Late night services at Christmas

[whole diary]

[NickB]

The thames Valley services tonight seemed to be run as 5 car turbos, with late running and overcrowding as a result. Is this to be expected through the Christmas party season or a one off?  Why revert to shortformed diesels at the busy end of the night?

[Ollie]

From a quick look, does appear to be still be 387s on majority of locals tonight. There are a couple of stoppers towards London that are operated by turbos, both of these form Oxford services so can't be 387s.

[NickB]

Thanks Ollie.
Specifically the 23.20 from plat 9 and whatever was on plat 10

[Ollie]

The 2320 appears to be booked as a turbo. Looks like the service on 10 was the 2327 local service to Didcot, allocation shows this as being 2x387 (arrived PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains) at 2309). Before that there was a delayed 2250 to Oxford (this would've been a turbo and left at 2305) part of it comes from Didcot and the other part from Greenford.

For the delay, can't say for sure due to lack of delay allocation showing, however it looks likely that because of a 2 track railway in place for part of the trip (engineering works) your 2320 caught up with the 2309 stopper to Reading (can't spot what held that one up though).

[IndustryInsider]

Yes, 22:50 and 23:20 are both booked to be Turbos throughout the validity of this timetable.  The 22:50 becomes an IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) from 16th December, the 23:20 become a 23:15 but remains a Turbo.

[NickB]

Interesting that there are no plans to upgrade the peak post-pub train?  Last night, which is only a Wednesday in November, it left passengers on the concourse and nobody travelled in comfort. Given the stop/start nature of the journey it seems perfect for an electric train.
Is it that GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) don’t want the nice new trains getting covered in Burger King?? 😉

[IndustryInsider]

A very wise move this time of year.  There’s not much worse than a rabble of occasional drinking office workers who’ve necked a load of beer in a very short time clutching their Burger King’s with vomit down their tie! 

[NickB]

So tonight I’m on the 22.50 from Paddington and it is again a turbo. So that’s the 22.50 and the 23.18’ish. It is rammed, overheated and painful to be on. I again ask the question as to whether this is a turbo to cover a gap in the schedule, or a cynical schedule to make all late night travellers miserable.

[IndustryInsider]

The 22:50 becomes an IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) from next week, the 23:15 remains a Turbo (booked for 5-cars, not three as last night) and is so because it’s an Oxford service and allows the Turbo fleet to be properly balanced with both units then working the last Reading train of the night from Oxford on a Friday.