Breaking news as I post - reported at the end of tonight's BBC Evening News.

Serious injuries reported. Trains involved were the 1550 Nottingham to London St Pancras (Class 810) and the 1640 Corby to St Pancras (Class 360). The ex-Corby train has apparently run into the rear of the ex-Nottingham train.



https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06/19/two-emr-trains-collide-near-bedford/

 

My last ride on an IET wasn't actually too bad (perhaps the scenery helped)- but that was comparing it with the awful ride qualities on the outward leg of that trip on a 197. BUT - there was a trolley on board the IET and I got a top notch cup of coffee from there, BUT (again !) the best riding train of that day's trip was the 166 to Cardiff. (I hated writing that !!!)

 
South Western are surveying customers regarding their future timetable. I used it as an opportunity to list myself as a 'Former customer' (largely true) and pointed out that for the DfT to order that the Waterloo-Bristol service cease at a time when commuter provision was going to struggle - and the Waterloo - Bristol trains served a string of visitor destinations, flows for higher education institutions and offered accessibility and resilience benefits... well, that was a poor decision.

Their (brief) form is to be found here:

https://www.southwesterntimetable.com/

Mark

 

I thought that the official view was that IETs are so much better than the HSTs they replaced. And that only I and a FEW others felt otherwise.

 
At Didcot apparently.......feels almost inevitable doesn't it?

Cancellations to services between Reading and Swindon

Due to a fault with the signalling system between Reading and Swindon all lines are blocked.

Train services running to and from these stations may be cancelled, delayed or diverted between Reading and Bath Spa. Didcot Parkway, Swindon and Chippenham will not be served. Disruption is expected until 17:30 19/06.

 

In paras 304-307 of the RAIB report, it records that the fatality resulted from a passenger colliding with a table. Two others suffered head injury from colliding with the seat in front. The guard was walking in the aisle and was thrown to the floor. Those, all the serious injuries, were in one carriage, but that is unlikely to have much significance - there was only one other for them to choose from, after all.

If anything can be said to predispose someone to such injury I'd suggest it was the exact pose they had when thrown against whatever was in the way, how they were bracing themselves (if at all), and their general robustness or fragility (itself related to age) and weight. Little or none of that is known to us.

 
It might be the amount of longitudinal movement allowed by the coupling between the 159 carriages being little to none, at a 30mph closing speed (which is pretty severe) and a head on collision at that, people in each of the carriages may have experienced similar accelerations.

Add to that the example that for an individual a simple uncontrolled fall from a standing position is hazardous even though it may only imply a 12 to 14 mph collision with the ground, a sharp stop from ~ 30mph (or your surroundings suddenly coming at you at ~ 30mph) is not a good scenario.

(Off topic, if anyone reading this feels themselves vulnerable to falls, I can recommend asking a GP to book you into a falls clinic as they're really useful. And... from the falls clinic, the number one tip is... when turning round, turn round in quadrants - feet purposely to the floor and turn 90 degrees, repeat as necessary. 'Twirls' can be a surprisingly bad idea.)

Mark

 
Agreed, but it doesn't explain why the other people who were seriously injured were also only in the rear carriage. Or am I reading it wrong?

 

It does / did.  My understanding (from various public sources) is that the accident was serious enough to hurt some people quite badly.  The gentleman who passed away suffered, I believe, a heart attack brought on by the shock / distress of what was going on around him.  With that logic, does it seem a little less odd?

 

Forgive me looking from a West Wiltshire viewpoint on that. Apart from the 05:40 from Bradford-on-Avon to Paddington, the newest train that calls at any station in our constituency is  1993 vintage - 33 years old.

 

Seems to be based on driver either forgot about, or chose not to use the manual sander when automatic one failed.

But agree it is a very tough headline to use.

 
Can’t really see nationalisation causing the Voyagers to be replaced 10-15 years before their due date, as has already been said.

 
Unpleasant Telegraph headline IMO - "Train driver missed chance to avoid fatal crash".

 
Sounds like good advice, although...
I could understand that if it was just one person perhaps with health issues, but the fact that the other seriously injured were also there - seems odd?

 
The 175s cannot be doing much for the stats with cancellations, late running, and short forms by taking 150s to cover.

 

I can't speak for the 387s, but the IETs are certainly ageing - very prematurely !! They are in far worse condition that the HSTs ever were at that age - in fact, I would say that HSTs were in better "nick" at twice that age.

 
Although the cancellations are total, and GWR caused (so difference between these numbers are caused by others).

However most passengers are not really interested in who the cancellation is caused by, they simply want a reliable service, and if there is a problem, it gets resolved as fast as possible, and what to do in meantime to get them to their destination explained clearly.

Yesterday I was at Bradford On Avon station and every couple of minutes was automatic announcement: "we are sorry the 09:48 to Portsmouth Harbour is delayed by x minutes.....".  Just robot mode hollow sounding apology, nothing to help or give reassurance to the waiting passengers.  No reason given.   Sort of feels symptomatic of attitude of customer comes last, operating convenience first.

Ok, BoA isn't the biggest station, so someone in control not entering a reason for PA to state, might be deemed low priority, but there is old adage look after pennies and pounds like look after themselves.  In blunt terms if management don't care about passengers starting at smaller stations then not looking after about half their passengers which isn't good enough.  Lose half the passengers and their jobs aren't secure, but they don't seem to get it.

 

"Ageing fleet"? The IETs have largely only been in service for 8-10 years, the 387 Electrostars much the same!

 
Mentions of both Clermont-Ferrand (CF) and Nimes brought back memories of a couple of long weekend rugby trips from a few years back. I used Eurostar & SNCF for both trips; for CF I took the direct Paris Bercy services - not quick but plenty of stunning scenery. CF was a lovely place to wander around and obviously the rack railway run to the top of Puy-de-Dome was a must do. But disappointingly it was discovered that, as Jethro might have said, 'CF closes Sunday!'. After much searching we accepted the Stade Marcel Michelin McDonalds was going to be the only source of sustenance.

A long weekend in Montpellier, for which I used the Gare de Lyon TGV's, was particularly notable for a 1-hour delay at Nimes on the way back to Paris. This was a result of the line being blocked by the local Sapeurs-Pompiers indulging in traditional French public sector industrial action. The protesters were eventually persuaded to move by the police; I was not aware of any force being used. Having missed my connection at Gare du Nord I was happily rebooked by Eurostar using the original ticket. Under the same circumstances at Paddington GWR refused point-blank to take the same approach (yes I know, entirely my fault for having an Advance ticket).

 

I would agree with you both.

The current GWR team have an aging fleet to deal with, and also what seems like a worsening infrastructure scenario - though that could be that they're ever more careful now on safety grounds.  It feels like the bridge at Limpley Stoke is closed and trains diverted via Chippenham on a weekly basis, for example, which does not help CDF -> PMH ... and the blame cannot be apportioned to GWR (First employees and contractors) on that sort of issue.

Where I (and others in WWRUG, for example) have noticed an issue is that GWR management is far less available and responsive than it used to be, with an extra layer of marketeers on filtering the technical team, and a very controlled approach of answering less / slower that they used to, and answering with answers that don't answer the question (if you get what I mean) but rather tell us similar / linked data that does not actually address the issue.

I and others are somewhat at a loss about what to do about this (if there is anything we can do).  We do not wish to be "squeaky wheels".   We do not want to shout issues in public, especially in those cases where things are getting slightly better.  And we want to be able to promote the services with them.  Of course, our failure on things like getting a CCIF grant, or the afternoon peak service at DMH replaced now that the original runs empty to aid reliability, or even to get a single call on 1st August in a Weymouth train for a special day out (and that WAS promised ...) is frustrating.

Is it "end of term blues?".  Is it that other newer things such as as the Oxford service, Newquay and Okehampton are now the fashion / focus?  Is it that they are far more ruled by DfT, not interested in anything except short term and impressing the new bosses?   Is it that born and bred train people are replaced more by bright and lovely people but who are new to rail, and perhaps look at costs and accounts and not passenger needs?  Is it an increased regulation and complexity that removes and flexibility and friendliness? I don't know the answer. 

 
Feeding the workers would not have been a problem. The much later Romans noted how efficient the farmers were compared to those on mainland Europe.

Julius Caesars two expeditions (Putin would have called it special military operations) opened up Southern Britain to trade with Rome.
For the next hundred years that trade grew. Food was always a problem for the Romans relying on Egypt in the south and they wanted a bread basket in the north and by the time of Claudius were buying food from Britain to feed the legions on the Rhine.

The Roman fleet based at Boulogne had sailed round Britain and were fighting channel pirates. I like to think the British farmers put the prices up so Claudius invaded, using much of Caligula's plans.

 

Clearly not the complete picture. There are a number of significant mismatches between All Cancellations & GWR Cancellations in the data and they can only or largely be down to Network Rail. The seemingly daily PAD <> RDG infrastructure failures must be a major contributor to a pretty bleak report.

 
Well that's weird - no, still not working for me, at least not on my laptop. But it's ok on my phone.

Perhaps it's my (work) laptop's VPN that's getting in the way, although it doesn't seem to affect anything else.

 
GWR have recently published latest 4 weekly performance
Covers 3 - 30 May 2026

https://www.gwr.com/-/media/gwr-sc-website/files/publications/performance-report/gwr-performance-report-period-2702.pdf

Cancellations 4.44%
with huge 9.89% on South Wales-South coast routes

Less than 3 in 5 trains on time (59.28%)
Nearly 1 in 4 not within more relaxed within 3 minutes
4.33% of those that ran, were more than 15 minutes late.

349 trains (about 12.5 per day) were shortformed below DfT agreed length

Anyone else think standards are clearly slipping now, in run up to their nationalisation.

 
Delighted that the (first half) of your travel plans for yesterday worked out (and that the skies were good too.) And that the train presumably had air-con.

Mark

 

Difficult to know how he sees more rural Britain, he was born near Liverpool, grew up in Culcheth (a village north east across motorway from Warrington), attended school in Newton-le-Willows, went to Cambridge University.   So most of his first 20 years was in smaller towns rather than busy urban areas.

But seems he understands the other metro mayors, so might be more sympathetic to Bristol, and apparently isn't a great fan of London centric policies.  So I think it will be case of wait and see.

 
Hi - it's working for me from here, at the moment. Perhaps something went offline first thing. Is it working for you too, now?

Mark

 
There have been various theories about how some of the stones were transported apparently hundreds of miles, but one might also consider the logistics of assembling the construction workers and their families from a wide area and then feeding them during their labours.

Were the workers rotated, returning home after some months, or did they settle permanently nearby?

No doubt a few at least of the countless books about Stonehenge cover such points.

(The same points also relate to Avebury, Silbury Hill and Wansdyke  - the rampart and deep ditch that crosses Wiltshire, with the most impressive stretch being east of the Beckhampton-Devizes road.)