Great Western Coffee Shop

Overview summary from GWR (Central Area) timetable meeting last Monday

These are the opening headlines from GWR

End of April - last HST to Bristol (London to Bristol full length ones?)
No HSTs from London from May (timetable change?)
Bedwyn service will require 4 units / 4 turbos release west. R&D on camera changes - aim is May, note aim not schedule - depends how the R&D goes.
Westbury Car Park - ready to go, just awaiting paperwork

May 2019 - one more Cheltenham - Paddington (service, round trip or diagram?)
Every half hour in Cornwall
More 2+4 HSTs from May, releasing units.

December 2019 - implementing SLC3 fundamentals - considerable main line speed ups
Have to retime other services
"Do our best on connections"
"Bid next month then see hot it fits with other TOCs and freight"
"We have some key aspirations"

No proposals / consultations / draft timetables for weekends (happen without consultation?)
Things still not right "will be able to chip away" ... and at May 2020, etc

From the Bristol Area, SevernsideCRP made strong inputs and representations on some aspects. FoSBR also present, as were WECA and various local authority representatives who - however - were more listening than commenting.  I will solicit a report / follow up on that

From the heart of Wessex area - note "heart" with a small h - Bristol to Portsmouth, Bristol to Swindon, Swindon to Westbury, Berks and Hants intermediate services included, many points (re)raised that had been raised at previous meeting on 18th July last. Active issues raised by myself and by TransWilts - BaNES and Wiltshire local authorities present, again more listening than commenting. I will follow up on these in the next 36 hours.

I understand there was an east timetable meeting a couple of weeks ago and there is also a west one in the cycle - not sure if that has happened or not.

There was an East meeting a couple of weeks ago - but were asked not to go public on the offer - NR may put the kibosh on any of the bid.

I was surprised that no such request was made at the Central meeting - but then feedback I hear from the East and about the plans there are much more positive than feedback in the middle area where we have some difficult decisions to make because the bid is not a step forwards, nor is in just changes that leave the quality alone.

The West timetable meeting was at the end of last month, Graham.  There will be additional Cornish main line trains from May, but the full half hourly service won't come in until December.

Disappointing that they could not be open about this. Even if there were concerns about NR's attitude, it would have been nice to know what they have in mind, and also to have something we can hold NR to account for (or it least enquire why they cannot oblige) if it does not happen.

We (the community "trustees") are put in a very difficult position where there are significant negative elements in the proposals - do we say nothing and brace for any problems, do we work quietly to see if we can get things tweaked to make them new service as good as we can through that route, do we quietly share our concerns with the MPs, do we [insert other option]. That's a conundrum I'm fighting with at the moment, and I know that I am not alone in having such a conundrum.

Totally agree, other franchises major timetable recasts have been made public well in advance to give a chance for the public, the people who actually use the services, chance to see what changes are coming and the chance to provide feedback.

Graham -

The second option in your list is probably the current way to go. If you have access to a good timetable guru, that would help also. Those that understand the nuances of timetabling....

Let’s hope this is the 16:42 that was planned for May 2016!

A cynic might suspect that the new shorter trains are here to stay, but that many of the additional services that were intended to offset the reduced capacity per train "cant be delivered for a few more years"

That was certainly the way to go - and we went that way - last summer for the previous meeting on 18th July 2018.  Concerns were logged, but it seemed last Monday that they had been more used to help uncover which of the changes is likely to cause customers problems or disappointments, and which are likely to be accepted or even welcomed, rather than to make any positive changes.  Feels like we've wasted half a year and moved from "it's very early - these are draft" to "it's too late to do much.

There are some improvements for 2020 over 2019. Sadly in the Bristol and Wiltshire areas, they are outweighed by changes that are going to be real issues, and inflamed by the running of services which because of other changes will be carrying fresh air.

I remain in the difficult position outlined earlier

Ear to the ground tells me that London express to Plymouth will be hourly from December,  London semifast to Exeter will be every 2 hours, services through Cornwall every half hour.  Not sure on exact percentages, but in each of those three cases it's a stepping up of the service.  Where there's a significant step up - as on the Cornish main line - with four trains over a period of 2 hours rather than two - I don't feel it's unreasonable for the new services to average shorter.  For example, if an 8 car plus a 3 car over 2 hours are replaced by a 5 car, 2 x 4 cars, and a 3 car it would look not unreasonable.   Of course if traffic grows because the service is so much better ...

Any hope for getting Swansea up to 2tph in the pm peak? The current situation with short turns at Cardiff arriving at 1622 and 1723, where they'd be just about to be getting very busy indeed if they continued west, is absolutely ridiculous. That it currently goes up to 2tph after the pm peak is even more mad.

The 2015 GW stakeholder brief did show peak variations including 3 tph from/to South Wales in the peaks, of which Swansea gets the extra service.  How long these peak periods last, (am up and pm down), didn’t seem to be explicitly stated.   The other point of course, is that they’ll presumably be defining the peak from a Paddington perspective.

Paul

The 16:22 goes back to London at 16:56 then forms the 19:30 to Weston-super-mare.  Send the 16:22 on to Swansea and you loose the really quiet (NOT!) Weston train - frequency off London dropping to / via Bristol earlier in the evening than it does at present.     2 p.m. on to Swansea (and at least one to Carmarthen?) caters for the important/lucrative London (to Wales) peak, and helps get stock back to Swansea depot for overnight servicing.

"Nothing to stop the Welsh Government contracting / franchising someone to run extra capacity from Cardiff to(ward) Swansea" you will be told ...followed by a cry of "ooze gonna pay4 it?" and "ow do we fill the train the rest of the day?".   Old problem of everything wants to be "peak length" at peak time; took us a while to get the 17:36 Swindon to Westbury extended beyond one carriage ... though no problem for years prior with such services as the 06:12 and 18:48.

Is Cheltenham still going direct to Paddington hourly/Bristol 4x an hour?

From the end of the year, yep.

The Monday to Friday proposal going to Network Rail for validation / acceptance is for an hourly through service from Cheltenham Spa, via Gloucester, Stroud, Swindon and Reading to London Paddington.  Proposals for Saturday and Sunday services have not been shared.   Bristol to Paddington via Swindon is dramatically increased with up to 4 trains per hour. In a typical daytime hour, there are Bristol Temple Meads to London Paddington services in 82 minutes with just a single intermediate stop at Bristol Parkway and two which take 95 or 96 minutes. For comparison, current services during the day are timed between 97 and 102 minutes.   For the sake of completeness I'll also report 2 trains per hours from South Wales (one Cardiff, one Swansea) in the pattern on what's timed in a typical hour at 112 and 116 minutes, compared to timings between 124 and 131 minutes today, with an unaltered calling pattern. 

At peak times, there are variations (on the Bristols) - of particular note in my own area is that one or two of the super-expresses have Bath Spa and Chippenham stops in place of the Bristol Parkway stop.  That gives a 73 minutes ride from Bath Spa to London - 60 minute non-stop from Chippenham.  Whilst excellent for our Chippenham MP (who I have seen looking very tired indeed getting of an evening train on the way back - I do NOT want her job!) it does mean the trains either side are jostled into a 20 minut(ish) services ... a gap of over 40 minutes from Chippenham to Swindon has opened up, with no arrivals into Swindon at all in the half hour from 08:30 to 09:00.  That starts to open the door on some of the issues that are concerns, some no more that slight inconveniences and others very serious indeed.

"You cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs" said the deputy leader of Wiltshire Council to me when describing the changes in Melksham Market Place that have replaced all the short term parking spaces with a piattza ... to the chagrin on of the four take-aways that are there, and used to rely on those spaces for people to pick up their orders.   The new, more frequent, faster, London services look really good (and unlike the new Market Place will probably be popular most of the time), but it really hurts to have been nurturing the eggs (and indeed chickens as may are already hatched) and had them sacrificed with (yes) some listening to our concerns as did Wiltshire Council, but little if any practical addressing of them.


Ah ... how to say in 7 words what took me 433  ;D

Having the extra Bristol to London trains is good. Not completing the electrification of Filton Bank will look very odd once they start running, though. There will also be extra traffic from MetroWest fairly soon, hopefully, and we will see another major overhaul of the timetable to accommodate that.

But Bristol's getting an extra 2tph out of thin air (including stops at Bristol Parkway that are not being compensated for by taking them out of the South Wales services, so that Oxford-Cardiff passengers can get seats at Didcot) – surely one of those super-expresses could continue to Weston instead? There seems to be very uneven treatment going on here – Bristol and South Wales services have been pretty much equal for as long as I can remember, and now they're being massively slanted towards Bristol – is the person who came up with this from somewhere on the north side of Bristol, one wonders...

Putting a Melksham hat on, at present its usually better to change at Swindon for onward travel to Reading or Paddington, rather than Chippenham, as this offers additional trains from South Wales as well as from Bristol. As I understand the proposals, a significant number of trains won't stop at Swindon, whether from Bristol via Bath, from Bristol via Parkway or from Wales. Hence there may be occasions when a change at Chippenham gets you there quicker, more complication for the less rail savvy, and less contingency for those more attuned to the timetable details. Gets even more problematic on the return.

Maybe, but as GWR are saying nothing about the forthcoming major timetable changes and for those of us unable to attend such timetable meetings, your reply is very much appreciated Graham.

One can but hope in time that GWR will be more forthcoming publicly with the timetable changes once they've been agreed by Network Rail.

Commenting on the four trains an hour Bristol-London. Are four trains an hour really needed, especially from Parkway? I would have thought one of those could have gone via Bath then non-stop to London. But I am aware of capacity constraints between Bristol and Bathampton Junction is probably the reason why the extra two services an hour will go via Parkway.

Nail hit firmly on head, I reckon. GWR clearly think that the two extra trains are needed, and I think they will be very popular because of the speed. The current peak trains can get very cosy indeed, and a few hundred seats tto Paddington will be very welcome. It will also make life easier for anyone travelling between Temple Meads and Bath, Chippenham, Swindon etc, or indeed boarding at those stations for London.

Indeed, it certainly will have a positive effect on the current two services an hour that go via Bath that there will be less Bristol passengers who are London bound as they will probably use the non-stop after Parkway services to London.

I just think that with the large volume of London traffic that Bath Spa generates, a third fast service would be useful but for the capacity constraints through Bath, something Parkway no longer has an issue with with four tracks and the faster line via Badminton.

When these trains were first mentioned they were going into the old Brunel shed and would be 801s.  I suspect that after all the changes (no electrification and no trains in the Brunel shed) no-one has rethought the requirements.
I agree that it would be nice if one of these could run from Weston.

I’m not sure why the requirements needed to be rethought?  Sending a train to Weston would need more units, the fleet was ordered based on the numbers needed to supply the long planned 4tph (and other additional trains on other routes) which without electrification will of course will just run in diesel mode between Parkway and Temple Meads.  The only material change from the original plan is around capacity at Temple Meads for the two extra trains per hour now that the shed won’t be modified any time soon - which NR’s validation process will obviously confirm.

Did he mean 'pizza'?


If you count those bits of South Glos that are really Bristol as Bristol, then most of Bristol is somewhere on the north side of Bristol.

He meant one of those Italian Pedestrian Square jobbies ... where you see pictures of flows of tourists walking around in short sleeves, short trousers and mini-skirts in the glorious sunshine, with the only umbrella is site being the one waves by their tour guide as they keep their flock together.   Where you see the sides of the square (or piatza or whatever) decorated with open air cafes all of with their canopies to keep the sun off, and where there's no roundabout in the middle with vehicle fumes emanating from the ever-queueing vehicles.   Nice idea; works in places like Paternoster square but I remaining questioning for Melksham Market Place.

My personal preference is to prioritise a regular clockface timetable as much as possible over shoe-horning in occaisional vanity expresses (vanity for the operator to advertise a travel time only achieved once or twice a day and to meet the vanity of certain places and/or their elected representatives :) ).

There is a fair deal of intermediate travel between all the stations from Bristol to London and creating holes even off-peak from the present situation needs careful consideration.

There are so many to quote that I'm quoting none, but having some thoughts reflecting all that's been written.

Daytime, two trains per hour is an adequate frequency for Bristol - Bath - Chippenham - Swindon, but capacity starts to become an issue even when there's 8 or more cars on all trains. 

Running an extra two from Bristol (Temple Meads) to Bath Spa along the two track line that has also to support a twice-an-hour (future - currently 1 per hour) stopper, with calls for an extra stop that's perhaps a bit more than a kite, and also a regional express towards Portsmouth, would give capacity issues.  You need to leave a gap ahead of each express at the 15 minute intervals, follow each out with something else just minutes behind ... and by the time you're at Bath Spa your stopper's going to have been caught up with.  So the signalling headway might be just 3 or 4 minutes, but the capacity with alternate fast and slow trains that are clock face reduces that to an average train headway of 7.5 minutes.   Oh - did I mention SWR's trains to Waterloo, or any freight / engineering /  track testing trains?  Did I mention the need to be able to recover if something turns up late for its path?

So - more logical to slice the top off the market - send two of the trains via the four track railway up to Bristol Parkway, continuing along on what we might call "HS0" where in a typical hours there's a succession of 80x trains from Westerleigh to Royal Wootton Bassett,  and nothing much else, allowing trains through at fairly close to the signalling headway if need be.   That also provides the economy of North Bristol / South Gloucestershire with an excellent sponge service to pick up passengers who might otherwise be cramming onto trains coming through from Wales, and it provides them with an extra hub / interchange station in what's a pretty clogged area at the moment - already busy, Parkway in the future will or may be providing extra connectivity not there at the moment such as MetroBus, shuttles from Cribbs Causeway and the developments on Filton Airfield, SEWWEB trains serving local stations from Newport - and perhaps we can ask if there's a case for an hourly Yate to Bristol Temple Meads via Henry, Avonmouth and Clifton Down service.

Like the "you'll have more seats from Chippenham to Swindon, Didcot, Reading and London because Bristol to London (all the way) traffic is syphoned off", passengers from Cardiff to Didcot should find passengers on their trains who are making Parkway to London journeys syphoned off by the 30 minute Bristol Expresses.

We might, indeed.

With apologies to insiders who know about these things, I very much like the fact whereas for example the Engineer's Line Reference for the East Coast Main Line is ECM, and the West Coast LEC (London Euston to Crewe) and CGJ (Crewe to Carlisle) before settling on the more obvious WCM from Carlisle to Glasgow, the Great Western Main Line is, with appropriate humility, MLN - Main Line. I bristle with pride.

Exactly! Suddenly, we have a 4 tph service to Paddington from both Temple Meads and Parkway, taking full advantage of the four tracked Filton Bank - except for electrification of course. The stretch between Parkway and Westerleigh is going to see a fair bit more action, though, especially if the local stoppers from Weston to Parkway are extended to Yate or Gloucester.


I have eaten pizza in a piazza in both Rome and Venice, if that helps.

I've eaten pisa in the shadow of the Tower of Pizza...

Looking at what's planned, it will always remain better (or just as good) to change at Swindon on the way IN to Paddington - typically you'll change there into the train coming from Cheltenham Spa which may in the early days have rather better capacity that most of the others inbound from Swindon. This table is Melksham times with time connecting train arrives in London and where to change


on the way back, most services are "change at either".   One is "change at Swindon" ... I would not trust the four minutes, but it's still "change at Swindon".  Exceptionally, the connection into the 19:12 arrival at Melksham is "change at CHIPPENHAM" as the 17:58 from Paddington is none stop to Chippenham.    The normal rule travelling from Reading to Melksham is to catch the train about 24 minutes later; exceptionally, for a 19:12 arrival in Melksham you'll need to catch the 18:07 from Reading and change at Swindon.


Good to see move towards 'clockface'
Some really poor stuff ("-" signs) - 5 ways to loose customers; a couple of improvements ("+")

Summary - continue to recommend SWINDON change on way into London.  On return, suggest customers stay on train to CHIPPENHAM if it's announced to call there, otherwise change at Swindon.    Logic - into London, better to be waiting at Swindon if the trains are disrupted and it's on the same platform; coming back, Chippenham is a same-platform interchange and if the Melksham train is seriously disrupted, that's where GWR will offer you alternative road transport from.

I spy at the end of May there seems to be a new 16:37 service which takes significantly longer than any other day time train making the journey..1hr45 from Paddington to Stroud vs 1hr27 for the 17:42. Hmm. It gets you in 2 minutes earlier than the current situation changing at Swindon, and the National Rail journeyplanner still recommends 16:45 to Swansea and changing at Swindon. Not quite the exciting new service I was hoping for!

Changes in May this year (2019) are hampered by the requirement for them to fit in with the current timetable structure.

The major revision in December is a new structure, and (in layman's term) starts with the philosophy that there are these new trains which make faster journey times possible, and their journeys to and from the capital will be scheduled first - including new journeys; the headlines will be frequency and "faster" even though we know they won't have a higher top speed - just better acceleration and less station dwell time.  As your Stroud train is an IET from London, you can be pretty sure that it, and each other hourly service, are planned to reach Stroud in under an hour and a half next year. 

The flip side is that remaining train services across the middle region where expresses are slicing back and forth across in new paths are being fitted in as "best" they can be; some of the changes are useful from a passenger viewpoint, but others seriously compromise current flows and development potential once the London services, the needs of the SLC, the need for operational and business robustness on an ever-busier railway, the needs of freight, and the lack to timetabling resource right across the industry to take the time to look closely at issues beyond those listed are taken into account.

Here is the spec for Monday to Friday London via Stroud services ( http://gwr.passenger.chat/gwr_slc3b.pdf )


No specific timing given to Stroud, but I think the Stroud call will be about half an hour before the train gets to Cheltenham Spa via Gloucester, won't it?

Interesting and all very helpful - thanks! I look forward to December then.. I might get a few minutes of my life back each day! :)

One point to consider about the May 19 (for once that's right however you read it!) timetable changes is when the various public sources of data become (in theory) reliable. I found a page on the NRE site that covers this, but so far I have not found a link to it (except in an RDG press release). However, looking at the dates and content it seems it is being kept up to date. It's here: http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service_disruptions/184755.aspx

The page contains week-per-week information for each TOC about validity; this is GWR's section, from the change onwards (there's more useful stuff for earlier weeks):

The current agreed timetabling timetable is for freeze at T-10, with TOCs allowed until T-6 to get their systems in line with that. We are currently between these two dates for May 19th (10th March and 7th April). I'm not sure when the WTT as it appears in the data feeds, hence on sites such as RTT, is known to be in line with the agreed timetable - it must be in that interval, but may not be right at the start. So some caution is still required in taking trains' timings from there as gospel.

ORR did a review last year (report published 25/5/2018) of the "Informed Traveller" principle (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=2ahUKEwjB1qnQr_rgAhWEZFAKHblSAVgQFjABegQIBBAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Forr.gov.uk%2F__data%2Fassets%2Fpdf_file%2F0003%2F27804%2Finformed-traveller-investigation-2018-05-25.pdf&usg=AOvVaw3HaZI8Z1TS__HG88g1TxFG) and how it was (or rather wasn't) being met. You may like to see what NR and the TOCs were meant to be doing, and comparing it with current performance.

This new 16:3716:36 service, as Graham has stated, fits into the existing schedule, by removing the current 16:36 to Didcot

To counter balance it, I also spy a new 09:19 service from Cheltenham arriving Paddington at 11:32

(Late reply, sorry, haven’t been on here for a long time)

I have noticed this and since booked tickets next month to travel on it. Perfect for my weekend and leisure travels as I don’t want to be up too early but 10:51 always seems too late!

RTT shows that, as from May, 1P17 0808 Didcot Parkway – Paddington (which calls Cholsey – Tilehurst) ceases to run.  This train lost the will to live at the last timetable change when it was booked to sit in Reading for 22 minutes (in the middle of the morning rush hour) thus making it useless as a through train for passengers west of Reading.

One hopes RTT is wrong or at least not yet complete, but as from May it’s currently showing a 46 minute gap for up trains for Cholsey – Tilehurst passengers in the morning peak (eg at Pangbourne nothing from 0804 to 0850).   

This is clearly unacceptable.

Later - this gap also appears to contravene the service level commitment of an interval of not more than 30 minutes.

What the hell ... if I read that right, my options from Goring to Maidenhead between 0600 and 0800 will go from:

0628
0644
0651
0703
0732
0745
0800

to:

0644
0715
0745

Is that really right ?! Most people into London usually get the 0651 which runs fast from Maidenhead to London .. are there now no (semi-) fast services direct from Chosley, Goring, Pangbourne & Tilehurst to Paddington?

I'm by no means a timetable expert or RTT expert, so hope I made some mistakes with my searches.

Don't trust RTT for trains at any distance more than a couple of days in the future, as there are often ommissions.  Another search for another day in late May gives different results.  A search on National Rail Enquiries gives much better accuracy, and all the options lordgoata lists that apply now are still there.  There does look to be a 45-minute gap that Gordon the Blue Engine describes though just after 8am.  Again, though that might suddenly be filled nearer the time.

Phew! Thanks II  :o ;D

Just looking at this a bit more carefully:

The 16:36 (time as confirmed in other posts) gets to Kemble at 18:05. The 16:45 also gets to KEM at 18:05 so you would clearly be changing onto the earlier train at Swindon, which presumably has been having a pleasant nap on P1.

The only benefit of catching the 16:36 is that it's off-peak allowing you to spend the difference on a coffee and a bun in the Swindon Costa!

I think (hope!) that perhaps there are still some gaps to be filled around 0830 between Oxford and Reading.  Apart from the Pangbourne gap, RTT also currently shows no fast trains from Oxford to Paddington between 0807 and 0854 after the timetable change, which is difficult to believe.   

The presently shown up service from Pangbourne between 0730 and 0930 (ie mainly for Reading commuters, but also gentlemen commuters to London) is

0736   
0749    Interval 13 mins
0759    10 mins
0804    5 min
0850    46 minutes
0912    22 minutes
0923    11 minutes

Hardly a masterclass in train planning, but I accept that this may be a sticking plaster job until December.

Later - I've just noticed that there is no fast train now from Oxford - Padd between 0807 and 0854, which is a surprise! So less hopeful now for the Pangbourne gap

I've taken a look at the whole topic of loss of services in "shoulder peak" times - it's far from unique to this service - posted to "Transport Scholars" as it gets technical and may be of little interest to many ... please "like" this post if you can't follow the link / want to be added it.

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=21379.msg262560#msg262560

This really is unsatisfactory. The gap is at exactly the time a prospective commuter who works in Reading and who starts work at 9am would be expecting to catch a train from any of the stations between Cholsey and Tilehurst.

By contrast, there are three North Downs line departures from Reading between 8-04 and 8-34!

Is there any indication whether this will be addressed in  the December timetable?

I suspect something may happen, and before December. The 8:08 from Didcot is formed from the 7:52 arrival, moving over from P3 to P4 as 5N23. All of that still happens from May onwards, only rather than setting off towards Reading that train now dematerialises in P4.

It does look as if GWR agree that having that train lurk at Reading for 20 minutes is a bad idea. But while they have removed its pre-lurk and lurk phases, it still runs post-lurk to Paddington semi-fast, just as now. Obviously the law of conservation of rolling stock requires some adjustment to all of that "planning".

I have had a response from GWR timetable guru saying that RTT is totally wrong. I will paste his response in the morning but rest assured, little has changed. Don't rely on RTT.

Is or was and how wrong about what? When I looked this afternoon, RTT was showing the same moring service from Didcot as OJP, which is the same as today except for that missing 8:08 as far as Reading!

"Passengers stand clear on platform 4 where the train is about to dematerialise."

Bit rich of GWR to blame RTT.  Exactly the same gap (ie no 0808 from Didcot) shows up if you try and book a ticket on the GWR website.

Here's the comment

Worth noting that the decline and fall of the original 1P17, which was once a useful semifast from Didcot - Padd, appears to have been due, at least in part, by the need to find a path for some rubbish empties from Severnside to Northolt.  Just so we know where the priorities are in the morning peak commuting hours.

Perhaps more seriously, it shows how difficult it’s going to be to ensure that up GWR and especially freight trains booked on the UR present reliably at Reading at the right time to fit in with clockface Crossrail trains from December, especially as you get nearer London.  I can’t see TfL tolerating, for their clockface trains, the current “norms” of retiming individual passenger trains by a few minutes to fit in with long-distance freight trains, or holding passenger trains (eg as we see regularly on the RL's at Didcot, Scours Lane etc) for several minutes while some out-of-path freight train trundles through.

I very much doubt that NR would suddenly create a new path in the peak for a low-priority (group 5/6) freight train. And I'm sure GWR would resist strongly.

More likely, the freight path has always been there, but unused, & NR have allowed GWR to creep into it. Now its been reclaimed, & thus NR have to allow its use by freight traffic.

I suppose the alternative is the mess caused to the evening peak in South Wales when the 60mph 1300 Theale Murco to Robeston oil empties actually runs (thankfully it's a Q service, so it only periodically makes everything late). I suppose putting in a freight path that doesn't work like this one is the better solution, as its effects are confined to the days that moving tanks full of stale air from Berkshire to Pembrokeshire actually happens.

RTT and GWR are now showing that from May we have a new 1P97, 0806 from Didcot Parkway, 0820 from Pangbourne, then semifast to Paddington.  In best tabloid tradition I’ll say “it’s GTBE wot did it” (but I think we all now know that it was a data glitch at NR!).

Currently 1P97 starts up at Maidenhead at 0844 formed by ECS from London: timings from Maidenhead from May are unchanged.

So this is a gain for Cholsey – Tilehurst passengers heading beyond Reading. 

Just to add that from December GWR are planning to run at least five Didcot-Cholsey-Goring-Pangbourne-Tilehurst-Reading-Twyford-Maidenhead-Paddington services in the peaks operated by 12-car Class 387s.  Nominally at 05:49 (12-car beyond Reading), 06:21, 06:50, 07:16 and 07:50 from Didcot and 17:21, 17:51, 18:21, 18:51 and 19:36 from Paddington.  There may well be other 8-car services with the same calling patterns before and/or after these timings, but those are the ones planned to be 12-cars.

Just to clarify, will these be 12 car from Didcot with SDO Cholsey to Tilehurst (which are will be 8 car of course), or will they pick up/ drop off cars 9 - 12 at Reading?

I did wonder if GWR were still working on the choreography, but it now looks like single dance routine so probably one of the dancers got lost - in NR or maybe in GWR. There always was a train at Didcot able to run into London at 8:06, and since it fits timing-wise with an existing train from Maidenhead you wonder if that's just lucky or if that was always the idea. The ECS from PAD to RDG to form 1P17 is the one now running to MAI and forming 1P97 - so no loose ends, nor extra paths on the busy bits.

Other than the first one towards London in the morning, all are 12-car between Didcot and Paddington from what I can interpret.  The longest running platform extension program in history at Cholsey, Goring, Pangbourne and Tilehurst, should be complete by then with doors opening on 8 vehicles, rather than the 7 that currently open.  Extensions at Slough and Maidenhead should also be complete making 12-car operations there much easier.

Both platforms at Pangbourne were finished a few weeks ago and the temporary barriers were taken away, but I've not yet seen anyone standing on the new bit at the Didcot end on the Up platform waiting for the doors in car 8 to open! Obviously makes sense to wait to remove the 7 car SDO until Tilehurst, Goring and Cholsey are all finished too.

He's just turned up now: