Crossrail/Elizabeth Line. From construction to operation - ongoing discussion

[whole diary]

[a-driver]

Any update on what sort of non-Crossrail service we might get at Twyford?

CrossRail, in whatever form you get at Twyford, will be a brilliant service. Mainly because their trains will have priority over anything else between Reading and Paddington. If a CrossRail service is running late or their is disruption CrossRail will use the main lines at the expense of long distance services.
The same applies over on Greater Anglia. CrossRail will have total priority.

[JayMac]

Any update on what sort of non-Crossrail service we might get at Twyford?

CrossRail, in whatever form you get at Twyford, will be a brilliant service. Mainly because their trains will have priority over anything else between Reading and Paddington. If a CrossRail service is running late or their is disruption CrossRail will use the main lines at the expense of long distance services.
The same applies over on Greater Anglia. CrossRail will have total priority.

Has this been agreed by all parties? How have TfL^» (Transport for London - about) got such sweetheart deal for the Elizabeth Line? Is this written into contracts? Can we see proof?

[John R]

So given recent experience on the Greenford branch, can commuters expect missed connections and a half hourly wait on a regular basis I wonder?

Why? Apart from the odd couple of peak trains, it (the Marlow branch) is already run by shuttles. Each stops for nine minutes to connect onto an up train and off a down train on the main line. All that stays the same, provided there is a regular half-hourly Paddington train each way within a minute or two of each other.

Greenford currently has a mixture of through and shuttle trains, and the right timings for these relative to the main-line services are different. The branch round-trip time doesn't allow that mixture, so for the time being (until the through trains stop) they don't mesh properly.

Yes, but it's the reliability of the peak hour services that is most likely to cause issues given that a connection will now be necessary. The evidence of the recent change to Greenford peak services is that GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) won't adopt a policy of holding trains on the branches.

[Adelante_CCT]

Any update on what sort of non-Crossrail service we might get at Twyford?

In answer to your original question, it is likely Twyford will see the same as today with the 2tph Paddington to Reading services being taken over by Crossrail (and therefore extending through London) and the 2tph Paddington to Oxford being the non-Crossrail service with a likely stopping pattern of Ealing, Hayes, Slough, Maidenhead, Twyford, Reading and all stations to Didcot/Oxford. Unsure at the moment of any additional 'fast peak' services that currently operate.

[Gordon the Blue Engine]

If the non-Crossrail 2tph Padd – Oxford stopping service are running ML out of Padd are they going to be stopping at Ealing and Hayes? 

[IndustryInsider]

I believe they are to be routed on the relief lines.  Once the full IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) timetable is in operation on the main lines there will be precious little spare capacity for them - not that there will be much on the relief lines either! 

Whilst there's a lot of extra flexibility being built into the network (witness the Maidenhead changes I posted about yesterday), at the end of the day it is still basically just a 4-track railway.  I'm going to be very interested to see how the timetables eventually shape up.

[ChrisB]

Any update on what sort of non-Crossrail service we might get at Twyford?

CrossRail, in whatever form you get at Twyford, will be a brilliant service. Mainly because their trains will have priority over anything else between Reading and Paddington. If a CrossRail service is running late or their is disruption CrossRail will use the main lines at the expense of long distance services.
The same applies over on Greater Anglia. CrossRail will have total priority.

Has this been agreed by all parties? How have TfL^» (Transport for London - about) got such sweetheart deal for the Elizabeth Line? Is this written into contracts? Can we see proof?

Also, this means huge comp claims on Crossrail whenever their network failures cause delay / disruption, if they can then commandere the mail lines, thus delaying other operators services on those main lines. They won't have been able to contract their way out of that, simply because other operators wouldn't pay their customers comp out of their own pockets - they'd insist on claiming it back from the cause operator as they do currently

[Gordon the Blue Engine]

I believe they are to be routed on the relief lines.  Once the full IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) timetable is in operation on the main lines there will be precious little spare capacity for them - not that there will be much on the relief lines either! 

I thought one reason that the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) EMU^▸ (Electric Multiple Unit)'s were specified for 110 mph was to facilitate pathing on the ML's.  With 10 Crossrails each way west of Padd (ie 1 every 6 minutes) plus the freights presumably pathed in between, and running at the same average speed as, the Crossrails, there doesn't seem to be much opportunity for the GWR EMU's to get from Padd - Maidenhead any quicker than the Crossrails if they run RL.  Dynamic loops would help, but that requires very accurate timekeeping which .. er .. GWR aren't very good at.

[Adelante_CCT]

The 10 crossrails west of Paddington in the peak will unlikely be 'every 6 minutes' as it will be a 4/4/2 split (Berkshire/Heathrow/West Drayton) so some marginally larger gaps than that will be in the timetable for 'other' services.

During the off-peak the 2tph to West Drayton will not operate allowing more space for the freights, which in turn don't operate in the rush-hour in the peak flow direction.

The 110mph is more useful for those services that will be operating on the main lines fast to Didcot/Swindon/Oxford and those (that were) going to Newbury.

there doesn't seem to be much opportunity for the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) EMU^▸ (Electric Multiple Unit)'s to get from Padd - Maidenhead any quicker than the Crossrails if they run RL

Agreed, even with some clever timetabling it may not be possible to operate the stoppers at the optimum level, also bearing in mind the reliefs are only 90mph for the best part.

[Adelante_CCT]

The 10 crossrails west of Paddington in the peak will unlikely be 'every 6 minutes' as it will be a 4/4/2 split (Berkshire/Heathrow/West Drayton) so some marginally larger gaps than that will be in the timetable for 'other' services.

Purely a guess regarding timetabling, but an example regarding crossrail could be:
xx:00/xx:30 to Reading
xx:05/xx:35 to Heathrow
xx:10/xx:40 to West Drayton
xx:15/xx:45 to Maidenhead
xx:20/xx:50 to Heathrow

This leaves a gap at xx:25/xx:55 allowing a class 387 to leave Paddington main at xx:27/xx:57, 7 minutes behind a Heathrow service allowing approximately 4 minutes of 'catching up' with the service in front before that turns off at Hayes, with a further 5 minutes of 'catching up' the next Crossrail service before reaching Maidenhead.

The Crossrail website says it should take 36 minutes from Paddington to Maidenhead, meaning from a timetabling point of view a class 387 could do it in 27 minutes whilst fitting in between the Crossrail services.

with a likely stopping pattern of Ealing, Hayes, Slough, Maidenhead, Twyford

Just found this link on the crossrail website which actually corrects my earlier post by stating that Hayes will not be called at by the 387s
Crossrail service pattern

[IndustryInsider]

Just found this link on the crossrail website which actually corrects my earlier post by stating that Hayes will not be called at by the 387s
Crossrail service pattern

In the peak hours, but calls are still listed for the off-peak.

[Gordon the Blue Engine]

27 mins (which is a pretty optimistic calculation!) for GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) Padd – Maidenhead fast rush hour services running between Crossrails on the DR is slower than currently.  Might be more resilient - and certainly much quicker - to run the 387’s on the DM to Dolphin.  Else we can reprise GWR’s advertising line for those nice, uncomplaining Maidenhead commuters – “here’s your new train service – it’s now 5 minutes longer to London”.

[Adelante_CCT]

In the peak hours, but calls are still listed for the off-peak.

Oops, my mistake 

[Adelante_CCT]

27 mins (which is a pretty optimistic calculation!) for GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) Padd – Maidenhead fast rush hour services running between Crossrails on the DR is slower than currently.  Might be more resilient - and certainly much quicker - to run the 387’s on the DM to Dolphin.  Else we can reprise GWR’s advertising line for those nice, uncomplaining Maidenhead commuters – “here’s your new train service – it’s now 5 minutes longer to London”.

Certainly is much quicker on the mains, although I was referring to the standard semi-fast services, rather than fast rush hour services. In that case, not sure what will happen during peak hours, as I said earlier regarding Twyford:

Unsure at the moment of any additional 'fast peak' services that currently operate.

I don't think we know what, if any 'fast' services will run to Maidenhead and Twyford. There will be very little capacity left on the mains as II stated earlier, and the less crossovers between the 'mains' and 'reliefs' the better.

I'm guessing it may be possible to stop the odd Cotswold or Newbury services on the main lines, although these would be with the class 800s rather than the 387s.

[Gordon the Blue Engine]

My solution would be to take the Ealing stop out of the 387’s (can’t really see the point – you don’t want Oxford semi-fasts cluttered up with Ealing commuters, and the TfL^» (Transport for London - about) connection opportunities for those to/from the west will largely be taken over by Crossrail at Padd).

Out of Padd you then timetable on the DM the 110 mph 387’s (2 tph Oxford semifast, 2 tph Oxford fast) 3 mins ahead of the 100 mph HX 323’s (4tph), with an IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) following (as happens now with a 125 mph HST^▸ (High Speed Train)).  The 387 peels off at Dolphin (which I hope is more than the 40 mph it was in my day!), and the 323 peels off at Airport Junction.  The following IEP sees green lights all the way (maybe!)

This plan offers an efficient use of track capacity and train speed capabilities.