Late calling of trains at Paddington ... and at King's Cross and at St Pancras International ... all common enough to be within recent personal experience.   The [desire/requirement] to minimise the number of actual trains and platforms and staff while maximising the number of services operated is a natural squeeze on the time available to load in the current / modern scenario.

Paddington footbridge, Kings Cross footbridge, and Real Time Trains provide some relief for a few of us knowing the platform end scrums.   Perhaps when we're all boarding at Old Oak and can line up right along the platform prior to the train arriving on a single known line will make for more even loading and no last minute scrum?   And by that date Paddington will be a much quieter place where trains turn around even though so many passengers will be using the next station along like poor old Holborn Viaduct became.

 
Know what you mean,but I normally go up to the footbridge and gain access to the train that way and avoiding the rush of bodies.

 
Slightly off topic, but on Sunday I caught the 18.00 train from Paddington to Bath. It was two 5 coach trains linked together, which is fine, but the platform was only announced at Paddington 5 (or possibly less) minutes before the train was due to depart. The foyer at Paddington was teeming with people and luggage, especially around the large screens, and it was incredibly difficult to get near to the barriers. By the time I got to them they were left open to go through. However, it did mean that the vast majority of people got onto the rear 5 carriages and couldn't walk through to find a seat (of which there were many) in the front 5 carriages. The train did leave on time or at least very close to it.

Why do train times at Paddington get announced so late? I have been in similar situations several times over the years, and it is always very stressful trying to catch the train. In this instance, if you didn't know your way around the station well, I would be surprised if you could have caught the train.

 
And again! (reason not given yet)

 

I have edited the post to fix the link.   Where a URL includes an acronym or abbreviation, the link does not work.  Known issue; sidestepped by mentioning the acronym before the link.

 
Bob - that link doesn't work if I click on it ("Oh dear, it's the error page . . ."), but it's fine if I copy/paste it as text into the browser's address box.

 
According to the reservation “map” it is 18 first class seats plus two wheelchair spaces in the end coach and another 18 in the composite coach.

Edit to fix link - Grahame / GWR / IET

https://www.seat61.com/reference/trainseatplans/GWR-IET-5-10-car.pdf

 

Indeed.

A five carriage train includes standard class seating, first class seating, driving cabs, and a crew and kitchen area and for [some/many] services is insufficient for a comfortable journey for everyone who wishes to travel.

A full standard class carriage seats 92 and a full first class carriage (data from a 9 carriage train) seats 56.   So (I hope I have these numbers right)

5 carriage IET
Standard Class
56 + driving cab
92
92
60 (+ some first)
Total 300 seats

First Class
19 (+ some standard)
16 + driving cab + kitchen and crew area
Total 35 seats

Which works out as 3.26 carriages of standard class + 0.63 carriages of first class

 
Just to be a little pedantic, two of the five carriages contain first class seating, but one of them is only 1/3rd First Class and 2/3rds Standard Class.

 
Just been announced (at Bath) that one of the first class carriages has been declassified 

 
...for the 1700 from BTM to Paddington, due to more trains than usual needing repairs according to the TM. 2 of the 5 coaches are first class.