Great Western Coffee Shop

I was on an early (pre-peak) service this morning from Taplow - won't say which one for reasons which will become obvious - despite the early hour the service was crush loaded (as usual) on departure from Southall leaving numerous very angry customers on the platform................the (clearly exasperated) driver apologised for the delay and the awful conditions and said "...........this train is overcrowded and delayed due to being a 3 carriage train, not a 6 carriage train which we all know it should be and I have told management every time I drive it - maybe some of you folks could try telling them too, who knows they might even listen to you".............I'm sure his comments wouldn't go down well with GWR "Management" but they certainly rang true with all the sardines on board!  :D

IK suspect it's case of no available stock (ie if used on this train, it wouldn't then be avauilable for whatever peak train its currently on, thus causing even worse crowding etc).

At least there is now a visible horizon that this problem ought to be alleviated. (ie electric stock - and ample amounts of it)

Yes, there's absolutely no scope at the moment to add any carriages to the few shoulder peak services that struggle.  Standing from Southall is common on anything arriving into London after 6am these days - sometimes it's a bit annoying because an empty Heathrow Connect runs just a few minutes later (the 05:01 Oxford to Paddington) is a classic example of that.

As we know, every train from Southall will be 9-carriages long from 2019, which is starting to become a lot closer on the horizon.  And from later this year the Class 387 should start to help with the additional trains being planned, with 2-car Greenford services finally being exiled from the main lines in the peak.

...........what is happening to the Greenford service?  Will this enable LTV stopping services to use platform 12 at Paddington? (and save my weary old legs from trotting to P14?)

Terminating at West Ealing/Ealing Broadway.....the former I think

Will use the new bay platform at West Ealing.


With the current timings it wouldn't be possible (because of Heathrow Connect) being in the platform 54-03 and 24-33. The LTV stoppers at the moment are (generally speaking) 01-12, 16-27, 31-42 and 46-57.

There was a short discussion about what was planned to happen in May here:  http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=16774.msg191774#msg191774

That was postponed because of the inability of GTR to release their 387s due to delays introducing Class 700s.  It is now planned for September (using the brand new Class 387s being built specifically for GWR), and I would imagine the same timetable will operate.  Ultimately all Greenford services will be curtailed at West Ealing.