Why should they go to the Elizabeth Line? The rest of the GWR network has suffered for years because there isn’t space into Paddington and almost all their long distance services have to end there. Why should the Elizabeth Line, which is suffering some fairly mild reliability issues compared to the rest of GWR, take the slots when the rest of the network is dealing with severe overcrowding and not being able to get on trains.
The loading does vary by train, but GWR knows which trains are busy. Regardless realistically no TOC has the stock or budget to increase services.
If you stopped the HeX services, surely GWR could take the trains and crew from HeX and could use this at least for cardiff services (and bristol/oxford once the electrification is carried out)
And why would terminating all elizabeth lines at maidenhead be a good thing? The whole idea of them terminating there in the first place was daft, would customers rather travel to Maidenhead station or the second busiest interchange outside of london?
Why would that be a good idea. You've got freight to think about so its a non-starter anyway.
Long term, it's possible that if new terminal capacity was built elsewhere in the airport that T4 could be closed completely, as it's a lousy design and poorly located outside the runways, making it a nuisance for the airport.
I'm talking about all the people in west london going to practically anywhere west of London, say a journey from Southall to Bristol, who can now just hop on an elizabeth line train to Reading and then change onto a train to their destination from Reading. Imagine curtailing their service at Maidenhead and then forcing everyone to go through the already crowded london termini.
I was responding to a comment that suggested removing the HEX services and using the paths for another 2tph of GWR semi fasts from Reading so that Crossrail could run from Maidenhead. My point was that using those slots purely so Elizabeth Line users have a very minor reliability increase is ineffective use of resources, effectively running a double service.
But even if you run 4tph semi fast from Reading to London, there would still be plenty of space on the relief lines west of slough to run elizabeth line services there. The issue with doing that would be creating pathing space for the trains to cross onto the fast lines after slough, and removing elizabeth line services won't change that at all. I just don't understand the benefit of curtailing Elizabeth line services at Slough or Maidenhead
And I would ask why can't these run all day?
Probably not enough demand to justify the costs of running these extra services. Just like how the two Eastern branches are 8tph off-peak instead of 12
Surely that's even more of a fleet issue than GWR expanding services? There aren't enough trains for an extra 2tph, especially in the peaks, and at least GWR could solve fleet problems with more 387s, or a large new fleet order. To get the stock for your proposed service there would need to be a micro order of 345s, unless bundled with another expansion plan, which would come out eyewateringly expensive on a cost benefit analysis.
The point is reliability and having the service in the Crossrail core as self contained as possible. At the moment, it is as if we were running the Victoria Line to Cheshunt with half the service leaving the main route at Seven Sisters and running via Northumberland Park, which no one would consider a good idea
