Maidenhead station - services, facilities, car parking and incidents (merged posts)

[whole diary]

[Sixty3Closure]

Late this morning as there appeared to be a new train scheduled before it. There was a 06.51 to Twyford - Henley waiting on the London platform this morning for several minutes which caused the London trains to be delayed. Bit of a surprise if anyone can shed any light on it?

[stuving]

Late this morning as there appeared to be a new train scheduled before it. There was a 06.51 to Twyford - Henley waiting on the London platform this morning for several minutes which caused the London trains to be delayed. Bit of a surprise if anyone can shed any light on it?

That confused me - you mean at Twyford.  The 6:51 isn't new, but it usually runs from P5. The Henley train should arrive from Reading at 5:45 and reverse in P4 for its first run on the branch. Today it was meant to come from Slough, for some reason, but the first Henley rotation was cancelled due to (guess what) "overrunning engineering works (I5)." So it arrived an hour later, when even a couple of minutes in P4 delays at least two trains.

[Sixty3Closure]

ah - that makes sense. Glad its not going to be a regular occurrence as as you say it has quite a big knock on effect to other services.

[stuving]

ah - that makes sense. Glad its not going to be a regular occurrence as as you say it has quite a big knock on effect to other services.

Big? Two trains were five minutes or less late at Twyford and Maidenhead; both were back on time into Paddington. Was there anything else?

[Sixty3Closure]

Well you yourself said even a couple of minutes delay impacts at least two trains. It also doesn't seem to take much to knock the whole timetable off kilter but I was mainly looking at the 06.53 which is regularly slightly late in Paddington. Even a couple of minutes each day starts to get tedious on a regular commute especially on a train that is so crowded.

Still it was a one off so crisis averted.

[NickB]

The announcers at Maidenhead have, this week, taken a new approach to managing the 7.01 - ‘Project Fear’ 😁

The arrival of the 7.01 is now preceded by a del station that it is ‘extremely busy and full and standing and formed of only 5 coaches’. Instead of boarding customers should move to platform 2 for the 7.08 ‘which has 9 coaches’.

This has had the effect of making the 7.08 ‘full and standing’ so no gain there. Maybe I’ll start a thread about the 7.08...

They also managed to balls this up on Tuesday when the 7.08 was shortformed resulting in the 7.01 leaving relatively empty and the 7.08 leaving passengers on the platform. Slow hand clap.

I’m curious about how the announcer knows that it is full and standing in advance. Does the train manager call ahead or, as I suspect, the announcer is making it up as he goes?

[IndustryInsider]

I expect they're just trying to help even out the number of people over the two trains as best as possible until the improvements in December?  Two very full trains is better than one incredibly full train and one full train I suppose?  Not a bad thing, unless the 07:08 is a 5-car.

[Sixty3Closure]

I did wonder if there had been some changes at Maidenhead as the number of people waiting and then standing has seemed slightly less than usual. I assumed they'd just declassified first class and everyone was stood there.

I think its was Wednesday when the 06.43 at Twyford was cancelled/delayed/evaporated which meant the 06.53/07.01 was completely packed even before it arrived at Maidenhead.

[TaplowGreen]

I expect they're just trying to help even out the number of people over the two trains as best as possible until the improvements in December? 

There speaks an optimist! 

[grahame]

I’m curious about how the announcer knows that it is full and standing in advance. Does the train manager call ahead or, as I suspect, the announcer is making it up as he goes?

Don't the IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train) have systems for monitoring the relative loading in carriages - be that weight or numbers through the doors.  A bit of automatic calculation on there will suggest an answer, as well as feeding the new information systems which are starting to show which carriages are best to join.

[IndustryInsider]

I expect they're just trying to help even out the number of people over the two trains as best as possible until the improvements in December? 

There speaks an optimist! 

Quite optimistic about this one, as the 07:01 5-car IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) becomes an 07:02 formed by a 12-car 387. 

[IndustryInsider]

I’m curious about how the announcer knows that it is full and standing in advance. Does the train manager call ahead or, as I suspect, the announcer is making it up as he goes?

Don't the IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train) have systems for monitoring the relative loading in carriages - be that weight or numbers through the doors.  A bit of automatic calculation on there will suggest an answer, as well as feeding the new information systems which are starting to show which carriages are best to join.

IETs do have that facility based on a counting system.  There’s also advanced plans to provide real-time data to staff (and passengers) based on mobile phone signals.  I believe this is the research scheme:

https://ts.catapult.org.uk/current-projects/railwatch/

https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=103968

[stuving]

What was specified for IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) came in two parts. The counting system per se was required to count people through the doors, both on/off and between coaches, to give occupancy per coach to 5% or one person. The result of that was to be available on board in the TMS, and remotely at control.

The second part was a single sentence within the passenger information spcification: "The PIS^▸ (Passenger Information System) must utilise the data from the passenger counting system to indicate to passengers within the IEP Train the status of the occupancy of each IEP Vehicle." I don't think that exists - at least I've never noticed it. In which case it's hard to tell whether tthe counting system itself is operational.

It would make sense to have something that puts loading information on line, or in stations, etc., drawing its data from whatever sources there are. Presumably a built-in counter should be better than one installed on a few platforms, and counting phones might (or might not - lots of assumptions there) be quite good as well, and in any case be cheaper to implement widely. But note - that's a "should", not a "will".

[IndustryInsider]

‘Occupancy’ columns have started to appear on industry systems, though not yet populated with any data, indicating that implementation for some trains at least is imminent.

[Sixty3Closure]

Wrong way round today again  (or opposite from how its been for the last couple of months).

Highlighted how unsuitable these trains are for this route as most of the platform all tried to board through the same two doors to avoid First Class.

Roll on December