Commuters on one of London’s busiest rail routes are being warned to expect a day of disruption after a points failure near West Drayton brought train services between London Paddington and Reading to a crawl on Friday.
Great Western Railway said the fault, in the West Drayton area, means fewer trains can run than usual — forcing the operator to cancel services and delay others. Disruption is expected to last until the end of the day.
“The problem affects one of the four lines between London Paddington and Reading, so we are having to reduce the train service through the area to avoid congestion,” GWR said on its website.
What it means for passengers
The Paddington to Reading corridor is the backbone of GWR’s London services, carrying commuters from Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and west London into the capital — as well as travellers heading to Heathrow via the airport connections.
Local stopping services between London Paddington and Newbury will only run between Reading and Newbury, in both directions, meaning passengers at stations between the capital and Reading have lost their direct stopping trains for the day.
Most longer-distance intercity services will continue to run between London Paddington and Reading, GWR said, but are likely to be subject to delay as the timetable is thinned out through the affected section.
The one bright spot for commuters: the Elizabeth line, which serves stations including Langley, Slough, Burnham, Taplow, Maidenhead and Twyford, was reported to be running a good service — giving passengers an alternative route into the capital.
A day of travel pain for London
The points failure has landed on one of the most disruptive travel days of the autumn for the capital. Storm Austen is sweeping across the south of England, with the Met Office issuing a yellow wind warning for London until 9pm on Friday, and the Tube suffering severe delays of its own on the Metropolitan, Piccadilly and Northern lines — a story we have been following through the morning.
It is important to be clear about the causes: GWR has attributed today’s mainline disruption to the points failure at West Drayton, not to the storm. The two problems have simply arrived on the same day, compounding the pressure on the network.
Paddington has already had a difficult week on the rails. GWR curtailed services from Paddington towards Plymouth yesterday as the storm approached, and Londoners woke up to severe Tube delays on three Underground lines this morning. Our Storm Austen live blog is tracking the disruption as it develops.
What passengers should do
GWR is urging passengers to check before they travel and allow extra time for their journeys. Anyone with tickets for cancelled services should be able to use them on later trains, though specific ticket acceptance arrangements have not been confirmed.
With the fault affecting only one of the four lines through the area, services are running but reduced — so crowding is likely on the trains that do run. Passengers who can travel outside peak hours, or use the Elizabeth line where it serves their route, may have a smoother journey.
Network Rail engineers will be working to fix the points fault, but with disruption expected until the end of the day, passengers heading home this evening should check the latest updates before setting off.
Weekend outlook
The rail disruption comes as London heads into a weekend of unsettled weather. Storm Austen is expected to clear this evening, but Storm Boelo is forecast to bring further disruption — with the Met Office warning of possible rail and flight cancellations along with power cuts over the weekend. With October half-term now under way, families planning rail journeys out of London would be wise to check the latest service updates before travelling.
Photo: a Great Western Railway Class 800 train at London Paddington (file photo; not today’s disruption). Credit: orangeaurochs, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
