Trains cancelled (again!)

Sun 4 Feb, 11:34

Valerie,

While I would agree that rail privatisation was disastrous - though the Major government is to blame for that, not Mrs Thatcher - the High Speed Train/InterCity 125 power car was developed by British Rail's own engineers and built by the British Rail Engineering Ltd workshops at Crewe and Derby. 

And a lot of the issues with overheating, after several years in service, were down to problems with maintenance of the engine cooling system - again a BR responsiblity.

There is a detailed explanation in the section headed Thermal Cycling on this page about Paxman, which supplied the engines for HSTs to BR  https://www.paxmanhistory.org.uk/paxrailt.htm#ic125

Sat 3 Feb, 00:03 (last edited on Sat 3 Feb, 00:05)

Malcolm, I'm very tempted to write some reminiscences.  

Mrs Thatcher was famously opposed to the railway; she once confronted a group of senior managers by telling them that they couldn’t be any good otherwise they’d be working for much more money in the private sector. (I got a standing ovation…

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Fri 2 Feb, 13:57

Valerie - fascinated by your reminisces and you should write a long weekend newspaper article for summat like t'Observer on the impacts - yes and culturally - of The Great Privatisation Con Job.

Fri 2 Feb, 08:53

The GWR "Delay Repay" figures reflect the decline in the service. In the 4 week period from 10 Dec to 6 Jan 23/24, there were 170,980 successful claims for the sum of £3,486,969.

The same period last year was 64,133 claims totalling £1,425,445

In April 2022 the figures were roughly half again.

Thu 1 Feb, 23:21 (last edited on Thu 1 Feb, 23:57)

I used to work for the railway, many years ago: I was part of the team that turned around ScotRail (even wrote a book about it), spent some time on the Western Region Board, and was generally useful in the system as a whole. ScotRail, for instance, went from being…

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Thu 1 Feb, 20:47

There were some alarming figures published before Christmas on the number of rail delays caused by infrastructure failures- a growing proportion, caused no doubt by the same sort of under-resourcing of Network Rail that sees our historic, unique station left to rot.

On a very similar note, readers might be interested in the report of the Rail Accident Investigation Board regarding the Yarnton bridge incident a year ago.  It identified serious shortcomings in the way vulnerable structures are examined and repaired, with repairs delayed and safety risks the result.

Thu 1 Feb, 17:44

They were running late yesterday. 07.31 was 30mins late. They was no industrial action this week on GWR lines.

They don't need an excuse to run late or cancel.

Thu 1 Feb, 16:41

1618, 1645, 1723 from Oxford cancelled tonight. The 1745 five-car will be busy!

Thu 25 Jan, 11:42

I am only at work because I was able to catch the 50-minute delayed 8.05 instead of the planned, but cancelled 9.10 service. Surprisingly, the storms did not seem to have affected the running of the trains on Tuesday, which all ran on time, at least during the morning commute. Even in their running to schedule, GWR are unpredictable. 

Thu 25 Jan, 11:25

11:11 and 12:11 - signal failure (again!) Drivers strikes on the way again. Appalling “service”. I have no sympathy whatsoever!