Believe me, Halsebee, you don't want to know about FGW HSTs from Waterloo to B/stoke. Some of my colleagues are learning the route that's been allocated to FGW, and it's all round the houses - deliberately, of course, so as not to block SWT services - with a 2hrs-plus journey time from B/stoke to Waterloo.
Thank heavens I'm not in that link!
All I can say is "around the houses" is a bit of an understatement! at least the HSTs aren't having to stop at any of the stations along the Byfleet curve/addlestone line. I sign that route the HSTs are going to be using and I hate it (i think every crew that signs it hates it too), during normal running a train calling at every station takes 3 hours to perform a stopping service to weybridge bay via hounslow and staines and then back to waterloo the same way and the stations are one every 2 minutes or so. There are also only 3 train crew depots that sign that route, so everytime the mainline's shut anywhere between weybridge and clapham jct you can bet that you're going to get a rubbish job, having to work the weymouth/bournemouth/portmouth/basingstoke/Alton trains up to waterloo via addlestone & staines, sit up waterloo for about 20 minutes and bring the next service back down to woking where the crew you took off at woking originally are sat there waiting to take the train on to its destination. To make matters worse for the crews and the passengers, us train crew at woking (well most of us anyway) don't sign any routes past Basingstoke so we have no idea where trains normally split, where passengers should change for other destinations or what tickets are valid for that train, which puts us in a bad position not being able to help out we instead have to phone up either info control or national rail enquiries which doesn't make us look good or help the overall mood which topped off with the train taking longer to get to waterloo isn't good, instead of a 25 minute trip from woking to waterloo it takes about 45-1 hour extra. As all the trains stop at clapham jct you have to perform SDO, which making sure all the passengers are in the right part of the train it all becomes a bit of a nightmare!
We at woking have a couple of jobs on a sunday that you sign on work a stopper to wateloo via staines sit at waterloo for 30-40 minutes work the same train back to woking via staines again a stopper then have a break. After your break you do it all again, up to waterloo with a stopper sit around 30-40 mins then bring the same train back to woking as a stopper, in total we stop at 94 stations on that job working only 2 trains!
Last year when the mainline was closed at surbiton all we were doing at woking was either working weymouth/Bournemouth/Portsmouth trains shuttling them up and down between woking and waterloo, working stopping services or if you were lucky you got to pilot the salisbury crews on the 158/9's over the same route, as we didn't sign the traction to work the trains and the Salisbury crews didn't sign the route. When we first heard FGW were going to be running trains up from baskingstoke to waterloo, we were told we may have to pilot the crews of learn the stock but think either someone was making it up or the plan was changed. Now the FGW guards or train managers have learnt the route and the trains will be driven by either Freighliner or EWS/DBS, so I was told by one of the FGW guards route learning on one of my trains earlier this year.
Alan
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Actually, it's probably more a case of getting rid of FGW stock somewhere, as presumably there's no room to park 'em at B/stoke.
