This exchange reminds me of a contribution that I made to the "Much improved London Midland services to Hereford" topic on December4th, namely that the absurd situations that we all frequently encounter while FGW^▸ (First Great Western) and other TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company)'s hold the franchises for running our train services will never be resolved until the railways are re-nationalised. That view was very promptly dismissed by Industry Insider, of course.     

While these new services from Hereford to Birmingham on Sunday mornings are greatly to be welcomed, and congratulations to all those who have exerted pressure on London Midland over a considerable period of time to improve Sunday morning services and have brought about an excellent result, how depressing it is to hear that, evidently the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company)'s are still not liaising with one another, resulting in a 45 minute wait for connections to Paddington.  No doubt the companies concerned will, as usual, make excuses about potential congestion at New Street and the need to keep to the clock-face arrivals and departures at Paddington, even on a Sunday, but the truth is surely, that there will be no real and measurable benefit to passengers until the rail network is re-nationalised and all services are properly co-ordinated.  Other European countries seem to appreciate the necessity of doing this, but not the UK^▸ (United Kingdom), apparently. 

Oh dear!  I can see from the responses that I'm going to get into trouble from either (a) all contributors to this site or (b) past employees of the  railway network.

So far as (a) is concerned, I don't want to be accused of turning the site into "All our Yesterdays", but I don't suppose that many "customers"will believe me when I say that in the late 1970's the Restuarant Car staff in their splendid uniforms used to walk down to the far (2ndClass) end of the Worcester to Paddington train (Cathedrals Express, or the service an hour earlier, can't remember which) dispensing coffee from a silver coffee pot and hot milk jug into proper cups and saucers and (b), I used to be, on most days, the one and only passenger on the M-i-M to Oxford "bubblecar" that your contributor "Nick" referred to.  I am very embarrassed to admit that I was very often late for that train and used to career into the station car park at the very last minute. If I was lucky, the guard used to delay leaving until after the appointed time (7:54?) and if I was very lucky, he would get the driver to set back, if he saw me racing into the car park, even if the train was half-way out-of-the bay platform          

Apologies to Industryinsider for not having earlier responded to his query as to where I got "an additional 10 minutes" from. The answer is that regrettably I do not have any evidence, or at least, I do not readily have to hand, the timetable data which he clearly has. I'm afraid that I was relying on my memory - of commuting from Kingham to Paddington in the late 80's/early 90's on the 7:27am, which used to arrive into Paddington at 8:44. This would enable me to get to my desk in Victoria by 9am, thanks to the completely manic 16 and 36 Routemaster drivers from Peckham Garage who would invariably take the Hyde Park Corner roundabout on two wheels, flat out! 

I appreciate that my recollection would probably not qualify as firm evidence, but my case is that following the Paddington re-signalling, the Oxford to London timings never recovered. For example, the scheduled timing from Kingham to Paddington now seems to allow 1 hour, 32 minutes, whereas at the time that I was referring to (above), it was 1 hour, 17 minutes. Admittedly, there is now an additional stop at Hanboro', but does this require an additional 15 minutes on the journey time?

Finally, a couple of quick additional points: first, the fascinating extract of the 60's Hereford & Worcester to Paddington timetable, for which many thanks, reminded me of the very welcome introduction of the M-i-M stop in the late 60's, which meant that I could start my working day driving 10 miles in the right direction, rather than 6 miles away from my intended destination. But I don't know whether many people will remember that the Moreton stop enabled the two Class 31's (necessary to get the train up Campden Bank) to be uncoupled there and the leading locomotive to be taken off, ready to return to Worcester?

Secondly, one or two contributors have quoted the best timings of the early HST^▸ (High Speed Train) services from Paddington to Reading as being 22 minutes. The best timings were in fact, 19 minutes. In 1978, it was possible to arrive at Reading less than 20 minutes after departure from Paddington, nip across to Platform 8 and catch a local service to Oxford.

Finally, may I say how much I enjoyed reading stebbo's tale of a hair-raising experience behind a Class 50. As I said in my previous post, these locomotives were incredibly quick (I recall a railwayman telling me at the time that they were capable of 125mph, but had to be restricted to 100mph because of the coaching stock), but nevertheless, I remember keeping myself amused by putting the stop-watch on the mile-posts on Class 50-hauled services from time to time and certainly some of the drivers would have been in trouble if their exuberance had been detected by the British Rail management.  Those were the days!                 

Many thanks to Industryinsider for being so courteous as to have overlooked the errors in my post. 6:35 should have course have read 5:35 and 6:28, 5:28.  However, despite these errors, my point remains the same, ie once slack is introduced into the timetable, for whatever reason, it seems to remain there indefinitely.  For example, so far as I can recall, the Paddington Station Re-signalling was undertaken in the early 1990's, some years prior to the tragic Ladbroke Grove crash of 1999, but the additional time allowed between Reading and Paddington remained throughout the 90's.     

It seems to me that the "first, early morning" train from Hereford and Worcester is rapidly becoming a complete farce. As I recall, it used to be known as the "6 o'clock from Hereford", it is currently the 6:35, and, from what I gather from recent posts, it will soon be the 6:28. This service used to arrive in Paddington at around 8:44, but, thanks to the totally useless exercise of re-signalling Paddington some years ago, which not only reduced the number of lines in and out of the station, but permanently increased the journey times from Reading into London by up to 10 minutes, that loss of running time has never been recovered.  Even when the excellent, but greatly unappreciated, Class 50's used to be daily diverted onto the slow line between Reading as far as Langley to allow the HST^▸ (High Speed Train)'s to overtake, did the journey from Oxford to Paddington take so long as it does now.

I think that Stebbo has grasped the essence of the issue.  Either the Cotswold Line can provide a rapid service from the Cathedral Cities and the principal stopping points up to London in the early morning, or the former 6 o' clock and 7 o' clock services will just become, as they have done, comfortable "stopping trains".  OK, the days of the Cathedrals Express whisking passengers non-stop from Evesham to Oxford in 40 minutes, and then from Oxford to Paddington in less than an an hour, for commercial reasons may be over, but there has to be a balance, which there currently doesn't seem to be.