GWR - Problems near Taunton & on Bristol Line today

[Essexman]

Almost 5 hours from Torquay to Paddington today.
10.42 from Torquay, diverted twice and arrived 104 minutes late.

Delayed at Exeter awaiting a driver.
Delayed at Taunton due to major points failure at Cogland and possession for repair.
Announced diverted via Bristol, stopping only at Temple Meads & Reading. Passengers for Castle Cary & Westbury told to change at Bristol. Passengers for Pewsey, Hungerford & Newbury told to change at Reading.
Then announced terminating at Bristol. Then that it was going on to Paddington.
On departure from Taunton in car display omitted Bristol, saying only Reading stop. Caused a bit of worry for some passengers but we did stop.
Delayed at Bristol Temple Meads for crew change.
Announced we would now stop at Bath & Reading.
At Bath it was announced we were going via Trowbridge due to ‘another problem on the line’.
Ran stop Bath to Reading via Trowbridge. Any passengers for Pewsey, Hungerford & Newbury would still have had to travel back from Reading.
Arrived Paddington 15.34. Not quite late enough for the 100% refund of return fare.

Fortunately it was 9 cars so seats for everyone – and there was excellent service in First Class.
Not GWR’s fault and they seemed to deal with it reasonably well.

I couldn’t see anything on GWR or National Rail websites about a problem on the line between Bath & Reading and didn’t see that any other trains were diverted this way.
Does anyone know what this was?

 

[irish_rail]

I think there was a mix of points and signalling problems today, not entirely sure where but I think around Bristol Taunton Castle Cary areas. Crewing is more of an issue these days due to certain depots (for example Plymouth)now not able to divert between Taunton and Bristol without a route conductor , so some of the problem is potentially of GWRs making.

 

[Cletus]

I was on the 0830 from Exeter that was delayed at Taunton from 0856 until 1046. It then ran non-stop to Reading where it was terminated because of driver hours.

We were told it was because of a points failure outside Taunton station meaning nothing could run in any direction. It was described as a "Points failure Cogload Jn (seemingly all of them)" by a GWR driver on WNXX.

Realtime Trains | 1A77 0830 Exeter St Davids to Reading | 16/07/2023

Real-time train running information for 1A77 0830 departure from Exeter St Davids to Reading on 16/07/2023. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

 

[Class172]

There was another points failure north of Taunton station only a few weeks ago that cause multiple-hour delays to services from London and Bristol. I wonder if this is a related issue.

 

[Essexman]

This is the train I was on.
Still not sure why it was routed via Trowbridge not Didcot.

Realtime Trains | 1A81 1036 Paignton to London Paddington | 16/07/2023

Real-time train running information for 1A81 1036 departure from Paignton to London Paddington on 16/07/2023. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

 

[brad465]

I travelled from Taunton to Paignton this morning and there were delays due to a points failure between Bridgwater and Taunton according to the guard announcing this on the 08:56 departure for Penzance that actually left at 09:18. The XC behind it had a similar delay, but I didn't realise things got much worse later on, I thought it had been fixed as the aforementioned service was held for 25 mins at Weston-super-Mare waiting for permission to go.

 

[Dfatcontroller]

Almost 5 hours from Torquay to Paddington today.
10.42 from Torquay, diverted twice and arrived 104 minutes late.

Delayed at Exeter awaiting a driver.
Delayed at Taunton due to major points failure at Cogland and possession for repair.
Announced diverted via Bristol, stopping only at Temple Meads & Reading. Passengers for Castle Cary & Westbury told to change at Bristol. Passengers for Pewsey, Hungerford & Newbury told to change at Reading.
Then announced terminating at Bristol. Then that it was going on to Paddington.
On departure from Taunton in car display omitted Bristol, saying only Reading stop. Caused a bit of worry for some passengers but we did stop.
Delayed at Bristol Temple Meads for crew change.
Announced we would now stop at Bath & Reading.
At Bath it was announced we were going via Trowbridge due to ‘another problem on the line’.
Ran stop Bath to Reading via Trowbridge. Any passengers for Pewsey, Hungerford & Newbury would still have had to travel back from Reading.
Arrived Paddington 15.34. Not quite late enough for the 100% refund of return fare.

Fortunately it was 9 cars so seats for everyone – and there was excellent service in First Class.
Not GWR’s fault and they seemed to deal with it reasonably well.

I couldn’t see anything on GWR or National Rail websites about a problem on the line between Bath & Reading and didn’t see that any other trains were diverted this way.
Does anyone know what this was?

- Diverted via Bristol due to points failure preventing access to Castle Cary
- No Traincrew to work forward from Bristol initially.
- Identified that Traincrew on 1A81 & 1C76 (0844 PAD-PNZ) would swap over at Bristol to allow both trains to continue.
- 1C76 had diverted to Bristol via Trowbridge.
- Presume that's the only route they signed so 1A81 had to go that way too?

 

[Annetts key]

Not technically a point failure at Cogload Junction, but actually an issue with the electrical power to all the points at this junction.

Looks like contractors were working on the 650V signalling power network during earlier engineering works (overnight). Said contractors apparently were unable to fault find. Network Rail S&T engineering staff attended and found a blown fuse, a faulty battery charger and exhausted battery bank.

Hard to say if the work the contractors were doing caused the problem, or the battery charger died and was not noticed until the engineering occupation was due to be handed back.

Not helped by the signal box instructions requiring points to be manually clipped, and no working point clip being available on site. These same instructions also resulted in the decision to maintain the points at the junction in the position such that all traffic would go via the main lines to/from Bristol Temple Meads.

Combined with a lot of train crew not having route knowledge of the diversionary routes.