Great Western Coffee Shop

Question from BerkshireBugsy

Given the growth of passenger numbers in the FGW region, but mainly on the route between Reading and London does Ben foresee a time in the next few decades where a radical change in the infrastructure or train design will be needed to provide capacity and if so, using his crystal ball, what changes will be needed ?

Alternatively does he think the answer lies in a change of working practices to help relieve congestion on both the rail and road networks ?

Clearly if we keep getting growth at the current rates we would need further infrastructure enhancements in the future. There are further plans already on the drawing board. Western access to Heathrow for example will help connectivity to the airport, but also opens other journey opportunities and timetable opportunities that could help.

However, there is much we can do with the existing fixed infrastructure. I see the SETs as a great opportunity to make our operation slicker. For example the door operation on SETs will be much quicker than an HST. By reducing dwell times and making them more consistent we may be able to tighten the timetable in the Thames Valley. Especially with ETCS coming we should be able to see tighter headways on the busiest bit of the network.

Our new EMUs will give a significant increase in capacity in the Thames Valley. I am really looking forward to running our first 12 car EMU. Having previously worked in Liverpool Street I miss 12 car trains.

Thank you very much for taking the time to answer our questions Ben.

My suspicion is you may win a prize for the most posts on the forum by  noob in one evening :)