Great Western Coffee Shop

Continuation of through trains to Paddington

We understand that plans to facilitate the continuation of our through trains, post electrification, to and from Paddington are still very much ‘on track.’ These will be the new hybrid trains that will run on electric as far as Newbury then on diesel down to Bedwyn. This will require the extension of our turn back siding during 2018.

Next timetable change                     

The effective date for this change has been put back from Mid-December to January 2nd. The reason for this would appear to be due to extensive engineering work to be carried out over the Christmas period.

Here follows details about the new timetable for 2018:

Monday to Friday

A major change is that the standard departure time for Paddington to Bedwyn services has been moved forward from xx18 to xx06, (xx07 in the evening peak). Paddington to Plymouth/Penzance trains will move from xx06 to xx03. It would appear that this is in preparation for the main change in January 2019 when, all being well we will see the introduction of new bi-mode trains on our route. The return departures from Bedwyn are largely unchanged so this will allow more turn-round time and should improve punctuality. However, there is more variation in departure times during the off-peak period, with the earliest xx33 and latest xx41.

Specific changes include:

0518 Bristol Temple Meads – Paddington (via Westbury) to call additionally at Bedwyn (0629) and Kintbury.

0756 Bedwyn – Newbury extended to Reading. Will have extended wait in Newbury, then run all stations to Reading, so will be somewhat slow.

1645 Bedwyn – Newbury extended all stations to Reading.

1954 Bedwyn – Paddington amended to run to Reading (all stations).

2033 Bedwyn – Reading all stations replaced by 2036 Bedwyn – Paddington.

Last three eastbound services run later than at present, at 2118, 2222 and 2317.

1607 Paddington – Bedwyn, due to running earlier will replace 1708 Newbury – Bedwyn shuttle.

1649 Reading – Bedwyn takes same path as current 1618 Paddington – Bedwyn, so provides connection to fast service at Newbury.

1707 Paddington – Westbury extended to Frome.

New train 1906 Paddington – Bedwyn calling Twyford, then all stations to Bedwyn. Slightly longer journey time than the current 1903 from Paddington, but avoids the potential problem of a missed connection at Newbury.

2007 Reading – Bedwyn, new all stations train. This will provide a connection at Newbury to a new 2003 Paddington to Plymouth train, which replaces the discontinued 1945 service. Not great for Pewsey and Westbury passengers who will have a longer gap of 90 minutes after the 1833.

This will add one extra train in each direction. Also a slight increase in through trains to and from Paddington.

Saturdays

0605 Bedwyn – Paddington will now terminate at Reading.

Hourly through trains then continue until 1841.

2047 Bedwyn – Reading extended to Paddington.

Last three eastbound trains run later than at present at 2135, 2219 and 2322.

Effectively an hourly incoming service with through trains from Paddington between 0807 and 1807 inclusive. All leave Paddington at xx07 compared to xx06 on weekdays.

No change to total number of trains in each direction and general level of service.

However, a major change appears to be that, despite this being a ‘winter’ timetable NO trains running beyond Bedwyn will stop at Bedwyn (or Hungerford). All four of the current trains that make such stops will still be running, but will run fast between Newbury and Pewsey. This clearly underlines one of our priorities for the new franchise from 2020, assuming that everything goes according to plan with regards to through services being maintained from 2019.

Sundays

Appears to be very much a case of the continuation of the long-standing two-hourly service, in this particular timetable starting from and terminating at Reading.

Franchise consultation

The Greater Western franchise is due to be renewed in early 2020 and as part of that process a consultation is to take place next year. We have already had a meeting with the Department for Transport (DfT) team and put forward some general aspirations for the next franchise. There will be the opportunity for individual submissions to the consultation, but in the meantime we would like to hear from any station users who have specific points that we could include in our detailed response.

Can someone check my IET arithmetic?

1 x IET every hour, Paddington to Bedwyn = 3 trains
1 x IET every 2 hours, Paddington to Exeter St Davids (PAD, RDG, NBY, BDW, most stations) = 3 trains
Total - 6 trains

1 x IET every hour, Paddington to Exeter St Davids  (PAD, RDG, NBY, KIT, HGD, BDW, most stations) = 6 trains

In other words - at the cost of 2 extra stops on the way into London, places like Castle Cary, Frome, Westbury, Devizes Parkway, and Pewsey could have a train every hour rather than one every 2 hours.   Also provides services from Hungerford, Bedwyn and Pewsey westwards which are very very slim (to the extent of being unusable in dome cases) at present.

Extension beyond Exeter to/via Plymouth or to Paignton (alternating, one muses?) once overtaken by the high speed "Peninsular Express" at Exeter would require further IET diagrams, but would release other rolling stock with a potential to re-jig within current unit "headcount".

Well, your plan A has 3 tph to Bedwyn - so reducing that to 2 tph in plan B does free up trains for the longer route.

If you meant only 1 tp2h to Bedwyn in plan A, that would use 1.5 diagrams (plus 3 = 4.5), which is doable - but not if self-contained since a train comes back after 3 hours, and it's not needed for an hour. In the original sketch of a timetable, there were (for much of the day) alternate Exeter and Westbury trains, which uses 5 diagrams.

New train 1906 Paddington – Bedwyn calling Twyford, then all stations to Bedwyn.

My place of work has just let staff know:

Network Rail need to undertake upgrade works between Reading and Newbury and will have to close the railway line for specified periods in 2018.

The first phase of works is scheduled to take place over the following four-day periods, with an number of additional line blocks required to complete the work.
Monday 12 March until Thursday 15 March
Monday 23 April until Thursday 26 April

And then:
Season ticket holders can also change their tickets to travel from Didcot Parkway or Whitchurch.
When did the line cross the Thames again?

I've also been wondering how many minutes faster the Bedwyn semi-fasts will be than they are today, bearing in mind that they will run at 125 (instead of 90 for today's Turbo-operated ones) between PAD and RDG?

Further info can be found here:
https://www.gwr.com/travel-updates/planned-engineering/newbury2018