Great Western Coffee Shop

Just an advance warning for passengers using Paddington in the late hours of Tuesday 25th

The Gunners will be facing the Royals with over 5,000 of us heading to Woolwich North London with many travelling by train.

I would fully expect all services from the 22:15 to Bristol onwards to be much busier than normal.

Of course, in the highly unlikely event that Reading hold out and the game goes to extra time, then I can see the 23:30 to Bristol service (which can be busy at the best of times) becoming very cosy indeed.  :)

With my thanks for your posting that item, Adelante_CCT, I've taken the opportunity to add it to the Coffee Shop forum's calendar.  :)

May be worth letting GWR know - they may even lay on an extra service and/or additional capacity?  :D

Tuesday's in October aren't the busiest evenings of the week, so I doubt much extra provision will be needed.  Perhaps strengthening the 22:48 to Oxford from a 3-car to a 6-car might be a wise move, but the 23:18 to Oxford is already a 6-car and has loads of spare space midweek and you have the 22:15, 22:45 and 23:30 full length HSTs which also have a fair amount of spare seats on a typical Tuesday.  Later evening trains are much better capacity wise then they were a few years ago.

That doesn't mean there won't be some standees of course, and worst case scenario is the extra time one leading to everyone squeezing onto the 23:18 or 23:30!

Not able to go to this one (heading to foreign lands on Tues evening) but unbelievable game last time this fixture happened in the League Cup....just to remind everyone ;-)

I was there at the Madstad as Reading went 3-0 up after about 20 mins, with the eventual result 7-5 to The Gunners, although IIRC I think it was 5-5 as 90 minutes approached!

Don't waste time looking for 'Woolwich North London' - it isn't there and even less head for North Woolwich. Just stick with Arsenal (Piccadilly Line) or Highbury & Islington or Finsbury Park.

Yes, I was only messing around, I had considered putting Gillespie Road instead

The 22:48 has indeed been strengthened from 3 to 5 coaches and with the match not going to extra time hopefully that should be enough capacity.  Looks like the services are all going to run ok despite ongoing service recovery from the earlier fatality.

On the 22:45, full and fully standing as well. A good dozen from my carriage have got off and gone to the pub instead.

Yep, I saw all the departures leave Paddington from the 22:18 to the 22:48.  The 22:18 (4-car) was about 50% full, the 22:21 (3-car) left 12 minutes late, and was full to near standing capacity, as was the 22:27 stopper (3-car) which was also 12 minutes late as both trains were formed off a delayed arrival from Oxford.  The 22:45 HST was (as reported) very snug with about 100 standees - though not to 19:03 levels  ;) and finally the strengthened 22:48 (5-car) was pretty full with the odd seat at the front and a couple of dozen standees at the back.

Don't know about the later ones, but the 23:18 was a 6-car as booked and the 23:30 a HST, so I would imagine they coped ok as well. 

So, mostly full trains, but not by any means a disaster.

........certainly not for Arsenal anyway!  ;D (.....sorry!)

For some reason the 22:45 had a first class coach towards the front, L instead of B (I think) and they did announce standing in first class was permissible until Reading. From what I could see it left Reading at about 20% capacity, ie roughly a full seated train load got off at Reading. The 22:48 arrived Reading about 3/4 full, with a good load getting off.

Off topic, and something that may have been mentioned before? GWR are currently doing kids for a quid, and as I was in a hurry with all the problems getting into London I was trying to purchase my tickets from a TVM, but because of the offer it wasn't letting me use a F&F railcards forcing me to spend an extra £4 or so than it should have been, so much for a special offer.

Yep, that would be the same set that formed the 08:28 Swindon to Paddington the same morning.