Great Western Coffee Shop

I have notice that the 15:40 from Paddington to Maidenhead with only one stop at Slough is quite a busy service but why?

It is straddled by the 15:27 and the 15:42; the 15:40 is not even a fast service because it trundles behind the 15:33 Heathrow Connect service and has quite a dwell time at Slough, arriving at Maidenhead 4 minutes ahead of the 14:42

So why is it popular?

The 15:52 Paddington to Oxford hasn't stopped at Slough since last September. It was a HST and is now a 180 and suffers from overcrowding, hence the creation of the 15:40 to Maidenhead.

It probably doesn't terminate at Slough to avoid a conflict with the 16:11 departure to Paddington, hence Maidenhead being the next suitable location to do so.

I've caught it a few times and always found it a bit of a plod, but nice not to have people getting on and off the intermediate stops like you do on the 1542 - not sure why there is so much dwell time built into it at Slough. Also it would be handy if the return 3N40 ECS to Paddinton could be made a passenger service.

Isn't the 1552 the service to Worcester? Last few times I've caught it to go to Kingham it's not advertised as calling at Reading - though it does stop to pick up only and seems to take a long time to do it.

Time to get back to the old fast expresses? Ah, a bout of nostalgia beckons.

Once the work is completed at Reading the plan is to have some services run non-stop through Reading.  The linespeed is to be raised to something like 100mph on down main platform, potentially higher once (or if) ERTMS is up and running.