Do we think the 'compromises' will sit with GWR passing service to TfL or vice-versa? Are they aiming for the Didcot paths to be moved to TfL control?
What other compromises could be made?
-
Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
What changes could be made to service provision on the Thames Valley route out of Paddington?
- Thread starter Acton1991
- Start date
- Status
What other compromises could be made?
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
Reduce Heathrow service
Reduce the fairly generous padding at times.
Alter stopping patterns (reduce inner stations service frequency, add a stop to outer (GWR) services.)
Break the Dicot services at Reading.
Get western region to understand decent performance electric rolling stock... (the problems may no exist in practice)
reddragon
Established Member
Trade between Didcot & Reading would collapse if there were no through services. Cutting off direct services to Oxford has already lost that custom to road and the current hourly service has severely depleted numbers. Another step and that service would only require a 2 car train versus the 8 cars that were running.
coppercapped
Established Member
You clearly have not read or understood the significance of my post 594 https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...-progress-towards-opening.211880/post-5417731
I fail to understand what all these suggestions are trying to achieve.
To be fair to @hwl, he was listing options for resolving the problem - which is that the currently specified service (off peak) will not fit on the GWML. Therefore something has to give. Breaking the Didcots at Reading is one option. I agree it’s not desirable, but then neither are the others.
Which is?
Binning off HEx won’t solve the problem (I guess that’s what’s being inferred)
Crossrail’s capacity problem is on the Reliefs, HEx run on the Mains. Even if you free up those paths Crossrail couldn’t use them - the trains are too slow and crossing to the reliefs up the line to access the sewer would hurt relief line capacity even more.
Crossrail need to learn and understand that, unlike their virtually exclusive use of the Electrics on the GE, they have to share the railway out west with other operators. That may mean that if they can’t model a reliable timetable that satisfies other operators, then they will have to compromise and temper their aspirations.
They have not demonstrated the reliability out west to start reducing padding or other timetable resilience measures.
Great Western, HEx, Freightliner, etc all have customer bases to appease as well; and all have made considerable concessions to accommodate Crossrail thus far - some permanent IE transfer of half the TV Suburban service to them with associated drop in revenues for GW - some temporary such as HEx going down to single platform operation at Paddington on weekdays to accommodate Crossrail trains at Paddington High Level.
Unfortunately I fear the big wigs who mediate such things will turn around and say “Yes Crossrail Sir you wish for me to jump sir? How High Sir?”
Crossrail’s capacity problem is on the Reliefs, HEx run on the Mains. Even if you free up those paths Crossrail couldn’t use them - the trains are too slow and crossing to the reliefs up the line to access the sewer would hurt relief line capacity even more.
Crossrail need to learn and understand that, unlike their virtually exclusive use of the Electrics on the GE, they have to share the railway out west with other operators. That may mean that if they can’t model a reliable timetable that satisfies other operators, then they will have to compromise and temper their aspirations.
They have not demonstrated the reliability out west to start reducing padding or other timetable resilience measures.
Great Western, HEx, Freightliner, etc all have customer bases to appease as well; and all have made considerable concessions to accommodate Crossrail thus far - some permanent IE transfer of half the TV Suburban service to them with associated drop in revenues for GW - some temporary such as HEx going down to single platform operation at Paddington on weekdays to accommodate Crossrail trains at Paddington High Level.
Unfortunately I fear the big wigs who mediate such things will turn around and say “Yes Crossrail Sir you wish for me to jump sir? How High Sir?”
I don't think cancelling Heathrow Express was what @Bald Rick was suggesting (HEx is contracted to run for several years yet with Heathrow Airport owning the rights).
However, if HEx were to be cancelled in at some point in the future it'd be logical to use the paths for the Didcot semi-fasts (with some/all of the calls past Slough dropped in exchange for Crossrail stops at those stations) rather than Crossrail, with Crossrail then having sole passenger use of the reliefs (alongside the existing freights).
Cancelling Heathrow Express doesn't create paths for trains which run with 387s to Reading (or cross over at Dolphin / Slough West / Maidenhead) because the 80x following will be up behind it too soon.
Stakeholders would want Twyford / Maidenhead / Slough at least to retain GWR services to Paddington and the stops would need to be on the relief line.
Thank you for pointing that out. I'd read that HEx paths were paired with 80x Slough stoppers as a way of optimising capacity. I'd naively/optimistically hoped that a Dolphin Junction crossover could retain that same pairing to allow pathing. Obviously not!
They are paired up. However, Dolphin Junction is a flat crossover whereas the Junction for the airport isn't.
… to be revealed in due course, assuming it works.
Don’t worry, they won’t (indeed can’t).
coppercapped
Established Member
That he was listing options was, I am afraid, not clear to me.
If Crossrail wants to run the intensity of services on the GW route that it appears to want then something will have to give. It may be that it will have to take a leaf out of the Munich S-Bahn book - but it will not be cheap and it will take time.
When I moved to Germany in 1974 the Munich S-Bahn - having been opened in time for the Olympic Games in 1972 - was starting its growth outwards along the radial lines from the Hbf and Ostbahnhof. Originally from the edge of the city they ran on the main lines but bit by bit additional separate lines were constructed for their own use. Frequencies were improved, from every 40 minutes they were doubled to every twenty. (Added in edit: offpeak. Peak trains are doubled again to every 10 minutes giving some 30 trains per hour through the central core) It took 30 years and is still not complete.
Something similar may be necessary on the GW side. I could imagine that eventually dedicated Crossrail tracks could exist at least out to Airport Junction to permit Crossrail frequencies. It will not be cheap, but if it is not done then growth in freight traffic through London will be limited, servicing of the growing towns and villages in the Thames Valley will not keep up with demand and any extension of train services along the Vale of the White Horse towards Swindon to serve the growing towns of Grove, Wantage, Farringdon, Uffington and Shrivenham will effectively be impossible.
But I'm not holding my breath...!
Last edited:
I wonder if this "something" involves a certain level 2 installation of some kind.
Sending TfL out to Reading was a push! I feel like the natural end of the line was Slough but we are where we are!
The original plan was something like Didcot to Maidenhead stoppers and TfL not going further west than Maidenhead but Reading has been the natural endpoint for the stopping service from London for a long time.
It is a bit unfortunate that off-peak demand at Twyford and Maidenhead has never grown to the extent that they can justify a service which crosses to the main line for a non stop run into Paddington. In the past, local connectivity was important but TfL Rail provide the connections to the intermediate stations now. However, keeping the off-peak Twyford and Maidenhead train on the relief lines has been the preference to date
4-SUB 4732
Established Member
- Joined
- 7 Jan 2018
- Messages
- 2,150
I don’t believe this at all. People in the Thames Valley west of Tilehurst were well-served with 3 car 166s ‘way back when’ because of the churn generated at Reading. Almost nobody stayed on. Then to the contrary, now you’re dealing with a situation where people in the local stations can’t get to Oxford easily, where Oxford is the main interchange point for things like XC or Cotswolds.
Reduce the HEx to half-hourly, anticipating it to use Western Rail Link (aka a half-hourly Paddington to Reading via Heathrow), allow the 6tph on the slow lines as these will undoubtedly be most popular moving forward due to the price differential. If you are insistent on a through service to Didcot at peak times, make that fast to (insert Slough or Maidenhead here) and then stations to Didcot using 12 coach people movers.
But to say we still need a Paddington to Didcot stopping service is a nonsense.
coppercapped
Established Member
Even if the off-peak demand was there, a service for Twyford and Maidenhead, then fast to Paddington on the Mains (with possibly a call at Slough) from Maidenhead East or Slough West, is no longer practical. Off-peak there are now some 10 or 11 Reading to Paddington non-stops per hour on the Up Main and, of course, a similar number on the Down Main. As the crossings from the Reliefs to the Mains are all flat, the lines being paired by use, crossing moves should be avoided if reliability is not to suffer.
This would not be so critical if the crossings were grade separated, but Didcot East needs to get sorted out first.
Breaking the outer-suburban Thames Valley service at Didcot was a temporary measure while the Didcot to Oxford section was electrified; it should not be made permanent as the change at Didcot has caused a drop in custom as a previous poster has indicated.
Ideally in my opinion, the Oxford 'semi-fasts' from Paddington would call at Slough, Maidenhead, Twyford, Reading and then all stations to Oxford. There may be an argument for a stop at Ealing Broadway in the peaks. As I wrote above these will have to run on the Reliefs as conflicting moves are inevitable - wherever the crossing move is made - because of the intensity of services on both Mains and Reliefs between Paddington and Reading and the lack of grade separated connections between the two.
Crossrail offers essentially an 'all-stations' service to Paddington - one or two stations are skipped but, seen from the 'country' end, it is effectively the slow train. Extending the Crossrail services to Didcot would mean a slower overall service between places like Pangbourne and London.
Last edited:
I think the opposite is true isn't it? An Ealing Broadway stop in the peak is seen as a liability because of the dwell time there, not helped by the position of the staircase and platform cover. They also stop at Hayes & Harlington and West Drayton off-peak as well.
In the peak, they manage to have flat crossings at Maidenhead and Slough loses its fast services.
A slightly different timetable might have an alternate Maidenhead or Twyford stop flighted in front of the Oxford / Cotswolds service stopping at Slough but I'm not sure what service it would be put in.
Of note is that the Heathrow Express white space allows the Twyford stop in the 1706 Paddington to Newbury, 1808 Paddington to Frome and 1907 Paddington to Bedwyn.
Last edited:
Would it not be difficult to add a call at Maidenhead in one of the Oxford/Hereford fasts and Twyford in the other? Currently they arrive in Reading at xx46 and xx16 which is ten minutes before the Bristols, so surely adding one extra call in each wouldn’t be too impractical.
I’d also look into the possibility of extending the Paddington - Didcot semi-fast to Swindon rather than Oxford (so they can use 387s all the way), and extending EWR services to provide the local link between Oxford and Reading. This would increase service provision at all stations between Didcot and Reading from 2tph to 4tph.
I’d also look into the possibility of extending the Paddington - Didcot semi-fast to Swindon rather than Oxford (so they can use 387s all the way), and extending EWR services to provide the local link between Oxford and Reading. This would increase service provision at all stations between Didcot and Reading from 2tph to 4tph.
Last edited:
That would be one way of enabling the reopening of stations at Wantage Road and Steventon but neither have funding and it does seem that everyone is keen on the Didcot stoppers running to Oxford again. I doubt there would be capacity for EWR to run the local link between Reading and Oxford.
I think this would be detrimental to the journey time of the Oxford services and you also have to look at the timing at Moreton / Didcot East.
I was wondering why Crossrail was extended beyond Maidenhead. Was it the difficulty of turning back there? Maidenhead to Reading is around 12 miles and there's only one intermediate station at Twyford which is also served by GWR.
TfL didn't want to pay a contribution towards the rebuild of Reading station. Once it was completed they didn't have to pay anything other than order an extra 345 set.
kevin_roche
Member
- Joined
- 26 Feb 2019
- Messages
- 997
Is there any sign yet of the new TfL timetable with additional trains to Heathrow?
It would have required a shuttle service run by GWR between Reading and Maidenhead to retain 4tph over this section so Maidenhead would have needed to accommodate a terminating service from both the east and west side. That wasn't really practical.
4tph to Heathrow shown in the open data from May.
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/se...6/0200-0159?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt&toc=XR
Technically two 345s as the order went from 68 to 70.
Last edited:
Falcon1200
Established Member
Given that electrifying Didcot/Oxford seems, ludicrously, as far away as ever, those are interesting ideas, although 4 tph stopping all stations Didcot/Reading might be overkill ? Perhaps the Swindon 387s should run fast between Didcot and Reading with the EWR trains providing the stoppers and restoring the link with Oxford.
That makes way more sense to me. Would give Swindon something of a metro/commuter style service for once, it’s always been something of a long distance island - and a direct to Slough also. Maybe a cheaper London fare too, LNWR style.
Why does Swindon want a metro/commuter style service? Until some intermediate stations are opened between Swindon and Didcot there is no real justification to extend Didcot services there.
Dream on. Evening restrictions were only relatively recently added to the evening peak Thames Valley semi-fast services.
- Status