Great Western Coffee Shop

Hi there, I'm new to the site and wondered if anyone could help me.

My girfriend moved into my place in Brentford a little while back and we've now decided to move somewhere bigger. Having ruled out London-options, we've been looking at Maidenhead as she needs to get into Ealing Broadway for work fairly easily.

A friend of mine suggested that we should check out the service properly as she might struggle to get onto a morning train into London. That said, there are quick trains into London (not stopping at Ealing Broadway) so I'm hoping she'll miss the worst. We were looking at her getting the 0716 from Maidenhead which gets into Ealing Broadway at 0749. Similarly, would she be getting a seat on the train back between 1630 and 1730?

If anyone has experience of those trains and could pass on their comments, I'd be most grateful.

Welcome to the forum, roryj!

She'll have no problem getting a seat on the outward journey - the train you mention is a stopper and starts at Reading, so they'll be plenty of seats. It will fill up later in the journey though and will be full after Southall.

Coming back is more of a lottery. Most trains from 16:30-17:30 are very busy from Paddington and then pick up a wedge more people at Ealing. That being said, if she boards at the rear of the train it will be quieter (most people boarding at Ealing refuse to accept there's more than one carriage of the train they can get on!). In all cases the furthest she might have to stand would be West Drayton as most of the train will get out at Southall, Hayes or West Drayton. There's a good chance that she'd get a seat after Southall which is only 5 minutes from Ealing.

Hope that helps?

Thank you very much I.I. That sounds great and I'm sure that rear of train observation will come in handy.