Sunday Service Paddington to Bath

[Thames99]

I travelled yesterday on the 11.00 from Reading, the previous train was at 09.27 and the next was at 12.00. These were the timetabled trains - there were no cancellations. Fairly predictably after a 90 minute gap, the 11.00 was full and standing from Paddington getting worse as the journey went on with dwell times approaching 10 minutes as passengers crammed themselves on or tried to get off. It was 30 down on arriving at Bath.

On my return trip trains were every half hour. Is the Sunday morning service always this sparse or was it a different timetable because of being a bank holiday weekend?

 

[JonathanH]

The Sunday morning service on many long distance routes from London is constrained by two track railway and the availability of traincrew. Historically it has been a time of the week when fewer people travelled.

Yesterday, all trains from Paddington to Reading were on the relief lines from Dolphin Junction, east of Slough, to Twyford West Junction.

Services pick up on a Sunday afternoon to accommodate passengers travelling back from a weekend away. The day trip market on a Sunday appears to be viewed as not being so substantial. It is a difficult balance to strike as demand will differ each week.

The base timetable has a 90 minute gap in westbound services between 0900 and 1030 from Paddington to Bath on a Sunday morning. Hourly from then until 1430, and then half hourly to 1930. It might be noted that the first arrival at Paddington from Bristol isn't until 0935.

 

[mrcheek]

GWR service on Sundays is terrible.

I would strongly advise anyone planning to travel to or from London with GWR on a Sunday to make alternative arrangements instead

 

[Gerald Fiennes]

Presumably the Sunday am issues are not going to change in a hurry given the apparent need for significant blocks on the Reliefs to put right the infrastructure following the EL meltdowns over the winter?!!

 

[nw1]

It might be noted that the first arrival at Paddington from Bristol isn't until 0935.

I guess that is quite reasonable for long-distance travel on a Sunday - would many London day-trippers wish to arrive before 0935? Have always thought that around 1100 is the peak arrival time for London day-trippers, though more like 1030 for areas closer to London, within the ex-NSE area.

More surprising to me (in 2013) was how long the Cross-City in Birmingham took to get going on a Sunday morning - nothing at all, even a bare-bones hourly service - arriving before 0900. One could argue Sunday trading being what it is would suppress demand, but even still, one might think there'd be a room for a basic service before that for longer-distance passengers.

 

[mangyiscute]

I guess that is quite reasonable for long-distance travel on a Sunday - would many London day-trippers wish to arrive before 0935? Have always thought that around 1100 is the peak arrival time for London day-trippers, though more like 1030 for areas closer to London, within the ex-NSE area.

More surprising to me (in 2013) was how long the Cross-City in Birmingham took to get going on a Sunday morning - nothing at all, even a bare-bones hourly service - arriving before 0900. One could argue Sunday trading being what it is would suppress demand, but even still, one might think there'd be a room for a basic service before that for longer-distance passengers.

I think if you provided an earlier service people would use it, but with the current issues with lack of train crew plus the need for sunday morning to be engineering time, I don't think that will happen anytime soon

 

[lachlan]

I guess that is quite reasonable for long-distance travel on a Sunday - would many London day-trippers wish to arrive before 0935? Have always thought that around 1100 is the peak arrival time for London day-trippers, though more like 1030 for areas closer to London, within the ex-NSE area.

More surprising to me (in 2013) was how long the Cross-City in Birmingham took to get going on a Sunday morning - nothing at all, even a bare-bones hourly service - arriving before 0900. One could argue Sunday trading being what it is would suppress demand, but even still, one might think there'd be a room for a basic service before that for longer-distance passengers.

Not London, but in my previous work which included weekends I had to stay over at my parents house to do 9am shifts because the trains didn't run that early. Between that and the regular Sunday engineering works it was a frustrating experience at times taking the train

 

[30907]

I think if you provided an earlier service people would use it,

But how many? Professionally I have always needed to be out and about well before 10 on Sundays, and everywhere I have ever lived has been pretty dead at that time - it's not just the absence of public transport causing that.

(A random memory from 50 years ago - City of Oxford decided to withdraw all buses on Sundays before about 1100, and the city centre churches lobbied for some services to be retained - I can't remember how it panned out though!)

 

[mangyiscute]

But how many? Professionally I have always needed to be out and about well before 10 on Sundays, and everywhere I have ever lived has been pretty dead at that time - it's not just the absence of public transport causing that.

(A random memory from 50 years ago - City of Oxford decided to withdraw all buses on Sundays before about 1100, and the city centre churches lobbied for some services to be retained - I can't remember how it panned out though!)

When the 08:20 fast Reading to London service was first introduced (07:50 from oxford) it quickly became pretty busy and still sees a lot of custom nowadays. The sunday morning trains on this route are all busy, so I think its clear that an earlier train would also gain passengers.
Sundays are becoming just like any other weekday to a lot of people, and society needs to catch up with that - shop hours, public transport etc are all shockingly bad for a day that for the majority is no longer just go to church and stay at home.

 

[nw1]

When the 08:20 fast Reading to London service was first introduced (07:50 from oxford) it quickly became pretty busy and still sees a lot of custom nowadays. The sunday morning trains on this route are all busy, so I think its clear that an earlier train would also gain passengers.
Sundays are becoming just like any other weekday to a lot of people, and society needs to catch up with that - shop hours, public transport etc are all shockingly bad for a day that for the majority is no longer just go to church and stay at home.

I would tend to agree about services from Oxford and Reading.

However I would be more surprised if many people from as far afield as Bristol and Bath would want to arrive in London earlier than 0935 on a Sunday, as it would mean a very early start for them. Can't imagine many people wanting to board a train before around 0730, for example.

 

[sp503]

When the 08:20 fast Reading to London service was first introduced (07:50 from oxford) it quickly became pretty busy and still sees a lot of custom nowadays. The sunday morning trains on this route are all busy, so I think its clear that an earlier train would also gain passengers.
Sundays are becoming just like any other weekday to a lot of people, and society needs to catch up with that - shop hours, public transport etc are all shockingly bad for a day that for the majority is no longer just go to church and stay at home.

I think the issue is that intercity trains are having more leisure travellers than before, and business travellers or commuters have reduced significantly after COVID, which makes the demand on weekend services comparable, if not surpassing, that of weekday services. The timetables of transportation, including intercity trains as well as local transport connecting the stations, have not caught up with the change and this is something that both the railway and local authorities have to look into.