Great Western Coffee Shop

I've been looking over the timetables published for this line over the Easter period.

I note that for the period 2nd April - 6th April all services passing through Reading West to Reading have this segment of the journey timed at 13 minutes. This is usually only 4-5 minutes and indeed the services running from Reading through Reading West over this period are still of that order.
Even the replacement bus service on Sunday 7th is timed at 10 minutes.

Does anyone know of any funky routing or other reason for this ?

With this being an hourly service too I'm tempted to drive.

Source: Pages 150 onwards
http://firstgreatwestern.co.uk/~/media/PDF/Planned%20Changes/Feb%202013/Book%203%20web.ashx (http://firstgreatwestern.co.uk/~/media/PDF/Planned%20Changes/Feb%202013/Book%203%20web.ashx)

This may help: http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Your-journey/Rail-improvements/Reading-station-improvements (http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Your-journey/Rail-improvements/Reading-station-improvements)


Edit note: Amended link to make it clickable

I believe that these trains will be working under Pilotman rather than conventional signalling, so the extra time may well be to make allowance for the Pilotman speaking to the Signaller and the filling out of authority forms and driver briefing that goes along with that.  It may well be that the actual journey time is less on the day - especially when all concerned get used to the revised method of working.

I note the trains are much quicker from Reading to Reading West though.  Is this padding / recovery time on the way in to some extent?  Or is it getting the single line (one engine in steam) authority on the way in to a single platform, and being able to return on the same authority?

P.S. The through trains from Paddington take much longer on the way out - reversal at Tilehurst as documented elsewhere

Given the usual joys of Southcote Jnc - Reading West - Reading, you probably won't notice the difference  :D