Railway woes

Fri 19 Jan, 08:07

Broken down train today at Charlbury on the Oxford platform. Delays, delays.

Wed 17 Jan, 18:42

Matt, from those four days we can then take Christmas and Boxing Days, leaving just two days in the year without problems.

These are truly terrible figures but clearly do not give an accurate or full picture. Of the 609 incidents, a shocking 562 relate to Network Rail's infrastructure. With industrial action and weather issues included, the significant number of delays due to suicide should be added, as should the numerous cases of 'train terminated short of destination'. Admittedly the latter category is perhaps only rarely noticed between Reading and Paddington but they certainly do affect people using the service between Oxford and Worcester & Malvern etc.

Wed 17 Jan, 13:03

Kate, are you sure you need to pay tax on the delay-repay money? It's generally classed as compensation for inconvenience, not as income, and specifically listed as compensation by GWR. 

I realise that there are different ways of claiming for expenses if you are self-employed, and I suppose it might depend on which way you claim your expenses. But it would be odd for most people to need to declare the delay-repay amount. 

Also doing my tax right now. Ugh! 

Wed 17 Jan, 11:56

Doing my accounts I find I have to declare an 'income' of £417 which is entirely GWR delay repay refunds..

Wed 17 Jan, 09:19

I can believe that as regular commuter. It’s good to see it in black and white. 

Wed 17 Jan, 08:53 (last edited on Wed 17 Jan, 08:54)

Very interesting figures from the platform formerly known as Twitter, the result of a disgruntled passenger's FOI enquiry regarding the disruption on trains. The figures are for a year between 1 December 22 and 30 November 23 for the Reading  to Paddington section of GWR network, but are equally as familiar for those using the train through Charlbury. The number of days of disruption in the 12 month period were:

Signal failures - 97

Points failures - 200

Overhead wire damage - 90

Broken rail - 175

Industrial action -31

Weather issues - 16

Total of all disruption was an incident on 361 days in the year, so only 4 days in the year did the line run without any problems.