Great Western Coffee Shop

Journey by Journey => London to Kennet Valley => Topic started by: IndustryInsider on June 24, 2008, 11:52:07



Title: An example of what could be done with a little imagination...
Post by: IndustryInsider on June 24, 2008, 11:52:07
I originally posted this on the 'SaveTheTrain' forum, but also thought viewers of this forum might be interested:

It struck me that there are two areas of the current timetable which could do with improving upon.

1) Westbury (an increasingly busy junction station and terminus of any enhanced TransWilts service that may come to pass) and Pewsey have a very irregular pattern of trains to London.
2) Maidenhead is a very busy station (ranked 74th busiest in the UK) - which has a branch connection to Bourne End and Marlow. and although it has 4 trains an hour off-peak to London they are all painfully slow - taking nearly 40 minutes for the 23 mile journey.

I've spent a bit of spare time looking at these problems and tackled them both with a proposed timetable that replaces the current hourly off-peak Turbo service from Paddington-Bedwyn, with an Adelante operated service between Paddington and Westbury (and occasionally Frome) which also stops at Maidenhead.

I'm not expecting it to ever come to anything as FGW are off-loading all their Adelantes by the end of the year, but I though I'd share it with forum readers to show the huge benefits over the current service to these destinations. It is a full weekday timetable which includes pathing around other services (virtually nothing would have to change) and also indicative diagramming of Turbo and Adelante units to show what resources would be required.

The link to download it is: http://www.savefile.com/projects/808644282

My apologies for any pop-ups, but that is a necessary evil when using free file hosters!


Title: Re: An example of what could be done with a little imagination...
Post by: devon_metro on June 24, 2008, 12:19:05
Looks like your UP 180s are going to be get in the way of up HSTs


Title: Re: An example of what could be done with a little imagination...
Post by: IndustryInsider on June 24, 2008, 13:13:48
Looks like your UP 180s are going to be get in the way of up HSTs

Could you be a little more specific?

As with any major timetable alterations, there would need to be minor adjustments here and there to other services, but the vast majority of UP fast HST's along the Berks&Hants are due into Reading at xx:49 and would preceed the xx:38 stopping train from Newbury (which would be in the bay) passing at about xx+34, and don't conflict with the 180's at xx:25 from Wesbury at all as they pass there at about xx:03?

Also, generally, HST's leave Reading for Paddington (non-stop) at xx:32 and xx:44 and my Reading-Maidenhead-Paddington trains leave Reading nicely in between at xx:37, so, again there's no conflict there - they would follow the xx:42 HeathrowExpress from T5 after Airport Junction.



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