Great Western Coffee Shop

GRRRRRRRRRR

YES they do!

Not in the majority of cases they don't. True, if you commute from Reading to Slough you have to get a stopper in the majority of cases, but Slough to Reading commuters and Slough to London commuters (i.e. the vast majority) have a reasonable selection of non-stop fast trains running at least half-hourly intervals to and from their place of work. Only a few of them are HST's, but a Turbo can still do the trip to Paddington in around 16 minutes.

I didnt care about the HST's/Turbo thing.................

It was the RDG-Maidenhead-London Trains that bugged me

I DO NOT expect intercity HST's to stop at Slough etc but surely, there can be in the peaks at least two trains an hour - be they local stoppers or oxford stoppers that do RDG-Midenhed-Slough-Ealing-London

Oh I forgot - that was the bad old days!

We're getting well off topic here, and I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Has there even been two trains an hour in the peaks running fast between Slough and Paddington, but calling at Ealing? I certainly can't remember it - even in whatever the 'bad old days' were. If you want an Ealing stop then trains have to run relief line or you destroy capacity on the main lines. If you run relief line then you have to slot in between (and take up valuable paths) that the local services (which are already bursting at the seams) use between Slough and Paddington.

There are only two ways that the pattern of trains might change anytime soon, to allow such a service;

1) If the much discussed West Ealing bay platform gets built and the two paths an hour from/to Greenford that have to be 2-cars between West Ealing and Paddington are freed up, then there will be extra relief line capacity that could be used to run more semi-fast trains. It could also be used to run more stoppers from Slough though where there is arguably more demand.

2) As and when Crossrail is built, I'm not at all sure there'll be a need for a Heathrow Express train four times an hour out of Paddington. That might free up a few main line paths.

Not wishing to perpetuate the straying off topic but - 1) the extra paths are for Heathrowconect to run 4 tph instead of 2 tph, 2) HEX remains as part of the Crossrail plan although HEX have tentatively agreed with NR to relocate out of plat 6 & 7 at Padd thereby improving platform usage, HEX do not really need dedicated platforms now that baggage handling is no longer done a Padd.

Best we get back on topic.

In memory to those who perished

Yes this was part of the previous RUS when it was decided that to improve the timekeeping of the main lines no trains should stop on the main lines at slough.  This was modified so that in the off peak they continue to do so but not in the peak im afraid.

As has been pointed out, this discussion was becoming 'off topic' in the original thread, on the tenth anniversay of the Paddington / Ladbroke Grove crash.

I have therefore split these posts into this new topic, in view of the sensitive nature of the original topic.

Thanks, Chris.

That's why we need 6 tracks Reading to London. Crossrail can take the reliefs; the semi fasts trains (i.e. trains calling at one or two of Slough Maidenhead and Tyford) can take the current fast lines; and two new 140 mph ready express lines can be used for non stop trains.

Electric traction with a more modern signaling system will be cheaper not quite as effective but quicker to achieve

And which forest of money trees is going to pay for this? Sonning Cutting, Maidenhead, etc.

The same money filed that is fuelling HS2 or GWML electrification.

I would rather see 6 tracks on the first few miles of the GWML, WCMl and ECML than HS2, as I feel that the same amount of money would benefit most people in the UK, rather than the select few from B'ham, M'chester and Leeds.

Labour's overdraft...?  ;)

They are already planning to 6 track between Finsbury Park and Alexandra Palace. The outer tracks will remove Moorgate to Hertford trains from the 'main lines'.  North of there though I think they'd be quite chuffed if the railway was ever made four track over the Welyn viaduct - with that and the Hitchin flyover done the ECML could cope for quite a while I suspect.

Paul

It's already six track. It's just that one of them isn't currently passed for passengers. It's a lot cheaper to convert an existing track to passenger use for a 3 mile stretch than build an extra 2 tracks that don't exist for around 30+ miles.

That will probably be the case, and hopefullymay free up some of the trains that have come from Slough and the west to miss out stops at places like Hayes & Southall, hence speeding them up. Just getting rid of those Greenford trains in the peaks will do a lot to remove the suburban capacity issues.

As for Btline's 6-track idea, I've tried to explain before why that is a total non-starter of an idea. It would only be possible if a separate high speed line was built towards the west - there's no way it could follow the route of the existing GWML for anything but the smallest of distances, in fact it would more likely closely follow the route of the M4. What Crossrail would/will give us though is sections of 5-track west of Slough.

Thanks for splitting the topic, Chris.

As one who travelled from Slough or Taplow from 1968 to 2005 except for a year in the early seventies and 5 years when I went the other way to Reading from Taplow. 

Right up through top end of Loco hauled teh basic Slough service off peak was 2 tph semis from Reading to Padd All stations to  Slough then  (Hayes) Ealing Padd and 2 tph stoppers from Platform 6. A few Mainline tains stopped at Slough off peak. However there were regular loco hauled fasts in the peak which either ran on the Reliefs and crossed at Dolphin or on the mains probably having crossed to the mains at Maidenhead East or Rushcobe in both directions.  In NSE days two of these trains terminated at Twyford and ran ECS to Reading where the loco ran round on the goods lines, doing virtually to Tilehurst to crossover and ran back main line ECS to Padd to form a later service. At  the end these were formed of Mark 2  from the Liverpool Street Cambridge Kings Lynn line when EMUs took over the service. In 68 there was even one train a day in each direction fast from Taplow to Padd stopping on the mainlines at Taplow.

With the Turbos the same basic pattern was retaied although I seem to think the timings were tightened up compared with the 117s. With the loss of the loco hauled Slough still had mainline fast trains in the peak but they tended to be the through trains to Bourne End and Henley and crossed at Dolphin (Sometimes at Hayes West Down only). Also the semis had Hayes stops introduced. 17:36 was my regular train for years starting with when it was loco hauled.

2005 saw the change to current pattern. Whereby Slough got fast trains on the Relief Lines. This was an absolute disaster of a timetable. I graphed the up peak and you could see the trains piling up from Ealing to Padd because of the dead time a fast was occuping the line   in theory you  had longer gap after the fast train arrived at Padd before the start of the next sequence. However in reality the slightest delay to any tain in the previous sequence that margin was used up and the next sequence was affected and thus the delays rolled back.

The curent timetable seems  betterer timekeeping wise  but at the expense of lots of Padding such that the journey time from Taplow in the peak is now 46 minutes compared with 32 when I travelled regularly. All the extra time being more stops East of Slough so Slough suffers with the semis.

Agreed - an oversimplification on my part - upgrade/resignal/renew platform faces to allow a 6 track passenger route would have been a better description of what they are planning.

Paul

The Hayes stop is worth while as it allows us from the west to change at Hayes to / from the Heathrow Connect although Crossrail will change this.  I believe NR are planning to do the bay at West Ealing in CP4  ahead of Crossrail who down to do it

I've always believed the bay at Hayes is an underutilised resource especialy as it is electrified. The problem with it is that you have to run down the Up Relief from Southall West to Access it. However, if you look there is a track from the goods loop, which is also electrified acroos the canal bridge. A simple crossover from the end of the bay and a few yards of wire, would mean terminating and orginating trains from teh bay could use the goods loop to Soutahll West and thus not block the Up relief.


Up to 2005 my train in the Up used to connect  at Hayes all staions start up.