Commuters to London Paddington who had been promised dramatically improved services on Great Western Railway (GWR) have instead been experiencing delayed and cancelled trains.
GWR told travellers: “A fault with the signalling system at Maidenhead is resulting in some fast lines towards London being blocked.
“Trains running between Reading and London Paddington are subject to delays of up to 30 minutes. Some trains will also be cancelled.”
Problems began shortly before 7am, as passenger numbers were building.
Two GWR trains from Bristol Temple Meads were well over half-an-hour late, with services from Cheltenham Spa and Swansea also heavily delayed.
Transport for London (TfL), which on Sunday took over many services between London and Reading, cancelled some trains while others were delayed by up to half-a-hour.
Inbound GWR services from Bristol, Oxford and Taunton were cancelled.
From Paddington, GWR trains to Exeter, Didcot Parkway and Oxford, as well as some TfL services to Reading.
One passenger, Keith Hardie, tweeted: “Congrats to @gwrhelp and the rail industry on the first day of their new timetable.
“Only 30 to 40 mins delay on every train. Starting as you mean to go on?”
Another traveller, calling themselves Thomas Tankengine, wrote: “Good to see the new timetable still hasn’t stopped GWR from cancelling trains at Twyford and Maidenhead at the drop of a hat.”
GWR responded: “Although unrelated to our new timetable, we know this is frustrating and we are working with Network Rail to resolve the issue as soon as possible.”
“There has been an axle counter failure (between Burnham and Slough West) which is affecting some services this morning. Network Rail are working to fix the issue.”
A Network Rail spokesperson said: “We have engineers on site to fix the fault as quickly as possible and advise passengers to check before they travel.
“This is unrelated to the timetable being introduced today.
“We are sorry for the inconvenience this has caused to passengers.”
Passengers between Reading and London were told they could use South Western Railway to and from Waterloo station, but the train operator is in the middle of a month-long strike and services are reduced.
Sunday 15 December, the first day of the new timetable, saw some GWR trains cancelled and others curtailed because not enough train crew volunteered to work.
Meanwhile travellers on Northern Rail have faced a Monday morning with many cancellations due to a shortage of train drivers.
Axed services include links between Manchester airport and Blackpool, Lincoln to Leeds and Doncaster to Hull.
