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Author Topic: London to Reading, London to Heathrow, service patterns under Crossrail  (Read 14711 times)
CMRail
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« Reply #45 on: September 02, 2018, 13:51:44 »

This might come to some use to people, found it somewhere a while back but forgot about it.

http://74f85f59f39b887b696f-ab656259048fb93837ecc0ecbcf0c557.r23.cf3.rackcdn.com/assets/library/document/e/original/elizabeth_line_service_pattern-reading_to_central_london.pdf
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eightf48544
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« Reply #46 on: September 03, 2018, 11:04:44 »

With the year's delay I wonder what the actual service pattern will be when Crossrail starts?
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stuving
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« Reply #47 on: September 03, 2018, 11:19:59 »

With the year's delay I wonder what the actual service pattern will be when Crossrail starts?

I think it will be more a question of "start? what does that mean?" After all, the trains are already running to the east and west, and there has been this big change of fashion - by then big-bang timetable introductions will be so last year.

With this new delay before running in the central tunnel, and a separate delay before running to Heathrow, I guess they will be keen to run what they can - which looks to be as much of the Crossrail service to Reading as can be fitted into Paddington high level (unless a substitute can be found). Timings could change to cram in as many turnrounds as possible, and the service build-up done slowly.
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Reading General
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« Reply #48 on: October 19, 2018, 19:54:10 »

After reading this forum with interest for a couple of years I thought I would join. I'm certainly not as knowledgeable as many people on here, but since the project began I have struggled to see the point of Crossrail running to Reading or even Maidenhead. Since the branch off the Western mainline to Heathrow was built I have viewed this as the natural terminus for the project. Four trains an hour off peak along the relief lines to and from London Paddington running their same service pattern as now and interchanging with the six, eight, ten or whatever it happens to be between the Heathrow branch towards the tunnel, seems more than adequate especially as they are now eight carriage electric trains. The GWR (Great Western Railway) trains stopping for interchange at Ealing Broadway only after West Drayton, provided the station was remodeled to accommodate better interchange, appears adequate to me even if I was heading back down the line to Hayes as the frequency is so high. But then again I am not familiar with how many people do a journey from West Drayton to Hayes for example. There was always going to be more trains in the tunnel section so anybody joining a train west of Hayes would stay on till the terminus and swap to Crossrail there at busy times I would assume, and then do the reverse to go back as they would be joining an empty train from London Paddington. I have seen how busy Ealing Broadway can get heading towards Reading (General) in the afternoon/evening and Crossrail calling at all stations till Hayes and GWR doing beyond would split the crowd here onto different trains, again I'm unsure of figures and journey patterns. The excitement shown of Crossrail coming as far as Reading by some parties confuses me as I'm convinced any people heading for London in the morning (many who got off other trains at Reading) will still be on the fast trains and change to Crossrail, if it is of any advantage to them, at London Paddington. Plenty of people I have spoken to about Crossrail were under the impression it was a brand new tube line all the way to Reading and were surprised when I point out that the trains already exist they currently just finish at London Paddinton. It has been sold by property companies and estate agents as a faster service to London and some adverts suggest that it's going to be the reason why you should move to one of the many daft luxury flats being built around the town (rather than just live and work there instead). Clearly all these new flat dwellers will be filing onto the GWR fast trains in the morning and evening rather than Crossrail. Also I have no idea how the Oyster (Smartcard system used by passengers on Transport for London services) card is going to work when the journey off peak is 20 quid return. Will people still buy national rail type season tickets? What's to stop me using Oyster to gain access to my station and get on a GWR fast train to London instead of a Tfl train? How will Oyster work for those travellers from the Thames branches? Will anybody heading west from an Oyster covered station have to leave the station at Reading to fetch a different ticket? I still don't see the advantages. It seems to me that people in the Thames Valley are happy with the trains they have at the moment finishing at London Paddington if punctuality was better and more train capacity was available for the relief line stations. Tfl running the service in an area beyond their zone 6 makes an assumption that everybody is just going to London and not doing any other journey.
Cheers
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grahame
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« Reply #49 on: October 19, 2018, 20:18:28 »

After reading this forum with interest for a couple of years I thought I would join. I'm certainly not as knowledgeable as many people on here, but since the project began I have struggled to see the point of Crossrail running to Reading or even Maidenhead. ...

Welcome to the forum, Reading General

I'll leave others with far more knowledge than I to give you a full answer, but I do look at new through journey opportunities such as:
* Twyford to Tottneham Court Road
* Langley to Liverpool Street
* West Drayon to Whitechapel
and recall that something close to half the available traffic on a flow can be lost if people have to change trains.  Reading itself will be an interesting case as people wll have a choice of speed v change in may cases - get the Elizabeth line from Canary Wharf, them decide whether to stay on the Elizabeth Line train at Paddington and watch expresses that call at Reading whistle by as that travel on, or take time (and perhaps incur delay) in a change and not end up being much faster door to door anyway.

Clearing out (with a carrot not a stick too!) a lot of the one stop hops on long distance expresses from London to Reading also brings other benefits of evening load on some of the long distance stuff ... famous trains like the 19:03 West Country express and the 19:30 via Bristol.
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eightf48544
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« Reply #50 on: October 20, 2018, 16:36:27 »

Welcome Reading General. You make some interesting points. I have always maintained that Crossrail doesn't work West of Paddington because of of the discrepancy between 24tph through the tunnels and only 10/12 onto the GWML (Great Western Main Line). Meaning at least every other train has to terminate at Paddington.

With regard to Grahame's re time to change at Padd, I think it would almost certainly be advantageous for Reading Passengers to use  Crossrail for a through journey I would suggest not, particulary on the inward journey, it should be a relatively quick change and you will have a Crossrail train every 2.5 minutes half of which will be empties from Westbourne Park so 5 mins max wait.

Twyford and Maidenhead it depends on how many GWR (Great Western Railway)/Crossrail semis there are in the peak.

Taplow Burnham are already TFL (Transport for London) so will be all Crossrail.

Slough if the Off peak fast Oxfords still stop it may it may be marginally quicker in the Up to take Crossrail.

Langley Iver and West Drayton all TFL Crossrail but will be competing with passengers from further West

Hayes inwards, Crossrail Metro, but passengers homeward bound to  West of Hayes compete as they do now with passengers for stations to Hayes.

As to Oyster (Smartcard system used by passengers on Transport for London services) Crossrail have suggested that it could be extended to Reading and possibly even the branches, Windsor Marlow and Henley. now that raises and interesting question will  the Oyster fare be  valid only on Crossrail services or GWR ones as well?

Then is is the major question how are all these extra passengers going to get to the various stations parking is already full at most stations. Twyford Maidenhead, Taplow and Burnham in particular  have very limited parking and few buses.
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« Reply #51 on: October 20, 2018, 17:35:47 »

Thanks for responding. I guess nobody quite knows what happens if trains coming off the mainline into the tunnel are delayed for whatever reason on the relief lines, do they lose their place in the tunnel order? Is the turnaround of service versatile enough to correct this when it reaches a terminus? Is there only one platform available in each direction underground at London Paddington? If there is only one I can envisage trains finishing in the traditional platforms in the terminus. I don't think it's going to work and I think in a couple of years time we will see half of the Crossrail trains coming out of the tunnel heading up the line to Wycombe via South Ruislip.
Cheers
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stuving
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« Reply #52 on: October 20, 2018, 18:51:36 »

Can I add my welcome to you, Reading General. Many of the questions you raise are have been addressed in this thread and the main Crossrail one, though perhaps a couple of years is to short to have thoroughly explored them. Also, while in most cases a variety of answers will be on offer, that doesn't mean any of them are right.

But I wonder if you aren't overthinking this. None of us has all the relevant facts, nor the staff to develop detailed plans, so not surprisingly we can't see what that plan would look like. Fortunately we don't have to. But I'm sure there are such plans, including fall-back operation for when things go wrong, and not just on the Western route section either.

All of those plans will involve compromises, which is where the politics (of all kinds, not just involving politicians) comes in. You may not find some of them acceptable, but as I say it's not your call (or mine).

To take just one point, what happens if the trains from the west are late and miss their path through the tunnel? Logically, either the path is unfilled or a train due to start from Paddington is sent early. If you look at the service pattern as London Reconnections shows it (first post of this thread), all the trains for Liverpool Street and Shenfield start from Paddington, so the question in practice is how good a service to Abbey Wood can be run in between?

I think it will be worse if the line outbound from Paddington is blocked, since TfL» (Transport for London - about)'s priority will be to keep the tunnel trains running and they've all go to go somewhere. That will be a matter of the capacity for turning trains round or putting them aside at Westbourne Grove (limited) and coping with the passengers unwillingly offloaded (at Paddington, not Westbourne Grove). Both of those become easier with Old Oak Common as the real terminus.

I've never thought TfL wanted to go to Reading, and probably not even to Maidenhead. They had to put up with their super-size new tube also bringing commuters in from outside their area, as that justified their Treasury money. Of course the older tube lines did that too, but mostly took over existing lines completely - which is what TfL wanted here. Unfortunately no-one could find lines you could do that with, so they were stuck with sharing the GW (Great Western) and GE lines, of which the GW poses the bigger problems.
« Last Edit: October 21, 2018, 09:15:41 by stuving » Logged
grahame
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« Reply #53 on: October 21, 2018, 08:45:08 »

I think it will be worse if the line outbound from Paddington is blocked, since TfL» (Transport for London - about)'s priority will be to keep the tunnel trains running and they've all go to go somewhere. That will be a matter of the capacity for turning trains round or putting them aside at Westbourne Grove (limited) and coping with the passengers unwillingly offloaded (at Paddington, not Westbourne Grove). Both of those become easier with Old Oak Common as the real terminus.

There currently seem to be an astonishing number of TfL trains parked up in a line to the north of Old Oak Common - I would guess somewhere around fifteen of them, representing perhaps an hour's worth of arrivals (or departures) from / to central London at Paddington.  Presumably most of those will be in daily use so if something goes very wrong headed west from there, you'll having empty sidings into which the trains can be driven.  And (depending on what has gone wrong) some at least can turn round and head back east.    Far bigger problem will be all the people turfed off those incoming trains from central London and how to handle them in the area ...
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« Reply #54 on: October 21, 2018, 17:02:29 »

Fares have often been mentioned in these discussions about Crossrail at Reading, but I really don’t see specially reduced “Oyster (Smartcard system used by passengers on Transport for London services) Crossrail only fares” happening.  Firstly, Reading has only one common paid area.  As Crossrail trains will have to share island platforms with other services, it isn’t practical to make modifications to have a Crossrail only “station within a station”.  So there’s no obvious way for the Oyster system to know which train you were using, or about to use.  Secondly, Oyster PAYG (Pay as you go) has already been introduced at a number of stations well outside the original zones, eg at Gatwick, and the fares have been set specific to the particular station; i.e. they don’t necessarily have to conform to the existing zonal fares at all.  I don’t think DfT» (Department for Transport - about) would agree with anything that might reduce the farebox.  A minor supplementary point is that if they introduce Oyster PAYG fares to Reading, they’ll presumably have to consider what do do about the SWR» (South Western Railway - about) route as well.

Paul

« Last Edit: October 21, 2018, 18:03:15 by paul7755 » Logged
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« Reply #55 on: October 21, 2018, 17:29:50 »

I see no reason why there can't be differential Crossrail Oyster (Smartcard system used by passengers on Transport for London services)/Contactless fares at Reading. If it can be done at Gatwick (where Oyster can be cheaper than paper for a single journey) then it can be done at Reading.

Revenue implications were factored in to the GTR management contract for Oyster/Contactless between Gatwick and London. Same can be done between Reading/Thames Valley and London in a future Greater Western contract award.
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« Reply #56 on: October 21, 2018, 17:57:35 »

I see no reason why there can't be differential Crossrail Oyster (Smartcard system used by passengers on Transport for London services)/Contactless fares at Reading. If it can be done at Gatwick (where Oyster can be cheaper than paper for a single journey) then it can be done at Reading.

Revenue implications were factored in to the GTR management contract for Oyster/Contactless between Gatwick and London. Same can be done between Reading/Thames Valley and London in a future Greater Western contract award.
The fare differentiation at Gatwick is with Gatwick Express, but it’s enabled by the Gatwick Express having a dedicated gateline at the Victoria end, and not normally stopping en route.  Reading will have Crossrail and GWR (Great Western Railway) stoppers arriving that have both passed through a number of stations where both have called.

I don’t think it’s as easy as you suggest.
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stuving
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« Reply #57 on: October 21, 2018, 18:11:35 »

There currently seem to be an astonishing number of TfL» (Transport for London - about) trains parked up in a line to the north of Old Oak Common - I would guess somewhere around fifteen of them, representing perhaps an hour's worth of arrivals (or departures) from / to central London at Paddington. 

Why is that astonishing? There will be a big fleet of trains and they all have to sleep somewhere. The final layout of their depot has 33 sidings, as well as the Big Shed.

The capacity of the lines in and out of the depot is a bit limited by the flat junction off the westbound Relief/Crossrail lines. However, in the case under discussion - something has interrupted the flow of inbound trains - that isn't an issue. But with Old Oak Common as the normal terminus, it could be a lot more difficult - we'll have to wait and see what that involves and if any changes are made.
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« Reply #58 on: October 21, 2018, 20:10:20 »

There currently seem to be an astonishing number of TfL» (Transport for London - about) trains parked up in a line to the north of Old Oak Common ...

Why is that astonishing? There will be a big fleet of trains and they all have to sleep somewhere. The final layout of their depot has 33 sidings, as well as the Big Shed.

Good question.  It probably cause me off guard because it is so different to what I'm used to.   I am used to fighting for a single carriage train, getting crushed on the 06:00 Penzance to Devonport when it's 2 car, or finding my whole service lost for half a day because the cab heater has failed on the only passenger train parked up in the yard at Westbury.  I have seen the big tube depots ... but usually from a tube during running hours, so they tend to be an array of mostly-empty lines.
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« Reply #59 on: October 21, 2018, 22:58:30 »

I see no reason why there can't be differential Crossrail Oyster (Smartcard system used by passengers on Transport for London services)/Contactless fares at Reading. If it can be done at Gatwick (where Oyster can be cheaper than paper for a single journey) then it can be done at Reading.

Revenue implications were factored in to the GTR management contract for Oyster/Contactless between Gatwick and London. Same can be done between Reading/Thames Valley and London in a future Greater Western contract award.
The fare differentiation at Gatwick is with Gatwick Express, but it’s enabled by the Gatwick Express having a dedicated gateline at the Victoria end, and not normally stopping en route.  Reading will have Crossrail and GWR (Great Western Railway) stoppers arriving that have both passed through a number of stations where both have called.

I don’t think it’s as easy as you suggest.

GTR services between Gatwick and London have some different paper and Oyster fares, and also have intermediate stops where Oyster is accepted. Elizabeth Line at Paddington will also have its own gatelines.

It's as easy as the DfT» (Department for Transport - about) and TfL» (Transport for London - about) want to make it. Elizabeth Line to Reading will have to have Oyster. Wherever TfL Rail goes Oyster goes with it. Whether there are fares differentials between mediums isn't a stumbling block.

All indications are that beyond Zone 6 it will be "Special Fares Apply" for Thames Valley stations to Reading. There are no technical issues with introducing Oyster to these stations. Any revenue implications for the 'classic' service provider can be easily addressed in a franchise agreement/management contract. Just as it was with GTR/GatEx.

To not have Oyster on a TfL Rail operated service would actually make things more complicated. Bringing Oyster to the parallel 'classic' services is a positive too.
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