About the Coffee Shop Forum
• We opened in 2007 and our forum is still here. Latest topics:at 19:07: Low passenger numbers due to train unreliability New topic!
at 16:23: Delays on Devon services - merged posts, ongoing discussion
at 16:16: Service reduction - Coombe Junction
... more
Originally the "First Great Western Coffee Shop Forum" and now the "Great Western Railway Coffee Shop Forum", we have 358096 posts of which 61 are new posts yesterday and today. The Coffee Shop is run by a team of public transport passengers, for passengers. We are free and independent. Views expressed are the views of individual contributors. Webmaster email - admin@railcustomer.info in the event of any issues.
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Status:.
ULow passenger numbers due to train unreliability
VRe: Delays on Devon services - merged posts, ongoing discussion
WRe: Service reduction - Coombe Junction
BRe: Taplow-Hassocks
mRe: Steam excursion - except there's much more diesel than steam!
PRe: 2025 - Service update and amendment log, Swindon <-> Westbury
: : : uRe: Inaugural nonstop run Kings Cross to Edinburgh - 1st May 1928
: : : : XRe: May Timetable Change
: : XRe: Thames Valley infrastructure problems causing disruption elsewhere - 2025
: : mRe: "Save the Last Remaining British Rail Hovercraft from Destruction"
: . : qRe: Collision between two trains at Llanbrynmair, in Powys, Wales - 21 October 2024
BRe: Cash payments for transport services
XRe: Station car parks full.
mRe: Brighton Belle - merged topics
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News Feed
Updated 30th March 2025
On 25th March at around 06:15, our cloud server hosted in a London data centre suffered a power outage. Usually these things come straight back up but in a cruel twist of fate, updates were being written at the instant the power failed to the extent that severe damage was done to the disc image. Service restored, read only, that afternoon with full return the following day (26th March). No posts were lost - a good test of our backups, and good practise to check that these systems were in place.
Following our late 2024 restructure, we are now running using https (secure) protocols. We are moving towards responsive formats to make the site more friendly when used on smaller screens such as phones, but still giving the same access to over 25,000 user-contributed threads of data.

As we upgrade and modernise the protocols, we are making a number of other changes over coming months. We hope you enjoy new Coffee Shop experiences and continue to be comfortable in the well established ones. The Coffee Shop continues to be free to use and free of adverts. We are here for the public transport passenger, and independent.
Please get in touch with the team in the event of any issues - our users are our lifeblood.
Ready for 2025
We have understaken a major restructure of the Coffee Shop Forum in the final days of 2024. The Forum is up and running again for 2025 with the same familiar look and feel, and databases too. You will find that there are a few internal changes and things still to be checked out / debugged in the new structure - please report these is not already noted on the forum. The biggest change you'll see is that we're now using secure (https) protocols.