Great Western Coffee Shop

From another thread ...


As far as the passenger is concerned, what is the right name?  Should we still be using "main" and "relief" - they're hardly relief lines any more to me, as that term indicates they're the lines that will be used for the same trains as are running on the other ("main") lines but when those main lines don't have the capacity / availability.

So - what do you think should the lines be called?  Historic, or reflecting current or future use?

I'm surprised in these days of political correctness Fast and Slow lines are still allowed.  ;D

I have voted for my favourite... However, as far as the man on the Clapham omnibus is concerned - or perhaps the Reading train - it strikes me that Intercity and Suburban may be most logical.

Fast and Slow seems a bit ambitious. Slow and Slower?

From Paddington, one pair is obviously the Crossrail lines. Elizabeth Line lines sounds too silly, so I suspect Crossrail may well be used. There may be some who will say TfL lines, but not many. As for the other pair, probably main lines.

With a slight accent, I would go for geographical names such as Acton up and Slough down

 ;D

Main and relief.

Purely for tradition. Acknowledging that GWR (the proper one, not the young pretender) did things differently.

I have been told that the reason they are called Main and Relief by the original GWR was that the line speeds on the Reliefs were higher than other companies Slow line speeds. 

It's now 90 most of the way from Padd to Didcot on the Reliefs.

It would be wrong to call the Relief lines Crossrail or Lizze lines as it might give TFL ideas above their station and think they've got exclusive use of them at expense of GWR and Rail friieght operators. To my mind giving exclusive use of 2 lines to one operator is very bad practice,

Besides which Crossrail are geared up to use the Main lines eg platform extension on the Main lines at West Drayton and Hayes.
 
Plus when necessary even being able, with he recent realignment and changes to signalling, terminate and turnround a train on the Up Main (Platform 2) at  Maidenhead. Similarly  GWR and Railfreight will need to use the Relief lines on occasions.

So will go with Bignosemac and vote Main and Relief.

It strikes me that "main" is good and logical, but "relief" is a mis-description.   And that all the alternative offered for the second pair of lines are also misdescriptions, with "relief" garnering wide support because of its historic nature, and because no better alternative has been offered - in other words, "relief" offers the least bad option rather than because it's a good description.

Options on the vote are limited (I could have put up a huge number of possibilities ... others could include
* Swindon and Oxford (based on where they go after the split at Didcot)
* Primary and Secondary (but again there's a subservient word)
* Main and Suburban
* Express and Thames
* These and Those
* Nonstop and Intermediate
and perhaps combinations?

Main line and Local line ? As in local stopping services. Relief never meant anything to me anyway!

How about Faith & Hope? (.......not sure about Charity)

The Charity lines are the extra lines out to Old Oak Common ... hosting the charity case of one train per weekday up to Gerards Displeased or wherever it terminates this year.

Only the Ruislips these days

Or could it be when originally built, it was a two line railway, hence 'Main', and when doubled up (in the 1890' ish , about broad gauge abolition time ??) the doubled lines were the 'Relief'.
If you stand under the sounding arch at Maidenhead, the original bridge is seen which is much wider than the doubling extension part.
W.E

The O.P was very firmly tongue in cheek..... ;D

I'm happy to stick with "main" and "relief".  But I don't think that "slow" and "fast" are wrong in most circumstances.  They are perfectly clear and accurate descriptions even if they are not the official names. 

the "relief line" is the "slow line". in the same way as "Beechen Cliff Academy" is the "boys school"

I'm also happy to stick with 'Main' and 'Relief'. Changing things which are so engrained can lead to confusion - and that can lead to errors. And, after all, they are just names to identify which pair of tracks are which - they are not descriptions

Anyway, if the genuine GWR called them that, who am I to disagree?

hear, hear!

The only alternative name I can think of for the pair is "express" and "general" - but even then it's probably not fitting for one reason or another. This very much reminds me of trying to come up with names for objects used in programming languages. No matter what you come up with it won't really fit and due to the evolving nature of things will end up being wrong or misleading in the near future  :-\

For this reason I think if I ever had pets, I'd just call them "Cat 1", "Cat 2" and "Cat 3" etc (assuming the pets in question were actually cats) ;)

Cat5 would be the one with the Internet connection then ?.

Or Cat 5 (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffir–Simpson_scale#Category_5) is the one who'd do most damage to your house.

And Cat5E would be the one with the Internet connection from Yorkshire.