Gloucester - Bristol Temple Meads - Highbridge and Burnham and all (4) stations onwards to Exeter St Davids, 12 stations left out.    With 17 calls scheduled along the way, there were 153 journey opportunities scheduled, but with 6 calls left that's reduces to just just 21 opportunities - however, with it being half an hour late and with services much of the way running event half hour, many of the lost journey opportunities will have been replaced by something that's not too different to what would have been offered by the delayed train.

It will be interesting to see how much time (if any, he says pessimistically) will be made up. JourneyCheck is simplistic and suggest "once delayed, always delayed" and forecasts a 10:04 rather than an 09:34 arrival into Exeter.   Real Time Trains tells us it was 50 minutes rather than 30 late as it left Gloucester, and predicts a 10:03 arrival into Exeter.

 

49 minutes late from Gloucester - 1 minute *early* into Exeter St David's

 

That's probably a text book example of where removing stops is an excellent idea.  Not having to take the detour via Weston and a scheduled 11 mintue layover at Taunton all contributing the that dramatic delay recovery.

I have seen other examples where it has been completely pointless.  It's taken extra time to get passengers off the train that wanted the missed station(s) at the previous stop and the train has then followed something else, a freight for example, and not made up any time at all.

It's a bit of a guessing game.