Btline has highlighted one of the major problems of Crossrail in that it doesn't work West of Paddington.
To the East, Crossrail splits 12 tph to Shenfield which is virtually what you have now and 12tph to Abbeywood which is new and doesn't conflict with any other services.
However the Relief lines West of Paddington can only take 10tph so 14 tph Westbound terminate at Paddington (Eastbourne Terrace). They are even building a platform to allow people who don't get off to alight before the train turns round.
Of the 10 tph the split is 4tph to LHR 2tph terminating at West Drayton and 4tph at Maidenhead.
There is a document on the Crossrail website which you can find by Googling "Crossrail Service Pattern" but this extract ought to bother anyone travelling from Twyford or wanting to travel from Reading or Twyford to intermediate stations to Paddington.
"3.3 The table below shows the changes to existing services during the peak periods that have been assumed during the planning of Crossrail.
Maidenhead
(GWML▸ )
^ The majority of First Great Western Link services that start east of Reading in the morning peak would be replaced by Crossrail.
^ Some First Great Western outer suburban services that start west of Reading would be amended to operate non-stop between Reading and Paddington. Residual services would operate between Reading and Paddington with station calls at principal stations and between reading and Slough with station calls at all stations.
^ The Greenford to Paddington service would be replaced with a Greenford to West Ealing service at increased frequency." Which to my mind is complete nonsense and fails to take account of the current commuting patterns on the line. It assummes that everyone from Twyford Westwards wants to go to London. However, from my commuting days I know that there is a heavy flow from Reading and Twyford to intermediate stations as far Ealing Broadway. It also means that anyone travelling from East of Maidenhead to Twyford and Reading will probably have to change. This will affect leisure flows as you can get virtually anywhere on the rail Network from Reading so a lot of people prefer to travel via Reading vice changing stations in London. Will they want an extra change just to get to Reading.
At one stage there were plans to build a platform on the tamper sidng at Slough for a Reading Slough diesel shuttle stopping pattern and frequency unquoted. Not sure if that's still on.
Crossrail also completely stymies freight traffic East of Reading. I'm sure the residents of West Wiltshire will be very pleased with the extra lorries on the road carrying stone.
I'm still hoping (and expecting) for common sense to prevail and the Crossrail scheme gets extended to Reading. It makes so much more sense as then all suburban trains eastwards from Reading would be Crossrail except perhaps for the half-hourly through stopping service from Oxford. Some could be curtailed at Maidenhead, but Twyford passengers will not be keen to lose their four off-peak trains an hour to London which is Crossrail terminates at Maidenhead they will surely have to?
Extending to Reading would certainly allieviate some of the problems but I can't see Crossrail running other than all stations Reading Paddington so Maidenhead Twford and Slough would still probably lose their fast peak services.
The problem is Crossrail is conceived as an RER or inner urban railway. The problem is it decants onto a a mainline railway upon which a pattern of usage has been built up over the years which Crossrail disrupts by terminating at Maidenhead.
