GWR services to West Country disrupted
Cracks have appeared in the relatively new fleet of Hitachi trains bought by GWR. Class 800 series Hitachi trains are affected and that means the mainline high speed services out of London Paddington will be cancelled. All services are being cancelled as a precaution as Hitachi run safety checks.
Local services (ie those that do not run the Hitachi trains)n will continue as normal. However it is inevitable that these will be overcrowded.
Train services cancelled include the GWR service from Paddington through Castle Cary and Taunton to Exeter and beyond. Fast services to and from Paddington and Bristol via Bath will also be cancelled.
GWR are asking passengers not to attempt to travel today. A GWR spokesperson explained “Owing to the short notice unavailability of carriages which form our High Speed train services there will be no train service or only an extremely limited service with no alternative means of transport available for throughout journeys“
GWR say that refunds will be provided.
Not too surprised by this. GWR should never have bought these sets. They are so bad on so many levels. Badly specified by the DfT. A book could be written to cover all the problems.