Great Western Coffee Shop

..........this may appear off topic but bear with me...........given the drastic reduction capacity in/out of Waterloo during August and the advice to pretty much steer clear if at all possible, what are GWRs's contingency plans in/out of  Paddington if (when) there are any severe disruptions as there has been in recent weeks?

Will customers still be encouraged to use SWT services out of Waterloo as a fallback/alternative? Will ticket acceptance be in place in these circumstances?

The meltdown on 5th/6th July caused severe overcrowding at Waterloo with a full service running, the thought of a similar scenario with Paddington falling over doesn not bear thinking about and needs serious thought and planning, neither of which seem to be something GWR are very proficient at judging by recent performance.

 https://www.southwesttrains.co.uk/plan-your-journey/planned-improvements/wswupgrade/

Don't know the answer, but Waterloo to Reading appears to remain at half hourly frequency all day at least on Mondays to Fridays.  As it's not the Windsor line platforms that are being shut for the period at Waterloo, are we looking at capacity restrictions that will be just to the south of anyone diverted from the main Paddington - Reading run onto Waterloo - Reading?

Marylebone is available as an alternative that wasn't so practical before the Oxford service was launched, and of course there's a marked reduction in numbers of travellers during August.  Other than that it will be 'fingers crossed' time I would imagine, as I can't see any sensible contingency that could be implemented in the case of a full lockdown at Paddington.

I think "fingers crossed" probably sums up the approach.

Equally I wouldn't be surprised if SWT refuse the usual ticket acceptance on safety grounds if it means Waterloo gets in the same dangerous state as last time with a drastically reduced capacity this time around, with even its usual customers being advised to stay away if they can.

The Marylebone option is of some use but only for a very limited number of destinations - far fewer than the options given via Waterloo if worst comes to worst.

Can you think of anything they could sensibly do if no trains can leave Paddington?

Perhaps a fleet of 50+ coaches on standby every day near Paddington (or at another strategic location such as Heathrow or Uxbridge) just in case and a dozen or so agency staff to marshall passengers onto them?  Dread to think how much that would cost!

If Marylebone can cope with the number of passengers it is now a better or equally good option than Waterloo for Oxford, the Cotswolds, Didcot and any stations west thereof to Swindon, Bristol and South Wales.  That's quite a chunk of passengers.

Thre's a further interaction, in that SWT are telling passenger from Reading this:

So how's that going to work? It could be done for longer seasons (though a lot of people lapse theirs at holiday times), but the words don't say that. So what will the ticket offer at Reading be - will "via Staines" season tickets be priced as usual, but accepted vis Paddington? will they be issued as "any route"? Will the TVMs be altered, or just have notices taped to them?

And why is thie same not being said to passengers from Earley and along the line? Come to that, if I read the those words I might well assume my "via Staines" ticked from  Wokingham will work via Reading-Paddington. So will it?

The point of the move is I think this: the Reading service will be close to its usual level, but other services are greatly reduced. So reading trains will have to take more passengers from closer in, so they are being "bribed" to use GWR. And I'd have thought it was worthwhile trying to offload Passengers from stations Earley-Bracknell as well.

With far longer journey times, even if advised you could travel via Reading, would you?....I think the vast majority wouldn't voluntarily add at least another 30nins to each journey they made.

Eh? It's quicker, in most cases, to Paddington than Waterloo even from Bracknell. That's why there's a more expensive ticket on sale, and they will sell you such an "any route" ticket from further in, with the price premium going up, as far as Ascot. Though it takes a little longer from there to Paddington, of course if you are going to near Paddington it might still be quicker door-door.

Just out of interest what do you think GWR should do? If the line is closed what do you expect? Its like saying what should BA do if Heathrow shuts the Runways? You have to go to another airport. They cant possibly move people by road safely when a London Terminus is shut without warning. All you can do is divert or advise those who can to postpone journeys. There are contingency plans in place for various line closures, but it is never as simple as just putting it into place. 

More on SWT passengers using Paddington trains in August:

Reading is the only station I can find for which this option is mentioned specifically in the per-station "wswupgrade" web pages. That has the wording given in Sunday's post. There is another mention in the leaflet (affected stations and on-line):

In those web pages, there is a link "Your ticket acceptance options", leading to a page starting:

But what's listed is hardly extensive - and it is not even complete. And most of the acceptance options is gives onto GWR are already available: for all journeys via Basingstoke for example. The only addition is for SWT (via Woking) tickets from Basingstoke itself. And yes - it doesn't mention tickets from Reading!

The sections about Thameslink and Southern are even less generous; listing existing cross-operator validities and adding just three cases where a nearby station on a different line can be used instead of one that's closed or not served. 

So, "extensive"?

May be not "extensive" or "generous" ... but is there much more they could offer?

And what exactly is a 'reasonable route'.  People have wildly different interpretations of what is reasonable yet it continues to be a term regularly used in such instances.

What's really odd is SWT have written a page per station (even if it's 90% boilerplate), and another on ticket acceptance, and they don't agree. Wouldn't you expect them to?
The "your ticket acceptance options" page:

• does tell you about Basingstoke (nothing in its station page)
  
• does not tell you about Reading (explicitly offered in its station page)
• does remind you about validity from outside Basingstoke (nothing in their station pages)
• and similarly for the other ToCs.

Incidentally, SWT are running an hourly service between Reading and Salisbury - one to watch out for. Some of the trains are going a bit further; Gillingham, Honiton, Pen Mill or even Exeter. RTT is showing the service trains, though the platform allocations are not plausible and/or the ECS moves are missing.

As to what is a reasonable route - that's exactly what the "more information" should cover and largely doesn't.  Since they sell tickets from e.g. Wokingham via Reading to Paddington (though officially called "any route"), I reckon that makes that a reasonable route by definition. It ordinarily costs more but there's nothing in the words about a "reasonable cost". And anyway, who'd pay? Given that the franchise runs out on the 19th ...

Could they do more? On this GWR side not much, apart from trying to get people to switch. As it is there are actually more trains (well, one more) than usual from Reading/Wokingham in he morning peak, but  fewer back in the evening.

If you close a lot of terminus, what you need is somewhere else to run to or a place to swap trains halfway (and not at Clapham, ideally). I'm sure more of that could have been done, though the current state of London Bridge doesn't help. And of course a lot of the alternatives, planned and just always there, involve Southern ... but there's not a lot SWT or NR can do about that.

It'll be interesting to see what the stock allocation is too, and whether we see anything different to normal.

Unlikely. The per-station information explains that these are trains that usually go to Waterloo, diverted for the duration. In practice the Exeter trains still go there, it's the other ones that end up at Reading. Hence the pathing as Class 159.

So far, so good:

https://www.acenet.co.uk/commuters-heed-warnings-to-avoid-waterloo-as-major-works-begin/4224/2/1/610/3

Perhaps they overplayed the likely disruption to deliberately make sure enough people were put off and booked a holiday? 

Hmm, singnal failures earlier this mornimg & also more recently, the latter closing another 3 platforms. Your report must have been on a snapshot in time

I guess we'll find out over the next couple of weeks what problems passengers are facing on average.

When buying a ticket from Reading, I specify "London Terminals" rather than the exact stations, allowing travel either via Staines or West Drayton, without a TTI's indulgence. You can even come back from Victoria. A route via Basingstoke is an exception of course but does show you how much better our GWR is than SWT's best.

The fares used to be different but seem aligned now.

OTC

That sounds a bit confused to me. Normal off-peak and anytime tickets only ever say London Terminals, and rely on your knowing the arcane rules about which ones your ticket is valid for. But there are still two routings, via Staines (not yet -upon-Thames) and any. And there's still a big price difference - for the anytime day return it's £32.80 vs £46.00.

How a particular machine or web seller describes your choice of routings is another matter. Even BRFares is confusing about this, as it doesn't offer just "London" even though the station you choose has no effect on the result (AFAICS). Journey planner does offer "all stations" and will offer both routes and their differing fares, though not for all timings.

The confusion ceases when you buy/book your ticket at a station ticket/booking office.

The younger clerks however can be confused when one asks for "Reading General" or "Didcot Junction".

Looks like Waterloo is working out. Superb Windsor Lines station!

OTC

Looking at the SWT Twitter feed, after a good start yesterday morning things started going down hill. Waterloo is best avoided for the next few weeks.

I travel Dorking - Clapham Junction - Richmond /St Margarets every weekday. At Clapham Junction, the last two mornings (0840 and 0810), there have been no queues to reach the Waterloo bound platforms. Last evening at around 6pm, there were some minor delays but again, no queues, although SWT's trains did seem as busy as usual. A number of 8-car trains have been strengthened to 10 carriages 

There was another signalling glitch midway through last night's evening peak.   Might work OK tonight if there are no sudden defects.   I suspect there are many existing S&C components being given a hammering in the west crossings ladder that don't see much normal use.

Paul

Looks like about 75% of the Waterloo to Reading services are running as 10-car units.  The first time that's happened in passenger service following the recently completed platform extension works I think?

All the Guildford to/from Waterloo via Epsom trains that I have caught since Sunday have been increased from 8 to 10 carriages.

A helpful sign at Paddington, at least it would be helpful if it wasn't hidden away near the entrance to the covered part of the lawn where passengers arriving on the Bakerloo line from Waterloo are unlikely to see it.

(http://www.mbob.co.uk/rforum/wattkt.jpg)

As a result of the further loss of capacity at Waterloo today, SWT's "please go away and stop using our trains" page (https://www.southwesttrains.co.uk/disruptions/96AF36FED17149D9BF98F22568F054DC/) now offers a wider ticket acceptance via Reading:

The point here is that so far this had been hinted at, but only listed for journeys from Basingstoke or Reading.

Is it helpful though? Tickets to/from London are issued to/from 'London Terminals'. It's the route field that determines which terminal(s) you may use. Passenger with tickets for journeys to/from London Waterloo will have (amongst others) 'Any Permitted', 'Via Woking', 'AP SWT ONLY', AP SWT&CONNECT'.

So, a displaced passenger sees that poster, looks at their ticket which will say 'London Terminals', and thinks "that doesn't apply to me", but then finds their ticket won't work the barrier. Because the route encoded on the ticket isn't valid at Paddington normally. The poster doesn't convey any relevant or correct information. But that's par for the course with GWR at times of disruption.

South West Trains issued my season ticket from London Waterloo, interestingly it did work the barriers at Paddington (it never works at Reading though). Eventually I got the guard that refused to accept it was an issuing office error and therefore insited I bought a new ticket onboard.
After much argument with the customer service team at GWR I did get it refunded but it took a long time and a lot of exchanges with them.
Now I insist the season ticket is issue from London Terminals since the permitted routes include a number of alternatives to London Waterloo.