This made me think of one aunt in particular, and of the nailed-up timetabled train from Paddington in that direction - loco and coaches at 16:45, which used to depart rather serenely, just in advance of most of the evening rush.

Checking Realtimetrains and yes it still runs, at 16:48, a five carriage IEP to Malvern, backed up by a 10 carriage set 40 minutes later.

Mark

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:Y22372/2025-02-13

 
It feels that the main issue right now is the late afternoon/evening peak. The morning and daytime services seem to be largely ok (at this end of the line, anyway).

 

I don’t think that’s right.  AFAIK they are still using the following methodology:

A train is classed as fully cancelled if it didn’t run at all, or completed less than half of its journey length.

A train is ‘part cancelled’ if it ran at least half but not all of its planned journey length, or it missed one or more stations in its planned calling pattern.

So, the figures are actually better than they look…though still pretty awful!

 
The service between London and Worcester/Hereford truly lives up to its Old Worse and Worse name

Looking at the almost 10% cancellation rate in the most recent figures.  This compares unfavourably with the "average" amongst the so-called high-speed services of 7.7%, which is itself, very high

I think the figure for cancellations doesn't tell the whole truth, either.  If you're waiting at Evesham to go to London, but GWR decide to start that train from Oxford that day, and not from Worcester, as far as you are concerned on the freezing platform, your train is 100% cancelled.  It doesn't show-up in the figures, though.  I don't think it would even count as a cancellation if a train starting at Worcester Foregate Street was amended to run only as far as Shrub Hill.  This has happened a couple of times in the recent past

The GWR figures for 8 December 2024 to 4 January 2025 show that 9.83 of Cotswold line services were cancelled, and a measly 52% of them ran on time