Paddington to Reading

[Fazaar1889]

I read somewhere that the infrastructure between Paddington and Reading isn't great. Shouldn't it have been upgraded as part of crossrail? What's wrong with the route?

 

[The exile]

1. One of the most intensively used bits of the network.
2. Overhead equipment installed for Heathrow not really up to the job it's now required to do.
3. others can probably go on..... but I also wonder if part of the underlying issues stem from the fact that in fact the infrastructure (as in Brunel's infrastructure) between Paddington and Reading was so great that it has required little intervention in 180 years, but the effects of those 180 years are now beginning to show...

 

[swt_passenger]

This is quite a regular topic, there’s a closed thread from last year here:

Is the section of gwml beteen Paddington and reading the worst maintained line in the country?

This links into the thread about the poor performance of the EL. So far this week we've had a cracked rail at iver and a cracked rail at maidenhead. Since September we've had points failures, signal failures and ohle issues. I have nothing to compare it with, but travelling on it daily and...

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[SynthD]

Many of the issues can only be fixed during full closures, and often only efficiently during long closures. These are close to impossible to obtain. Crossrail only paid for directly relevant annd necessary improvements.

 

[Mag_seven]

The issue and what is being done about it is being discussed here:

Reading - Paddington route set for overhaul - BBC report

from Paul Clifton: Network Rail has announced a recovery plan for the Reading-London Paddington route after months of poor performance. It made national headlines when broken wires left 4,000 passengers stranded on trains for four hours at night, near Ladbroke Grove, on 7 December. Most...

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