Great Western Coffee Shop

Hello everyone

I am new to this forum, and the reason for joining is that we are seriously considering buying a house which would have a daily commute from Twyford into Paddington. I am hoping for some help from people in the know!

Looking at the timetable on nationalrail.co.uk, there are fast trains timetabled to take just over half an hour that leave at 7-22am and 7-56am...how busy are both these trains when they pick up at Twyford...can you get a seat / can you even get on?

Coming back in the evenings, when do things get more sensible...from 6-30pm onwards?

Any feedback would be very gratefully appreciated.

Welcome to the Coffee Shop forum, Ramage!  :)

To be honest, Twyford to Paddington is a bit outside my personal area of experience - but we do have several more 'local' members here, who will, I'm sure, be happy to offer their comments.  ;)

Hi, Ramage - welcome to the forum.

I have to admit to not having definite knowledge as to the loadings of those trains, but I would expect you to be OK for a seat, given that they both also go on to stop at Maidenhead (where if you boarded there you might have problems). I do know that you'd be fine on the previous fast train at 06:54 and that has the advantage of being a HST train - more comfort, many more seats if you're not in the know!

Coming back the 18:33 is another HST and a great train with plenty of spare seats in comparison with others leaving Paddington at a similar time. Avoid the 18:18 like the plague as that is horrendously full until Maidenhead. I would imagine the 19:06 gets pretty full as well, but the 19:18 would be quieter - though again can't confirm that for you.

Hope that's of some help? Compared with commuters from some of the stations nearer into London, Twyford ones have a pretty good time of it!

Thanks very much for the prompt feedback!  :)

Interesting to know about the 6-54am...probably too early for the daily trip but useful to know about, and thanks also for the tips about what to look out for on the way home

I think the 7-22am and the 7-56am come through from the Henley branch, so really alll about how full they get there, Shiplake and Wargrave...

From what I have seen, you won't have a problem getting a seat on the trains from Henley.

Lightweight!  LOL

LOL

Could be wishful thinking on my part, and you may yet see me on the 6-54am!

Thanks also for the feedback on the Henley branch Oxman

I can report from experience that both the 06:54 and 07:22 will have plenty of seats available at Twyford although they can both become rather squashed at Maidenhead (the 07:22 particularly). In the opposite direction both the 17:06 and 17:36 from Paddington are usually not too crushed although the 17:06 is noticably busier on Fridays.

However it would appear from a review of the December timetable in the November issue of 'Modern Railways' that the 06:54 will become a four-car Turbo and the 17:36 from Paddington will be a 4-car instead of 6 so it looks like that we can expect severe crush loadings then.  >:( Apparently this is all part of a stock reshuffle to release yet another Turbo for the so-far non-existent refurbishment programme...

Welcome Ramage!

I would echo the comments on the 7.22 and 7.56.  Cosy, but you can get on (expecially if you know the right spot on the platform for the doors).  If you're deciding between the two and aiming for arrival between 8 and 8.30 then consider the 7.08, 7.16 or 7.37 - all stopping services but IMO much more civilised in terms of getting a seat. The 7.37 arrives just after 8.30 about the same time as the 7.56.

Evenings: The HSTs are a good option but don't leave it to the last minute, however with a journey time of 25-30 mins standing isn't too awful.  Look also for the Henley services (they arrive on platform 4  - so no bridge and faster exit :)).  The 18.12 is a good choice, it is currently 5 or 6 cars whereas the 19.06 is only 3 car which can be a bit intimate!  After that time expect 3 car stopping services generally overcrowded until after Hayes.

(BTW if planning to park at the station - get a larger mortgage!)

Have fun!

on the way back try the 1806 HST to Frome...although busy as savers are vaild on it, its 1st stop twyford and about a 20 min journey

Thanks very much for all the responses, very helpful. I guess the two peak direct trains from Henley were always going to be full in the mornings, and hadn't really thought about the slower option, but sound much more civilised with a seat!

Interesting about parking - might well need to look into that as well, so what's the damage?! Could be a car or a moped

Good that there are some quick options in the evening, especially the 18-06...I work near Picc Circus, so hopefully wouldnt' take ages to get up to Paddington, although I know it's a bit of a walk from the tube to the british rail platforms

Of course need to see if we actulaly buy this house, but fingers crossed on that front... :)

Thank you for all the helpful advice. Looks like offer was accepted on the house, so may well be seeing some of you on the 6-54 / 7-22 / 7-56 early next year!

One final question - how busy is the car park at Twyford 7 to 8am in the week?

It's a busier car park than most, but I believe an extra lower section was added a few years ago. Either way, that early in the morning I would not expect you to have a problem.

As and when you start to use the service it would be useful to hear your opinions on it. We have a few hardened commuters on here, but not many that are new to a service.

Have parked at Twyford a couple of times, although on both had turned up about 11am but was able to get a space, is a busy car park though from what I see when going past it on the train.

Twyford Main daily charge ^5.60 (^5.00 RingGo (http://www.ringgo.co.uk/) in advance). ^98.00 monthly season. ^988 yearly season.

Season parking tickets only available in conjunction with a season rail ticket.

Sorry can't find any information about moped parking....

Thanks again for the quick responses - I'll certainly be back here if we do get the house and I start commuting daily. INteresting that there's not much in it between daily and monthly parking charges, so might even be tempted to cycle it to Twyford in the summer months...plenty to think about!

Yet more information to consider! If you do plan to cycle (think of the benefits - health/financial) then you should seriously consider investing in a folding bicycle if you plan to cycle onwards at your destination. Normal bikes are banned from most Class 165/166 Turbos during the morning and evening peaks and require compulsory reservations on peak HST services.

In theory they're banned from Turbos in the peaks but in practice this is never enforced! On numerous recent occasions I've had to climb over normal bikes to be able to get out of packed 165s or 166s. However I do sympathise with bike users, all trains should have the capacity to accommodate normal bikes at all times.

Thanks again...I think the plan would be to use current (pretty batterd old) bike to get from house to Twyford and then leave it locked there in the day...woudl get another battered old bike and leave that at paddington end...not sure how secure Twyford station would be, but I heard there was some new bike parking goign in at Paddington?

Hello!!

I've been commuting Twyford-Paddington for about 3 years. A good AM train to get is the 07:48 stopper, jump off at Maidenhead and get the 08:00 HST into Paddington. The 07:56 direct off the Henley line tends to be a bit cosy, particularly when they substitute a 2 car for the usual 3, which seems ot be happening quite a lot at the moment.

I'd agree the 17:06 is a great evening train if you can get to Paddington in time. The 17:18 is OK if you get on before 17:10, otherwise you'll be standing until Maidenhead. The 18:06 can get very crowded, particularly on a Friday.

Parking charges have gone up from ^4 when I first started travelling to ^5.60 now. I have a meeting with Theresa May MP at the end of the month to discuss this. However there are alternatives- the council car park near the town centre is ^3 all day, and is about a 5-6 minute walk from the station. Don't be tempted to park in Brook Street- although there are no restrictions, it really (understandably) upsets the residents, and you may find a harsh warning note pinned to your windscreen.

I've recently started travelling from Wargrave station- I live in the Waltham St.Lawrence direction, so I can drive there without dealing with the Twyford crossroads. The 07:50 from there (07:56 Twyford) is not full by this point, and the parking is completely free!! The evening connections at Twyford tend to wait- Norman (the stationmaster) can only see one train off at a time, so as long as you've crossed the footbridge before he has, you're fine.

Hope all this helps.

If there are no restrictions then if it were me, i'd park there.  If the residents don't like it, they need to get the council to impose restrictions and then enforce them.

I grew up in the shadows of goodison park before they introduced match day parking restrictions - no we did not like it but tough - if dad took the car out before midday on a saturday you could forget parking within a mile of the house until after 6pm!  Hence the restrictions came in.

Hi, and welcome to the forum.   "3 years" means you started at about the time that there was a major timetable recast whcih brought severe settling-in issues in my "The West" area.  Have you see trains get more or less reliable (cancellations, late running, short formed) over the time you've been commuting?

Thanks for the welcome!!

Over the last 3 years I have seen the trains get more reliable, and also the introduction of the peak hour HSTs was a huge bonus. However in recent months, largely I've got to say not the fault of FGW, the reliability has fallen through the floor. This is mostly down to the Great Western Mainline becoming suicide alley.

I'm a bit dismayed about the rumoured loss of the HST on the 0654 though.

However the off peak service is far from perfect. Up to 50-odd minutes from Paddington is too long. Why not change the stopping pattern of some of the HSTs- perhaps one an hour calling at Maidenhead or Twyford to connect with branch line trains instead of a Slough stop? Or add an extra stop to the Bedwyn turbos, like on a Sunday?

And don't get me started on the vile state of the 165s/166s!!!!

I expect there are very good reasons  ;) for the timetable / stopping pattern being how it is.  I have been concerned with a much more straightforward proposition of a line that's not near the Reading bottleneck and even here it seems that almost every suggestion put forward is "we couldn't do that because xxxx" and those "xxxx" reasons include freight paths, staff breaks, not robust enough - six minutes is not long enough to turn a train around if the return journey goes through Bristol, detrimental effect on other passengers, would put service outside the SLC.

But I do not intend that to read half as negative as it possibly does.  After the initial stage of "you can't know ...." attitude (and how right that is in some ways - staff diagrams and freight path information is not easy to come by), and a natural reluctance for the professionals to take on the ideas of very interested amateurs who give the appearance of trying to do an element of the professional's job, we have had some very helpful feedback so that we can understand better.  For the town where I live, I have the advantage of knowing many of the local people, elected representatives, businessmen, which adds weight to our input - amateur it may be, but it brings local requirements to the table.

And did you note that my first paragraph said almost any suggestion?  We have, already, achieved one extra service per week with a previously empty stock movement now appearing in the timetable and stopping along the line, and there are some other ideas in the melting pot which have a received a rather more positive initial reaction than "we couldn't do that because xxxx".

First stage, adc ... see what others think and ask FGW "why" if there's a group of you who agree.  And it would be worth your while travelling on couple of the trains from which you want to 'pull' the Slough stop and see how many people get on / off and look at their journey alternatives.

Thanks for the further feedback - house still hopefully going through so may see you in the New Year at Twyford...I'd be coming from the South, so don't think the Wargrave trick would work :(, although interesting about other parking options...good tips

How easy is the change at Maidenhead onto the 8am service, and do you get a seat on that usually or is that just naive?!

I've arrived into Maidenhead on the 08:00 fast service to paddington and it was quite a scrum on the platform, however as it was an 8 carriage train I suspect everybody got a seat. (its fairly empty before arriving at Maidenhead as it doesn't call at Reading)

Depends which part of the south. I'm in Shurlock Row, I drive outr through Waltham St. Lawrence, up to Hare Hatch, along the A4 for a bit then right at the big roundabout to Wargrave. This seems to avoid the peak flow of traffic.


It's a 5 minute interchange, theoretically remaining on platform 4. However they do like to spring a last minute alteration to platform 2, just I think to see how many people they can squeeze in the subway at once  ;D

Unless you're one of the last on, you'll probably get a seat. With experience you'll know where the doors are and stand in the right place on the platform. As with all trains, there's more space at the back. When the service was 2x Class 180 (up till this time last year) you could get a whole bay of seats to yourself.

Probably are- the dwell times for an HST are quite long. But I may try asking FGW the logic behind the non-stop Bedwyn turbos- if they were slewed on to the slow lines at Maidenhead until Reading, stops could be added at Maidenhead and/or Twyford. This would then free up paths on the fast lines for more 125mph through trains, which would no longer run the risk of being constantly signal checked because they're following a 90mph train.

If travellers west of Reading were worried about losing the fast section to Paddington, they could always hop on an HST at Reading.

The main trouble is that the crossovers at Maidenhead are only 40mph. When you take into account slowing for that crossover and the fact the Up Main line is then blocked for the couple of minutes whilst that route is set, then pathing becomes even tighter and when there are any delays it knocks the PPM figures. It is actually quicker for a HST to follow a Turbo at 90mph all the way, than have to slow to a crawl whilst the Turbo ahead crosses at Maidenhead. That's why outside of the peak hours there are no trains booked to use any of the crossovers between Paddington and Reading.

Before the current Bedwyn service ran fast from London to Reading it used to stop at Ealing, Southall, Hayes, Slough and Maidenhead (relief line all the way), which may well have been a better solution in terms of the speed vs. bums on seats ratio.

Maidenhead (and to a lesser extend Twyford) could do with a faster service off-peak service to and from London as I and others have advocated on here over the years. Though achieving that without 125mph stock on the Bedwyn's means compromising other services.

They really do need 125mph stock that isn't an HST. Oh wait, they did- the Class 180. The perfect train for mid distance semi fasts that could keep up with the big boys on the fast lines. But logic isn't something I credit FGW with a great deal of.

I've heard rumblings from more than one person that the 180's might be reappearing on FGW. Talk of 5 of them coming back. I would (as ever) take that with a huge pinch of salt though as there's been nothing in the railway press as yet.

I suppose with NXEC coming back in to public hands, service expansion is off the agenda there, so those 5x 180s earmarked for them could be looking for a home

Regarding the ECML I'd suggest the exact opposite. ECMLCo are already recruiting for the additional staff they need for the December 2010 '5 tph' standard pattern timetable.

If you think about it, if DfT cancelled all the SLC2 extras because they claimed they couldn't afford them, or there weren't the increases in pax numbers predicted - it would create a bit of a precedent. All the other TOCs would probaly immediately ask if they could withdraw all their recently contracted improvements on the same grounds, eg Southerns required extra services, Virgin's train lengthening etc.   Closer to home, what would there be to stop SWT asking to cancel the hourly Exeter service due to the downturn in passenger numbers?

Paul

Further to my post earlier in this thread, the 06:54 from Twyford has indeed become a four-car Turbo as predicted in 'Modern Railways' but the new FGW timetable still shows it with an 'H' at the head of the column. Needless to say the train is now wedged solid on departure from Maidenhead although the people there now have an extra departure at 07:08 (however that train starts from Worcester so I don't know how reliable it'll be).

Myself, I'll now go back to taking the 07:22 from Twyford, I might as well have another half-hour in bed before getting squashed and frozen on the way to work...  >:(

The Worcester train is usually pretty reliable (I get it from Reading) though having said that it was cancelled on the first day of the new timetable ! The main issue I suspect will be that there's rarely more than a few seats left by the time it leaves Reading.

At 0655!! Blimey