Cancellations to services on all routes

Due to severe weather:

Train services running across the whole Great Western Railway network may be cancelled, delayed or revised. Disruption is expected until 23:59 26/06.
Customer Advice
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Amended service to run during extreme heat following rare Met Office red weather warning.
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Essential travel only on Wednesday 24 and Thursday 25 June into, through, or out of the red warning area.
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Due to a rare red warning of extreme heat, customers are being warned of essential travel only on Wednesday and Thursday.
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Extreme heat can cause rails to expand and buckle, so when temperatures reach certain thresholds, trains must run more slowly to keep services safe. This will mean fewer trains and slightly longer journey times during the warmest periods of each day.
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Prolonged high temperatures can also affect equipment on our older regional train fleet, including engines and cooling systems. This means there may be some short-notice changes or cancellations, particularly during the hottest parts of the day.

To help customers, those with tickets to travel on Tuesday 23, Wednesday 24 and Thursday 25 June can use them to travel on Monday 22, Tuesday 23 and up to and including Friday 26 June. The ticket changes apply to those travelling into, through, or out of the red warning zone local journeys in Devon and Cornwall do not apply.
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While we expect to operate the majority of services across the network, the reduction follows the Met Office extreme heat weather warning from Monday 22 June until Thursday 25 June.

 
Two issues this evening, both up and down lines in separate locations on the Brockenhurst panel area.

 
Ah, thanks, GWR may have been too pessimistic...

https://bsky.app/profile/gwr.com/post/3moxuhxj74j2m

Realtimetrains has the service as up and running.

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/detailed/gb-nr:MLW/2026-06-23/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt

Mark

 

It is only the Donkey, services on the former Maidenhead - High Wycombe main line are still operating a service Maidenhead - Bourne End

 
The branch line train has expired. Disruption 'Until the end of the day'.

Mark

 
The donkey's broken down, poor creature.

Mark

 
175004 to Exeter depot today.

Ely :3: 175005/008, 175104 (175008 is in two halves)

Wolverton :8 :  175102/103/105/106/107/108/109/110

Laira : 14: 175002/007/009, 175114 ex Ely; 175001/003/006/011, 175101/111/112/113/115/116 ex Wolverton

Exeter : 1 : 175004 ex Wolverton

Long Rock : 1 : 175010 ex Ely

as of 23 June 2026

 
20:06 Westbury to Cheltenham Spa due 22:06
20:06 Westbury to Cheltenham Spa due 22:06 will be cancelled.
This is due to a fault on this train.

 
And another one in Cornwall falls over................

Cancellations to services between Par and Newquay
Due to a points failure between Par and Newquay all lines are blocked.
Train services running to and from these stations may be cancelled or delayed. Disruption is expected until 15:30 23/06.

........also caused the direct Newquay-Paddington service to be started from Plymouth.

 

Yes, it's nothing new and is part of the KRS discussed here yesterday:

https://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=31163.msg376248#msg376248

 
Haven't seen this before - I guess it's not the first time: https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service-disruptions/gwr-weather-20260622/

 
There's an impending 'Early engagement event' at Waterloo -for the future timetable - which was scheduled for Thursday 25th June but given the forecast it's been postponed to 1st July (16:00-20:00 on the concourse by the platform 10-11 gateline).

Mark

 

Insert 'half'... 

 

huh?

 



With the Looe branch, 150239 has been sent down on a VSTP schedule so the branch reopened with the 10:48 from Liskeard, so the first three trains ended up being cancelled.

As for the Falmouth branch, was this additional information for the Falmouth entry showing earlier today, but not quoted, TG?

Customer Advice
Due to a train fault, one of the trains we had planned to run the Truro to Falmouth Docks service is out of action, with a spare not immediately available.

As a result, the service is running hourly as opposed to the usual hourly service. All trains will continue to serve Perranwell.

Customers can, if they prefer, use their tickets on local buses. Details below.
Go Cornwall Bus route 32A: Falmouth (The Moor), Penryn, Truro (Bus Station), Truro (Station), Go Cornwall Bus route 33, 33A: Falmouth (The Moor), Penryn (Station), Redruth (Station) and Go Cornwall Bus route 36: Truro (Bus Station), Perranwell (Station) are conveying passengers via any reasonable route until further notice. Arrangements have been made for Great Western Railway rail tickets to be accepted for these journeys.

 
The Met Office high resolution model UKV did show some potential for thunderstorms but the global models didn't have a sniff of them. Models specifically designed for thunderstorm potential also did reasonably well although those in the South East ended up a bit further north.

 
We left Melksham for Downend (Bristol) yesterday evening at about 6.30, during the storm. It was chucking it down, with loads of water on the roads, and a small lake on the A4 just before the Bathford/Batheaston roundabout. There was a long queue coming the other way on the dual carriageway; there might have been something blocking the A363 down to Bradford as well.

Coming back just after 10.00 it was all clear.

 
Overview from Bath from last night is that there were a lot of instances of flash flooding, often in places you'd not expect to see it - in the roads and roundabout at the top of Wellsway wouldn't be the first place that would come to mind as susceptible, and downhill roads then vulnerable to water flows, and where it was already damaged, removing the road surface. Also, instances of water escaping from overstretched drainage and then bursting road surfaces from beneath, and flooding of properties from the flash flooding on the roads and from roof drainage that blocked. Not a good evening to have a valley gutter. Fallen trees too including one that injured someone. I've not been out and about but I expect there's a lot of clearing up to be done. If the railways escaped then so much the better, this unforecasted event probed vulnerabilities and found more than a few.

Mark

 
Agreed, this style of messaging is incoherent and doesn't reflect well on the industry.

Mark

 
National Rail 'incident' https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service-disruptions/hot-weather-20260617/

 
Running non-stop between Castle Cary and Bruton? That will be a special treat for the memory bank.

 

Update

Route(s) affected
Between London Paddington and Heathrow Terminals / Reading

Description
Severe weather at Heathrow Terminal 4 means that all lines are blocked to / from this station. As a result, trains running to / from Heathrow Terminals may be cancelled, delayed or revised.

Lines have now reopened following an earlier points failure at Southall. Trains running between London Paddington and Reading may continue to be cancelled, delayed by up to to 25 minutes or revised.

Disruption is expected until 10:00.

 

During the recent steam gala at the GWSR a volunteer collapsed due to heat stroke, and the whole timetable had to be recast to allow for breaks and to ensure that there were no delays causing trains to be stationary for long periods of time in the sun.

 

Dreadful grammar, does no one take O level (GCSE nowadays) in English anymore

Lines are blocked because more trains need repair, surely that should be nothing to do with a blockage, but depot can't cope with repairing trains allocated to it, so can't find any rolling stock.  Or does it mean a train has broken down blocking the line (and why all lines, not line, is there more than one)

Truro and Falmouth docks, again no explanation of why happens to between those stations, rather than other lines.   Also can be read as 1 of 2 trains isn't operating, so does that mean half fleet for that line is unrepaired.

Fewer trains are able to run on some lines, what does that mean, which lines, why are they unable rather than could if we had enough.

Homework mark about D+ for confused reasoning and inaccurate facts

 

The ticket sales data is interesting - it tells a story of where people have travelled and not what the potential for travel is were it to be easier.    We have a Complete matrix for Reading in the Coffee Shop - showing 2400 different sources/destinations for tickets sold. 

It is instructive to look at the history and see changing patterns with the arrival of the Elizabeth line - ticket sales to place like Stratford.    And, yes, re-analysing (I don't have the spare time either) the data in zones is interesting; I have in the past done that to look at Swindon / Chippenham to the Solent area ...

 
Elizabeth Line has fallen over due to a points failure - so that options now gone for those travelling from Twyford/Maidenhead/Slough etc this morning if they wish to get to London.

No service between Heathrow Terminals 2&3 and Heathrow Terminal 4 due to flooding caused by heavy rain and SEVERE DELAYS on the rest of the line due to a points failure at Southall. Tickets are being accepted on London Underground via any reasonable route.

 
I wish I had the spare time - and know how - to do such an analysis as I think it would be very revealing.

I understand the distaste for having to ‘make a connection’ when going by train (or any public transports for that matter) especially when the connection is not guaranteed - long gone are those days. And this maybe doubly so for the business traveller trying to maximise the company value from the time and expense, and minimise the impact of travelling on their personal lives.

But I think this raises the issue of what market is CC trying to serve. Is it a business market or is leisure market service ? If the former, then it’s more likely that the destination station (or the city business district it serves) is the actual final destination. But if its leisure it maybe more likely that the final destination is further afield than a city business district, and most likely necessitating a change of transport (mode) anyway ?

And, if the latter is valid, then surely an efficient inter-regional service running between regional ‘hubs’ would work well?

My own personal experience - admittedly limited to the south of Birmingham portion of the network - and based on the copious amounts of luggage seen being manhandled into every nock and cranny - I would argue CC is a leisure market service. Yes - I am sure there are folks reliant on the CC service to get to work every day - but this has to be a smaller number of people than those trying to get to or back from non-work related activities ? Otherwise why run a Reading to Manchester service - for example - that can’t be a commuter/business  service surely ?

 

Diesel's suffer in very hot weather, in BR days it was not uncommon for many of what are now heritage would fail in service, BR often took rad louvers off of some classes of locos.

Also I sure the GWSR were considering the volunteers who would have to work in the extreme heat.

 

Just the two branches nixed today.............

Cancellations to services between Liskeard and Looe
Due to more trains than usual needing repairs at the same time between Liskeard and Looe all lines are blocked.
Train services running to and from these stations will be cancelled. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.

Cancellations to services between Truro and Falmouth Docks
Due to more trains than usual needing repairs at the same time between Truro and Falmouth Docks fewer trains are able to run on some lines.
Train services running to and from these stations will be cancelled. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.