Winter Timetable Rush hour - Ealing to West Drayton

[whole diary]

[Dragoon]

Once again FGW^▸ (First Great Western) have reduced my service in the busiest period. There used to be a train every 15 minutes when I moved to west Drayton four years ago. That was reduced to 20, and now  it's 30. I can understand during off peak but this is getting rediculous. Southall and Hayes are very well served, but poor west Drayton gets the brunt.
Hillingdon is building huge housing complexes in west Drayton with no consideration for transport capacity.
What can any of us do to get this changed?
Roll on crossrail.

[eightf48544]

Roll on crossrail.

I can understand why you say that.

West Drayton is one of the few local stations set to benefit from Crossrail West of Paddington.

Assumming the current plans of turning round  services at West Drayton goes ahead then West Drayton will benefit from a couple of empty startups a couple of times an hour in the peak. Plus 4tph to and from Maidenhead (Reading).

[Ollie]

You don't specify which Ealing Station you use, but assuming it's Ealing Broadway then there are still trains every 15 mins.

Trains leave Ealing Broadway at XX:05, XX:20, XX:35, XX:50 (can't claim it's all day as haven't checked, but that's based on looking from 05:50 on weekday morning)

and it looks about every 15 mins or so coming back as well.

West Ealing usually requires you to change at Ealing Broadway, so I'm quite confused about what this post is getting at...

*Info taken from National Rail Enquiries.

[IndustryInsider]

Once again FGW^▸ (First Great Western) have reduced my service in the busiest period. There used to be a train every 15 minutes when I moved to west Drayton four years ago. That was reduced to 20, and now  it's 30.

There is a much more frequent service than that throughout the vast majority of the day. However, as you point out, there are a couple of 30 minute gaps in the service at the tail-end of the peak period between the 18:33, 19:05 and 19:33. The two trains that could logically stop in between are the 18:53 and 19:20, but these are both 3-cars at the moment (and full to bursting as a result), so perhaps that's why they don't stop at West Drayton? It does seem strange that the off-peak service is twice as frequent than during that busy period!

I can only suggest that you write to express your concerns to FGW and Passenger Focus. The Crossrail situation will revolutionise the service and capacity on those routes and re-instating the bay platform at West Ealing to get those silly 2-car Greenfords off of the main line would provide extra paths (though I'm not sure where the stock would come from!). But, both of those a several years off of being a reality.

[Dragoon]

Apologies - I was typing my first post on my iphone so didn't provide all info.

Yes I travel from Ealing Broadway to West Drayton. My specific gripe (of many to be saved for another time) is with peak period of 6.30pm onwards.

As Southall is already well served with the Heathrow Connect (and a much nicer air conditioned train), why not cease stopping the Reading/Oxford trains there, therefore increasing space allowing these services to stop at stations after Hayes. Many many people alight at both Southall and Hayes leaving what would have been adequate space for other passengers.

I am sure there would be ramifications to this proposal - I'm not a train scheduler. But managing the shorter range traffic more efficiently would surely benefit the capacity on the rest of the line.

Am I being too simplistic?

[IndustryInsider]

No problem, Dragoon - and welcome to the forum.

Both stations, Southall and West Drayton (Southall is slightly the busier), should ideally have a peak service every 10-15 minutes. My previous post outlines why this may not be the case at West Drayton.

The Heathrow Connect trains are all full and standing at that time in the peak, so unless you extended them to 6-car trains (possibly a good idea) there's no way that they alone could cope with the Southall loadings. The real answer is to provide enough carriages on the 18:53 and 19:20 trains so that they could stop at West Drayton or accept that they are going to be crush full and stop them there anyway.

All available Turbos are in use in the peak hours (maintenance excepted). But this availability is now further hindered by Turbo sets going through refurbishment in the next year, and also Turbo sets working trains that have previously been HST^▸ (High Speed Train)'s that could otherwise have helped - the 13:21 from London to Great Malvern is a good example of this, it was a HST but is now a Turbo and effectively out of action from 13:21 until 20:00 as a result. A similar situation occurs in the morning peak.

It does reinforce Passenger Focus's concerns that Crossrail is still some way off, and if loadings continue to increase with no extra stock provision, things will get critical long before it opens.

[jane s]

Why do all the trains have to stop at Hayes?

IMO^▸ (in my opinion) the Oxford/Reading trains should either stop at Southall OR Hayes (but never both) - the relatively low numbers of people just wanting to travel between Hayes & Southall should be forced to make do with the Heathrow trains, which would have plenty of capacity at that point.

(It is just as easy to change from a turbo to a Heathrow train at Southall as it is at Hayes, so surely all the trains do NOT need to stop there?)

I also would like to see longer trains in the evening peak, especially the 17:33 from Ealing Broadway - why is this only a 3 car? It is usually full most of the way to Reading because it fills up again at Slough & Maidenhead.

Two years ago this train used to be a 5 car, decoupling 2 cars at Reading.

[IndustryInsider]

Why do all the trains have to stop at Hayes?

I also would like to see longer trains in the evening peak, especially the 17:33 from Ealing Broadway - why is this only a 3 car? It is usually full most of the way to Reading because it fills up again at Slough & Maidenhead.

Two years ago this train used to be a 5 car, decoupling 2 cars at Reading.

Purely and simply because it's a bloody busy station! Stops aren't provided to give passengers from Southall to Hayes a regular service, they're provided to offload the high numbers of people who travel to both stations from Paddington and Ealing.

Some trains are 3-cars simply due to the fact that there aren't enough carriages out there. There have always been some 3-car departures from Paddington in the peak, and over the years different trains have been affected.

It would be nice if all departures from Paddington between 16:30 and 19:30 were 5 or 6-car's but there simply aren't enough trains out there. Also platform capacity at Reading hinders things as the two terminating bay platforms that services from London use are only 3-car and 5-car lengths. I can't see much happening until the Reading rebuild is complete and Crossrail starts - but some small differences would be nice!

It's not helped, as I stated earlier in the thread, by the fact that Turbos are now on services that were previously HST^▸ (High Speed Train)'s and that at least one of the sets will be out of use for refurbishment throughout next year.

[jane s]

Purely and simply because it's a bloody busy station! Stops aren't provided to give passengers from Southall to Hayes a regular service, they're provided to offload the high numbers of people who travel to both stations from Paddington and Ealing.

The problem is that they take up all the space on our trains going to Reading or Oxford. The old system, with an extra stopper to Slough, was much better. (I thought they were supposed to be bringing it back? What happened?)

If each train only went to Southall OR Hayes, it wouldn't make any difference to overall numbers - yes, there would indeed be fewer trains to Hayes, but much more capacity on them as there wouldn't be anyone going to Southall (& vice versa). Hence the majority of people would get off at the first stop (after Ealing Broadway) and therefore the rest of us would have to stand in cramped conditions for less time.

BTW^▸ (by the way) the 17:33 from Ealing Broadway goes through to Banbury, not to a bay platform at Reading, so there is really no excuse for it only being 3-car.

[IndustryInsider]

The old system, with an extra stopper to Slough, was much better. (I thought they were supposed to be bringing it back? What happened?)

BTW^▸ (by the way) the 17:33 from Ealing Broadway goes through to Banbury, not to a bay platform at Reading, so there is really no excuse for it only being 3-car.

Extra stoppers to Slough were mooted at one point, but I believe they weren't introduced because of fears that the robustness of the service would be compromised too much. There would have been no extra seats though as the service would have been provided at the cost of some 5 or 6 car trains being reduced in length.

To be honest, the old system did work quite well, but I doubt very much that it would be able to cope any better now as the consistent growth since the early years of the decade has seen a very visible increase in the number of passengers since then.

As for the 17:25 from Pad (17:33 from Ealing), as I've said it would be nice if it was a 5 or 6-car and as you say the Reading bay platforms aren't an issue with that particular train as it goes through to Banbury, but there isn't the number of carriages available and so some trains have to be 3-cars. There is arguably more of a need to provide that extra capacity slightly later than half five when the trains get even busier. Also (from a more minor operational point of view), it would either need to lose the rear carriages at Reading or have the rear set locked up at Didcot otherwise there would be issues with Appleford, Tackley and Heyford.

Roll on with the electrification and services provided with the transferred Class 319's and the new Crossrail stock - until then it's only going to get more cramped!

[IndustryInsider]

Resurrecting a very old thread here, and I doubt the original poster will see it as 'Dragoon' hasn't logged in to the forum in the last three years, but the commuting situation from Paddington/Ealing Broadway to West Drayton has greatly improved now that the Turbo refresh programme has been completed and the extra stock in the form of Class 150s and Class 180s (sometimes!) has arrived.

The lengthening of most of the remaining 3-car Turbos out of Paddington to either 5 or 6-car trains has allowed stops to be reinstated for this very popular station.  Extra trains to West Drayton, compared with this time last year, leave Paddington (calling at Ealing Broadway 8 minutes later), at 16:25, 18:45 and 19:12 meaning that four trains per hour now run throughout the evening peak (as per the rest of the day).

[Chris from Nailsea]

Resurrecting a very old thread here ...

No problem at all with that, IndustryInsider: I do it, frequently!