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This was the headline in this week's Maidenhead Advertiser (Nov12th)

It appears that the Royal Borough is asking Network rail for reinstatement of the West curve at Slough and for direct peak hour trains from Windsor to Paddington. They've also thrown in electrification and and a longer wider platform and possibly a second one at Windsor Central.

Whilst the reistatement of the West curve might be possible, there appears to just appears to room for a single track spur. Although some of the residents might lose a bit of their garden and be completely surrounded by rail lines. They would also have a level crossing to negotiate in and out. This is not the main problems with their ideas.

The biggest hurdle is geographic in that Windsor is South of the GWML and the junctions would be off the main line. Therefore, any through train from Maidenhead would either have to run Mainline missing Burnham (which seems pointless) but would still require path on the Mainline and gap on the Downmain to cross. It could serve Taplow on the Main, if lower the ballast  but I don't think any TOC would want that obstruction.

If it runs relief to serve Taplow and Burnham it will require a gap on the Downrelief and both mains to cross.
 
Similarly with the through Paddington train it will require a considerable gap on the Downmain as it will run run wrong line into Paltform 2 at Slough. It will then require a path on the Up Main at least as far as Dolphin Junction. I gather that paths at peak times on the  Mains are rarer than hens' teeth.

Electrification and a larger Windsor station are definitely to be commended.

Problem with a west curve and services Maidenhead Windsor is it would miss Slough out there by reducing the amount of passangers making it viable, a possible better solution would be to reinstate the bay at the west end of platform 3 / 4 trains could the run relief to Slough reverse and cross both mains the pathing might be easier to achieve, but running relief will not fit in the the Crossrail model.

Now a forward thinking service would be a Windsor via Slough to Alysbury via Bourne End  :o :o :o :o hang on didn't the GWR used to do a Slough Aylsbury service 70 years ago

I am afraid that this is a non starter.  The delays as the train went across the main line would not justify such a service.

Did I sleep walk for five months.......bay at west end (Reading end) of 3/4?

There is a bay on the windsor bit and a bay that never seems to be used but a bay on 3/4?  Unless you are saying new platforms and bay needs building - in which case what happened to the old one?  Unless there is a bay there and I just didnt notice!

If you look at the Reading end of 3/4 at the roof you will see the same construction as the bays at Reading, I am quite sure that at some stage in its life Slough had a bay at 3/4 like it used to have a through line through the relief line platforms

try Windsor & E Riverside - Waterloo? - that's a direct service!

To London yes but not between the two towns of the Royal Borough.  Al

Ah ok. 

My mistake!

But isn't it reasonably easy to change at Slough - it was when I used to travel Windsor - Reading!

Ah but the politician's want a direct service they all of a sudden keen on public transport, basically because that's where Government funding is aimed at

Ah, ok I see...

A fanciful idea if ever I heard one. Whoever thinks that is feasible should really have been around in the late 19th Century when ideas like that actually stood a chance of being built before houses got in the way of everything!

By all means electrify the route and use one of these 4-car Class 319's that are hopefully heading our way, even consider running a couple of through trains a day to the capital as there have been in the past, but a west end spur is frankly laughable.

How can you run through trains to London?  Doesnt the track kind of end at the buffers?

Yes there are stop blocks at the end of platform 1 but the branch is conected to the Down Main just west of Slough station

The connection is currently used only for empty stock moves at the start and end of the day so the set can go back to Reading for servicing. And platform 1 is bi-directionally signalled, though the signal at the London end of the platform and the associated crossover to the Up Main line must be one of the least used on the network!


The other bay platform at Slough (number 6) used to be used every 30 minutes when the 'Slough Stoppers' used to run before Heathrow Connect started. Now there are only two morning peak trains due to leave from there each weekday at 08:25 and 09:14 - though it remains useful during engineering work or other service alterations.


According to a book I have, there was indeed a dock platform between platforms 2 and 4 at the western end. It was apparently only classified as a siding (mail, milk and the like perhaps?) and was closed and removed in late 1958.

It's amazing just how much the layout at some stations has changed over the years. Slough also had two sidings at the eastern end of the station between platforms 3 and 4 (though not connected to the platforms) and several other sidings and short spurs either side of the station along with connections to a gas works east of the station too!

Those sidings went when Southall Depot closed in the early m mid 80's Slough was also a Train Crew booking on point (located on plat 5) DMU's were stabled in those sidings.  You are right stations change quite a bite like the Depot at slough now the station car park

My mother used to use it when she was a County Councillor to attend meeting in Aylesbury. That was when Slough was in Bucks.

Having sat on Slough Station since 1947 let me elborate the changes. Starting on the main entrance side west end.

There was the Windsor Bay Now platform 1 and a line to the South with an end loading dock I think there might have been a runround crossover from the Bay. I remember the end loading dock being used to load the armourmed cars of the Household calvery going on manoveurs. Under Stoke road Bridge where the car park is now was the Shed and between the Windsor line and the Down Main was Slough Middle box.

The Windsor lines had separate double junctions with both the Main  and Relief lines. Locos from the goods siding for the shed came Up the Up Relief line and stopped just at the bridge and then reversed over the Down Relief and the Main lines onto the Up Windsor Branch reversed again under the bridge and then reversed again into the shed. Slough Middle had to pull a lot of levers!

There were carriage sidings in the triangle opposite the steam shed.

There was indeed a bay between the current platforms 3 and 4 which was used by the Slough Estate passenger trains and the Aylesbury service. I have caught a train to Windsor from it but we went Down Reief to Horlicks bridge and went rounfd the West curve to Windsor. Engineering work on East curve.

There was also a carriage road between the Down Relief and  Up Relief. The Slough stoppers used to terminate in Platform 4. The Tanneroner would pull the empties forward and reverse into the carriage road and either go on shed or runround and come onto the east end. If the loco had gone on shed a new loco would come out of the shed and onto the East end where it would sit until just near departure time when it would pull out the stock and reverse back into the Up Relief platform ready to depart all stations to Padd.

When platform 6 was built Platform 5 was widened and the Up Relief alinged with the carriage road.

At the end of platforms 3/4 was Slough East Box which was unusual in that the lever frame was at right angles to the track. There was a barrow crossing right across in front of the box I spent a summer work experience trundling barrows across with spare motor lorry parts to be put on the Down afternoon parcels which stopped in Platform 2 mid afternoon to load!

There were also  a couple of carriage sidngs betweent the Down Relief and Up main as has been mentioned previously.

South of the down main at the East end of teh station  was the parcel dock this had a run round loop towards Wexham Road bridge. ther were usually a couple vans which were unloaded in teh morning and loaded in the aftennon which would be picked up/dropped off  by one of the numerous parcel trains.

There was alot more track and crossings comapred to today.

However Slough is one of the few places where you can have all platforms occupied blow one whistle and all trains start to move simultaneously. You could even have seventh train in the old end loading dock at the West end of paltform 6 where the tampers are parked.