovely - especially people who visited us on business, be that as delegate for our own business or people working elsewhere it town.

I have (!!) some experience at staying in hotels too - respect the place, treat the team running the place (and other guests) humanely / as people, and if there are significant issues perhaps point them out gently.  The article refers to a Faulty Towers sketch where everything goes wrong with a meal, but when Basil asks them they give a "very good, thank you" British answer.

 
Reported as being due to IT issues rather than heat  related.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crm0ek4z7ggo

 

I don't think any such analysis will help. The current Cross Country set-up is used for a variety reasons. Personally, I have used it for holidays (Reading-Newcastle as part of a Scottish trip, to get to Southampton Airport for a flights, and in my youth, before it was a thing, equivalent services for holidays in Scotland and Dorset starting from Reading), business (mostly to get to Birmingham, Wolverhampton or Manchester for meetings), family visits when my in-laws lived in North Yorkshire, and commuting, when Cross Country still ran to Gatwick and Portsmouth and sometimes it was a convenient (and much more comfortable) way to do the Reading-Guildford part of my commute.

I think that this misses the point. It's not just an end-to-end service for grannies in Manchester or Newcastle to go the seaside at Bournemouth or Torquay. It is a very useful service for all kinds of travellers using various parts and various lengths of its network. The main cause of complaint repeated on this forum (over-crowding) shows that there is more demand for its services than can be coped with by its current capacity. Small fixed-formation 4- or 5-car trains are no longer sufficient.


This highlights a confusion. Are we talking about the current Cross Country franchise operation, based on long-distance services running largely on an X-shaped network linking Scotland, the North-east, Yorkshire and the East Midlands (on one arm), Manchester, Cheshire/Staffs and Wolverhampton (on the second), the Thames Valley and the Solent/Greater Bournemouth area (on the third) and Bristol and the South-west on the fourth, and a "tail" to Stanstead, all radiating out of Birmingham? I can see the sense of these remaining as a single business unit, with a common core fleet of trains and staff, into which the other routes you mention do not seem to fit well.

Or do you mean that under a new unified GBR, they ought to be promoted together as part of a strategy to encourage more rail use by long-distance travellers not intending to travel via London? I can support this, as over many years I've been surprised by how few potential passengers are surprised to learn (for example) that there are direct trains from Reading to Gatwick or Manchester. But I cannot see any advantage or possible improvement to the trains on the current Cross Country routes from lumping them into the same operating division or business unit.

 
I think that this occurred during or slightly before one my hospital trips.
My oxygen saturation was measured and recorded frequently in line with normal practice.
But what struck me as unusual, was that some readings by had to be witnessed by a second person.
There was nothing concerning about the actual readings,

 
Cancellations to services on all routes

Due to severe weather:

Train services running across the whole Great Western Railway network may be cancelled, delayed or revised. Disruption is expected until 23:59 26/06.
Customer Advice
-
Amended service to run during extreme heat following rare Met Office red weather warning.
-
Essential travel only on Wednesday 24 and Thursday 25 June into, through, or out of the red warning area.
-
Due to a rare red warning of extreme heat, customers are being warned of essential travel only on Wednesday and Thursday.
-
Extreme heat can cause rails to expand and buckle, so when temperatures reach certain thresholds, trains must run more slowly to keep services safe. This will mean fewer trains and slightly longer journey times during the warmest periods of each day.
-
Prolonged high temperatures can also affect equipment on our older regional train fleet, including engines and cooling systems. This means there may be some short-notice changes or cancellations, particularly during the hottest parts of the day.

To help customers, those with tickets to travel on Tuesday 23, Wednesday 24 and Thursday 25 June can use them to travel on Monday 22, Tuesday 23 and up to and including Friday 26 June. The ticket changes apply to those travelling into, through, or out of the red warning zone local journeys in Devon and Cornwall do not apply.
-
While we expect to operate the majority of services across the network, the reduction follows the Met Office extreme heat weather warning from Monday 22 June until Thursday 25 June.

 
Two issues this evening, both up and down lines in separate locations on the Brockenhurst panel area.

 
Ah, thanks, GWR may have been too pessimistic...

https://bsky.app/profile/gwr.com/post/3moxuhxj74j2m

Realtimetrains has the service as up and running.

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/detailed/gb-nr:MLW/2026-06-23/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt

Mark

 

It is only the Donkey, services on the former Maidenhead - High Wycombe main line are still operating a service Maidenhead - Bourne End

 
The branch line train has expired. Disruption 'Until the end of the day'.

Mark

 
The donkey's broken down, poor creature.

Mark

 
175004 to Exeter depot today.

Ely :3: 175005/008, 175104 (175008 is in two halves)

Wolverton :8 :  175102/103/105/106/107/108/109/110

Laira : 14: 175002/007/009, 175114 ex Ely; 175001/003/006/011, 175101/111/112/113/115/116 ex Wolverton

Exeter : 1 : 175004 ex Wolverton

Long Rock : 1 : 175010 ex Ely

as of 23 June 2026

 
20:06 Westbury to Cheltenham Spa due 22:06
20:06 Westbury to Cheltenham Spa due 22:06 will be cancelled.
This is due to a fault on this train.

 
And another one in Cornwall falls over................

Cancellations to services between Par and Newquay
Due to a points failure between Par and Newquay all lines are blocked.
Train services running to and from these stations may be cancelled or delayed. Disruption is expected until 15:30 23/06.

........also caused the direct Newquay-Paddington service to be started from Plymouth.

 

Yes, it's nothing new and is part of the KRS discussed here yesterday:

https://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=31163.msg376248#msg376248

 
Haven't seen this before - I guess it's not the first time: https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service-disruptions/gwr-weather-20260622/

 
There's an impending 'Early engagement event' at Waterloo -for the future timetable - which was scheduled for Thursday 25th June but given the forecast it's been postponed to 1st July (16:00-20:00 on the concourse by the platform 10-11 gateline).

Mark

 

Insert 'half'... 

 

huh?

 



With the Looe branch, 150239 has been sent down on a VSTP schedule so the branch reopened with the 10:48 from Liskeard, so the first three trains ended up being cancelled.

As for the Falmouth branch, was this additional information for the Falmouth entry showing earlier today, but not quoted, TG?

Customer Advice
Due to a train fault, one of the trains we had planned to run the Truro to Falmouth Docks service is out of action, with a spare not immediately available.

As a result, the service is running hourly as opposed to the usual hourly service. All trains will continue to serve Perranwell.

Customers can, if they prefer, use their tickets on local buses. Details below.
Go Cornwall Bus route 32A: Falmouth (The Moor), Penryn, Truro (Bus Station), Truro (Station), Go Cornwall Bus route 33, 33A: Falmouth (The Moor), Penryn (Station), Redruth (Station) and Go Cornwall Bus route 36: Truro (Bus Station), Perranwell (Station) are conveying passengers via any reasonable route until further notice. Arrangements have been made for Great Western Railway rail tickets to be accepted for these journeys.

 
The Met Office high resolution model UKV did show some potential for thunderstorms but the global models didn't have a sniff of them. Models specifically designed for thunderstorm potential also did reasonably well although those in the South East ended up a bit further north.

 
We left Melksham for Downend (Bristol) yesterday evening at about 6.30, during the storm. It was chucking it down, with loads of water on the roads, and a small lake on the A4 just before the Bathford/Batheaston roundabout. There was a long queue coming the other way on the dual carriageway; there might have been something blocking the A363 down to Bradford as well.

Coming back just after 10.00 it was all clear.

 
Overview from Bath from last night is that there were a lot of instances of flash flooding, often in places you'd not expect to see it - in the roads and roundabout at the top of Wellsway wouldn't be the first place that would come to mind as susceptible, and downhill roads then vulnerable to water flows, and where it was already damaged, removing the road surface. Also, instances of water escaping from overstretched drainage and then bursting road surfaces from beneath, and flooding of properties from the flash flooding on the roads and from roof drainage that blocked. Not a good evening to have a valley gutter. Fallen trees too including one that injured someone. I've not been out and about but I expect there's a lot of clearing up to be done. If the railways escaped then so much the better, this unforecasted event probed vulnerabilities and found more than a few.

Mark

 
Agreed, this style of messaging is incoherent and doesn't reflect well on the industry.

Mark