Posting mainly for the record, as it is woefully late, but here are some observations from the first working day of the new timetable.
I started my journey by travelling on the 06:27 from Chippenham which runs non stop to London.
Plenty of manual announcements on the platform and aboard the train warning people the next stop would be Paddington.
The 10 car service certainly wasn't crowded and very soon we were passing through Swindon on the middle road. However as we approached Didcot Parkway we slowed and eventually came to a stand at Foxhall Junction. The preceding stopping service from Bristol was still in the platform in Didcot waiting for a late running service from the North Cotswolds to cross in front of it from the avoiding lines. An early illustration of how little room for error there is in the new timetable. We then followed the pair along the Thames Valley before overtaking the train from Bristol as it called at Reading.
We were then switched to the relief lines due to the axle counter failures at Slough West and we were quickly in a queue to get past.
It was pretty much stop start for the rest of the journey before we arrived at 07:46 - 17 minutes late.
We came in on platform 6 - one of the first since it was released by changes to the Heathrow Express services which now use only platform 7.
There were a couple of announcements to avoid the "larger than usual gap" at the platform edge. At first glance it does look a little bigger but I can think of places where the divide is bigger. (Bristol Parkway on the down springs to mind.)
Once off the train it quickly became apparent that the problems at Slough were having an effect on departing services with many delayed or cancelled
My original plan was to get the 09:15 super fast service to Bristol Parkway but I quickly surmised this was unlikely to run so got the preceding stopping one which left some 15 minutes late after being quickly turned round from an incoming service. With working electronic reservations it showed one of the advantages of the
IETs▸ over the
HSTs▸ - which would have been forced to dispense with seat labels.
On an uneventful journey we clawed back a little of the delay by Bristol Parkway and was in plenty of time to catch one of the super fast trains back. There is the potential for confusion at Parkway between these trains and the ones which call at Swindon, Didcot and Reading. They leave only eight minutes apart and due to delays the super fast came in just ahead of the stopper with the platform
CIS▸ only updating as the train was running in. Again there were numerous announcements but there is always someone who misses them for one reason or another.
The problems at Slough were almost fixed as we reached the area and we arrived in Paddington only four minutes late. The service, which started at Weston-Super-Mare, was formed of five coaches and was well filled but I wasn't aware of anyone standing. Not sure if it was planned to be five but certainly it was able to cope.
A bit of a novelty passing through stations where previously trains had called but how much they will draw commuters from either Chippenham or Bristol to use them specifically I am not sure given the frequency of the overall timetable. If it happens to be the next one due in when you arrive fair enough but people are unlikely to wait for it specifically if there is a slightly slower one just in front of it.
Click on the map to explore geographics
