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Travel updates related to grounding of Class 80x fleet

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Bletchleyite

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But can I get a refund now? Disruption seems inevitable for the foreseeable future. I would rather make alternative plans now.

It would certainly be sensible for them to allow this, because any passenger not travelling is room for another one who has to, and another one not to have to bother about, particularly if it's a cheap Advance that isn't bringing much money in.

Will the railway do the sensible thing? Well..... :D
 
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PTtrainguy

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Anyone know how likely it is for any sort of service to resume from Port Talbot to London and back on Saturday? At the moment National Express aren't running any buses, there's no replacement bus services, there's not even hire cars available anywhere in Port Talbot. I desperately need to be in London on Saturday and can't afford to pay £100's+ for a taxi.
 

superalbs

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Anyone know how likely it is for any sort of service to resume from Port Talbot to London and back on Saturday? At the moment National Express aren't running any buses, there's no replacement bus services, there's not even hire cars available anywhere in Port Talbot. I desperately need to be in London on Saturday and can't afford to pay £100's+ for a taxi.
Consider a Flixbus from Cardiff, using a train by TFW to get there. Fares start at 99p for the bus...!
 

Goldfish62

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Yes but this is a national emergency. Just had to hve a Frank conversation with my disabled next door neighbour who is booked up to London next week. Currently no services from the entire South West to London, surely that is a trifle more important than a few sparsely populated stations losing their

Consider a Flixbus from Cardiff, using a train by TFW to get there. Fares start at 99p for the bus...!
It couldn't have happened at a better time for Flixbus, just starting out!
 

Roverebbw

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Anyone know how likely it is for any sort of service to resume from Port Talbot to London and back on Saturday? At the moment National Express aren't running any buses, there's no replacement bus services, there's not even hire cars available anywhere in Port Talbot. I desperately need to be in London on Saturday and can't afford to pay £100's+ for a taxi.
What time of day do you need to be there
 

D2007wsm

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Anyone know how likely it is for any sort of service to resume from Port Talbot to London and back on Saturday? At the moment National Express aren't running any buses, there's no replacement bus services, there's not even hire cars available anywhere in Port Talbot. I desperately need to be in London on Saturday and can't afford to pay £100's+ for a taxi.
It may involve changing several times, but couldn’t you if there are no Newport to Reading GWR services running and the same arrangements are in place as today:

- TFW: Port Talbot to Cardiff
- GWR: Cardiff to Bristol Temple Meads (This shouldn’t be affected as it will be a local service so should be a 158, Castle or Turbo)
- CrossCountry: Bristol Temple Meads to Swindon
- GWR: Swindon to London Paddington
 

DanNCL

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Absolute shambles with the replacement bus service to/from Chester-le-Street. Buses are stopping in a residential street (blocking the road to other traffic) that’s quite a few minutes walk from the station, and there is nothing in the way of signage or announcements at the station itself to direct people to where the buses are going from - if I hadn’t arrived by replacement bus earlier and known from that where the bus back to Newcastle would be going from I would not have had a clue. TPE have completely abandoned anyone at Chester-le-Street and assumed that people will automatically know that the bus will pick up from somewhere completely different. Really poor show from TPE.
 

Nicholas43

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Son will need to travel Great Malvern to London next week. Seems probable that there won't be through trains via Oxford. If he buys a ticket priced via Oxford, and if GWR continue to say that travel Great Malvern to Euston via Birmingham is allowed, can he get a reservation Birmingham to Euston? If yes, how, please?
 

reddragon

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Son will need to travel Great Malvern to London next week. Seems probable that there won't be through trains via Oxford. If he buys a ticket priced via Oxford, and if GWR continue to say that travel Great Malvern to Euston via Birmingham is allowed, can he get a reservation Birmingham to Euston? If yes, how, please?
I'd go via Chiltern
 

Muzer

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Son will need to travel Great Malvern to London next week. Seems probable that there won't be through trains via Oxford. If he buys a ticket priced via Oxford, and if GWR continue to say that travel Great Malvern to Euston via Birmingham is allowed, can he get a reservation Birmingham to Euston? If yes, how, please?
Email Avanti here [email protected] well in advance (they're pretty slow). Explain the situation and supply any details about the ticket (booking reference, etc.). Be prepared to have a bit of a back and forth with them over email until they begrudgingly allow it (but they probably will in the end; I managed to get a reservation in some cases when I hadn't yet bought a ticket!). If all else fails in my experience you would usually be able to board unless it's full; Avanti are not as strict as LNER on that matter.
 

PTtrainguy

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From Port Talbot Parkway to London Paddington on Saturday 15/05/21 - is this journey possible? I know my ticket will be valid as have enquired with GWR. Just wondering if the journeys in between from NWP to REA are likely to be cancelled. This is such a massive headache.

05.59 PTA to NWP arrive at 07.05 (TfW)
07.32 NWP to REA arrive at 08.48 (GWR)
08.52 REA to PAD arrive at 09.52 (TfL)

17.43 PAD to REA arrive at 18.43 (TfW)
19.13 REA to NWP arrive at 20.23 (GWR)
20.33 NWP to PTA arrive at 21.39 (TfL
 

cactustwirly

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From Port Talbot Parkway to London Paddington on Saturday 15/05/21 - is this journey possible? I know my ticket will be valid as have enquired with GWR. Just wondering if the journeys in between from NWP to REA are likely to be cancelled. This is such a massive headache.

05.59 PTA to NWP arrive at 07.05 (TfW)
07.32 NWP to REA arrive at 08.48 (GWR)
08.52 REA to PAD arrive at 09.52 (TfL)

17.43 PAD to REA arrive at 18.43 (TfW)
19.13 REA to NWP arrive at 20.23 (GWR)
20.33 NWP to PTA arrive at 21.39 (TfL

They will be cancelled if more 800s are grounded.

Btw I would strongly advise against taking TfL rail between Reading and Paddington, the service is very slow and the trains are of a poor quality. There should be semi fast GWR services from Didcot instead
 

JonathanH

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Btw I would strongly advise against taking TfL rail between Reading and Paddington, the service is very slow and the trains are of a poor quality.
If the class 345 on the TfL Rail service is going to get the traveller to their destination quicker, they may not care about your personal reasons for disliking the rolling stock and service offered. I think I would rather be on a 345 for the extra half hour than sat waiting at Reading Station for that time.

345s aren't poor quality trains - they are good quality trains for what they are designed for - which admittedly isn't journeys from Reading to London.

As for slow, in the circumstances, under an hour to travel 36 miles is better than stopping services elsewhere - eg Reading to Waterloo for example.

It would be better to say "you might like to note that TfL Rail services would normally be regarded as the slow trains on the route and are designed for short journeys but will still get you there reliably in the circumstances".
 
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PTtrainguy

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They will be cancelled if more 800s are grounded.

Btw I would strongly advise against taking TfL rail between Reading and Paddington, the service is very slow and the trains are of a poor quality. There should be semi fast GWR services from Didcot instead
It works out pretty much the same time, and involves an extra train. I'm hoping the skeleton GWR service between Newport and Reading continues. They should really just make the emergency timetable available instead of just putting forward a normal timetable and then cancelling it 24 hours before. Makes planning anything impossible.
 

Roy Badami

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I'm interested to know what level of crowding TfL Rail services on the GWML are seeing? Basically, whether it's possible to socially distance on them under the current circumstances.
 

Horizon22

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From Sunday, the timetable should be more set in stone once planning teams look at it.
 

matt_world2004

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I'm going from London to bath spa on the 21st may on an advance ticket. Would I be able to use my advance ticket on slower services if my train is not running.but leaving earlier.
 

brick60000

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So who is looking at it, at the moment?

It will be being managed by control staff at the moment, as the disruption has meant alterations to timetables outside of planning timescales. For the TOC I work at, our train crew diagrams go out a week before running:

Monday - Saturday’s diagrams
Tuesday - Sunday’s diagrams
Wednesday - The following week’s SX (M-F) diagrams

In most circumstances, anything outside of that is dealt with by control. The only recent notable exception I can think of is when we switched over to Covid timetables. We issued diagrams as normal on the Wednesday, only to reissue a very different set on the Thursday!
 
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