TRAIN operator First Great Western was today hoping to operate a normal schedule, following the weekend landslide which caused severe delays.

The landslide between Swindon and Didcot Parkway left the company running only two of its usual four services an hour in each direction.

Railtrack at first blamed its own engineers for causing the landslide as they tried to shore up a problem embankment on Sunday afternoon.

But Railtrack later vehemently denied that workers had caused the landslip, and instead blamed an act of God.

First Great Western initially feared that services would be delayed until today at the earliest.

However, managing director Mike Carroll announced yesterday that he hoped to have services back to normal by early this morning.

He said: "The last few days have been disruptive for our customers and we are planning to operate a normal timetable tomorrow.

"However, we cannot give a 100 per cent guarantee of that at this stage.

"We will be in constant contact with Railtrack throughout the night, and if there are problems we will continue to operate the emergency timetable which we have been using for the last two days.

"I would like to thank customers for bearing with us during this difficult few days."

In spite of First Great Western being in constant contact with Railtrack, contingency plans were set to be readied in case the work to move the earth displaced in the landslip was not completed on time.