Great Western Coffee Shop

It's a big 'fingers crossed' day for the management of Virgin Trains as their new VHF (Very High Frequency) service is launched. It will test the reliability of the Pendolino/Voyager fleet and also the capacity of the WCML. Many more seats will be available for passengers though (especially on Sunday afternoon and evenings) and this will be further enhanced in a couple of years when the majority of the Pendolino's will be increased from 9 to 11 vehicles.

I thought I'd show a comparison of their terminus at Euston with our own at Paddington. It shows Paddington and the GWML up in surprisingly good light. Even after the VHF timetable the number of departures at Euston during the lunchtime hour of 12-1pm is lower when compared with Paddington. Euston's services are generally longer distance as they don't have Heathrow/Greenford services to add to the mix, but they also have more platforms, 18 compared with Paddington's 14.

Here's a detailed breakdown, showing the services, operators and usual routing:


MAIN 1200 VT London Euston - Manchester Piccadilly
MAIN 1203 VT London Euston - Birmingham New Street
RELF 1204 LM London Euston - Northampton
MAIN 1207 VT London Euston - Liverpool Lime Street
OTHR 1217 LO London Euston - Watford Junction
MAIN 1220 VT London Euston - Manchester Piccadilly
MAIN 1223 VT London Euston - Wolverhampton
RELF 1224 LM London Euston - Bletchley
MAIN 1230 VT London Euston - Lancaster
RELF 1234 LM London Euston - Tring
OTHR 1237 LO London Euston - Watford Junction
MAIN 1240 VT London Euston - Manchester Piccadilly
MAIN 1243 VT London Euston - Birmingham New Street
RELF 1246 LM London Euston - Crewe
RELF 1254 LM London Euston - Birmingham New Street
OTHR 1257 LO London Euston - Watford Junction


MAIN 1200 GW London Paddington - Bristol Temple Meads
RELF 1203 HC London Paddington - Heathrow Airport T4
MAIN 1206 GW London Paddington - Penzance
MAIN 1210 HX London Paddington - Heathrow Airport T5
RELF 1212 GW London Paddington - Reading
MAIN 1215 GW London Paddington - Cardiff Central
RELF 1215 GW London Paddington - Greenford
MAIN 1218 GW London Paddington - Taunton
MAIN 1222 GW London Paddington - Oxford
MAIN 1225 HX London Paddington - Heathrow Airport T5
RELF 1227 GW London Paddington - Oxford
MAIN 1230 GW London Paddington - Bristol Temple Meads
RELF 1233 HC London Paddington - Heathrow Airport T4
MAIN 1240 HX London Paddington - Heathrow Airport T5
RELF 1242 GW London Paddington - Reading
RELF 1245 GW London Paddington - Greenford
MAIN 1245 GW London Paddington - Swansea
MAIN 1250 GW London Paddington - Oxford
MAIN 1255 HX London Paddington - Heathrow Airport T5
RELF 1257 GW London Paddington - Oxford



EUS TOTALS - Departures: 16, Via Main Line: 8,  Via Relief Line: 5
PAD TOTALS - Departures: 20, Via Main Line: 12, Via Relief Line: 8

Oh, and the new service and a very minor delay incident earlier this morning, hasn't stopped the press from jumping on the fact that every train has not run on time on the first day.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7783157.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7783157.stm)

Talk about a news story over nothing. Wept!

The throat at Paddington lends it self better to quicker in and out paths than Euston, Euston is cursed with tunnels at Camden which cramps the amount of flexibility that was built into Paddingtons 6 high speed bidirectional lines that run out for over 2 miles.  Also at Euston they are stuck with the Watford DC lines almost in the center of the station with associated underpasses.

Very interesting in fact it's worse than your analysis as 2 tph are on the Independant New lines to Watford. They have 6 lines to Watford Jn. Thus it's only 14tph on overhead lines.

A more interesting comaprison might be Brighton line out of Victoria.

Valid points, Electric train. Though, on a point of accuracy, lines 1-6 aren't over 2 miles in length - more like 1.5 miles.

Its been a while since I wandered  :o about in that area I think it was when the wires for HEX were being commissioned.  Paddington has one of if not the best routes into in of all the major London termini, no tunnels or bridges over the Thames and from memory the over bridges that are there other than Great Western Rd bridge at Westborne park do not have any supports in the permanent way