TRAIN operator first Great Western has tonight announced that it is reduce the number of trains running between Oxfordshire and London Paddington for the rest of the week.

The express service between Oxford and London will be reduced from half-hourly to hourly from tomorrow until Saturday, after major disruption lasting all day today, following a series of problems during the morning rush-hour. 

Stopping services between Oxford and London will continue to operate as planned.

A special timetable was already due to be in force, because of major engineering work at Reading, which means fewer trains than usual can operate until next week.

But a series of problems this morning, with a late finish to weekend engineering work, a signal failure and a broken-down train, caused knock-on delays which have disrupted FGW and CrossCountry trains in the Thames Valley all day.

In a statement on its Facebook page tonight, FGW said: "Delays to some train services in the Thames Valley this morning were related to a number of problems in the region.

"These problems were compounded by the very limited capacity at Reading station, while improvement work continues, which had a greater affect on our ability to recover quickly from otherwise relatively small delays than originally thought.

"We worked hard with Network Rail to minimise the delays, but it quickly became clear that the number of trains we were trying to operate through the area was affecting our ability to get our services back on track, and our customers to where they needed to go, as quickly as we would have liked.

"Having re-looked at our plans with Network Rail and other train operating companies this afternoon, we've revised our special timetable for the remainder of the week.

"This will reduce the chance of congestion in the area and make sure our services are as robust as possible while Network Rail continues its important improvement work.

"While we know this decision may cause difficulties for some customers, we are confident this will deliver a more reliable service for the vast majority of customers."

"Our normal timetable will resume once Network Rail has completed their work."

The route through Reading will be closed all day on Sunday for more work on track and signals around Reading station, with trains between Oxford and London Paddington diverted via the Chiltern Line with extended journey times.

Normal services are due to resume on Monday.

More details of this week's revised timetables will be posted at FGW's JourneyCheck page. Click on the link for updates.