You'd have thought that within five minutes of that train breaking down someone would have been on the telephone to Reading to say "Get that locomotive here sharpish". If the train had been resurrected then simply send the locomotive back rather then let the train sit there for an hour or more whilst a mechanic has a poke around it before deciding that there's nothing that can be done.
The guy talking about the cable theft was saying that no-one thought to call the police whilst an angle grinder was being used on the fence. I expect that anyone noticing would assume that they were railway people doing work. The perpetrators were probably dressed in orange suits and no-one takes any notice of people in orange suits around a railway.
The bloke in the control office at Paddington. "Look at that man's face, there's anger there". What does he expect, singing and dancing after being told the train's been cancelled and there's an hour before the next one? Never mind, here's a chocolate bar, that'll make it right.