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First Great Western (FGW) services between Bristol Parkway and Swindon have stopped and will be affected for ”a number of days” because of a landslip in the Chipping Sodbury area.
Nobody was hurt, but it appears that ” following days of rain ” 2,000t of earth and debris from an embankment west of the Chipping Sodbury tunnel slipped and crushed trackside signal control boxes yesterday (23 January) at around 16:30. The 100mph (160kmph) speed limit was reduced to 20mph, but this morning the signalling was affected and the line closed at 10:00.
London Paddington to Swansea will run at 45mins past every hour instead of the usual half-hourly service. It will travel an alternative route bypassing Bristol Parkway, via Bath, Chippenham and Patchway ” from where free bus services connect to Bristol Parkway - and adding up to 40mins to the journey time.
From Swansea, services are leaving 29mins past the hour, with trains stopping at Patchway ” again with bus connections - but not Bath or Chippenham.
London Paddington to Cardiff Central services will not run.
A Network Rail spokeswoman told ABTN: ”Engineers are now on-site working to restore services and we hope to clear the debris by 05:00 tomorrow.
”We”re hoping by Monday full services will resume.”
” FGW said this week it is doubling compensation to passengers on delayed services and that it is freezing fares and car park charges until 2009.
If reliability and punctuality targets are not met, season ticket holders will receive 10% or 20% refunds when they renew tickets, rather than the usual 5% or 10% (the larger amount if neither targets are met).
Holders of all other tickets, including weekly seasons will have to apply for a rebate if their journey is sufficiently delayed to qualify for compensation ” there are instructions on how at stations, the operator says, and on the website firstgreatwestern.co.uk.
”We want to do the right thing by our customers,” said FGW chief operating officer, Andrew Haines. ”We are working with Network Rail to help deliver a better service.”