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Author Topic: 7.01 from Maidenhead to Paddington  (Read 70084 times)
Sixty3Closure
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« Reply #75 on: November 25, 2019, 10:59:00 »

3 coaches this morning.

With my season ticket due for renewal next week I can see me becoming increasing incoherent and inarticulate if this continues.
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IndustryInsider
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« Reply #76 on: December 10, 2019, 18:39:43 »

1P10, 06:45 departure confirmed as a 9-car IET (Intercity Express Train), and 1P11 is a 10-car IET (after Oxford), and two unconfirmed 387 services have now been confirmed - list updated.

As and when unconfirmed train lengths become certain I will update the list.

Today: (total of 97 carriages)
1P01 - 06:32 dep/06:54 arr - 8 car 387
1P02 - 06:42 dep/07:06 arr - 5 car IET
1P03 - 07:01 dep/07:24 arr - 5 car IET
1P04 - 07:08 dep/07:29 arr - 9 car IET
1P05 - 07:10 dep/07:36 arr - 8 car 387
1P06 - 07:18 dep/07:38 arr - 8 car 387
1P08 - 07:33 dep/07:55 arr - 12 car 387
1P09 - 07:44 dep/08:16 arr - 6 car Turbo
1P11 - 08:02 dep/08:24 arr - 12 car 387
1P81 - 08:06 dep/08:30 arr - 8 car 387
1K07 - 08:11 dep/08:41 arr - 5 car IET
1P15 - 08:32 dep/08:54 arr - 8 car 387

December: (total of 119 carriages)
1P92 - 06:33 dep/06:52 arr - 12 car 387
1P10 - 06:45 dep/07:05 arr - 9 car IET
1P75 - 07:02 dep/07:22 arr - 12 car 387
1P11 - 07:07 dep/07:24 arr - 10 car IET
1P76 - 07:15 dep/07:40 arr - 8 car 387 (length not confirmed)
1P77 - 07:32 dep/07:52 arr - 12 car 387
1K05 - 07:35 dep/07:54 arr - 8 car 387
1P78 - 07:44 dep/08:19 arr - 8 car 387 (length not confirmed)
1P79 - 08:02 dep/08:22 arr - 12 car 387
1P80 - 08:14 dep/08:49 arr - 8 car 387
1P81 - 08:31 dep/08:53 arr - 12 car 387
1P82 - 08:44 dep/09:09 arr - 8 car 387 (length not confirmed)
« Last Edit: December 13, 2019, 10:44:29 by IndustryInsider » Logged

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NickB
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« Reply #77 on: December 16, 2019, 07:17:49 »

12-cars it may have been but it was still full and standing throughout, late, and on the wrong platform.

Today is not a good start.
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Adelante_CCT
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« Reply #78 on: December 16, 2019, 07:39:37 »

This mornings issues are signal failure related rather than lack of stock, causing many problems in the Twyford/Maidenhead area.
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sanfrandragon
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« Reply #79 on: December 16, 2019, 08:14:29 »

12-cars it may have been but it was still full and standing throughout, late, and on the wrong platform.

Today is not a good start.

You beat me to it.  12 minutes late.

Not a great start Roll Eyes
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Sixty3Closure
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« Reply #80 on: December 16, 2019, 10:03:01 »

12-cars it may have been but it was still full and standing throughout, late, and on the wrong platform.

Today is not a good start.

off sick today so didn't go into London but this is so disappointing to hear.
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IndustryInsider
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« Reply #81 on: December 16, 2019, 10:46:57 »

Was it crush loaded like the old 5-car train was, or just full with a few standees?  I see it left virtually on time and the following 10-car 07:07 was expected to be between 5 and 10 minutes late so perhaps more people made a dash for it than would have otherwise? 

The previous 06:45 left at 06:53 and was the newly extended 9-car IET (Intercity Express Train), so that’s 31 carriages worth leaving Maidenhead on fast trains within the space of about 25 minutes!
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NickB
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« Reply #82 on: December 16, 2019, 18:26:46 »

Looked pretty cosy from where I was stood.  If anything it looked as though there were more passengers onboard from previous stations, and then the avalanche of maidenhead passengers that have been waiting for a full-size, earlier, service than the previous 7.08 will gravitate towards this enhanced service.  Deleting the 7.10 service from the new timetable doesn’t help space people out either.

The return trip this evening is looking pretty ropey already. The reduction in frequency of services compounded by poor platforming decisions, cancellations and late calls for boarding reduce my overall rating for today to 2/10. Those points being scored for not having to travel via Marylebone.

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TaplowGreen
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« Reply #83 on: December 17, 2019, 07:35:13 »

I see the 0707 missed out Maidenhead today - apparently because it was running 8 minutes late?
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NickB
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« Reply #84 on: December 17, 2019, 09:40:53 »

Indeed it did. ‘A fault on this service’, that didn’t prevent it stopping at Oxford or Reading after that fault was declared.  Perhaps the fault discovered was an allergy to delay repay 😉

Needless to say that the 7.02 from maidenhead was full and standing throughout.
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IndustryInsider
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« Reply #85 on: December 17, 2019, 11:26:37 »

It was 12 minutes late from Oxford after being delayed on the Cotswold Line.  It has to stop there as it couples to another unit.  Expect more ‘brutal’ decisions like that though.  Nothing whatsoever to do with delay-repay, but simply because anything late holding up the mains at Maidenhead will knock on to other services for a long while after.

At least the 07:02 was 12-cars, departed from the right platform, and was early into Paddington.
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« Reply #86 on: December 17, 2019, 17:44:21 »

We appear to be entering a glass half-empty vs glass half-full circular here so I shall state for the record that I acknowledge that teething problems with the timetable might be expected, but I am also simply stating my opinion of the service provided, and doing so as a passenger/customer/client of GWR (Great Western Railway).
 
Maidenhead has an acknowledged capacity problem (that will only get worse when another 10,000 homes are built in the next decade) and therefore curtailing a popular peak service such as the 7.07 so that it doesn't 'hold up the mains' fails to acknowledge that there were actual people expecting that train to arrive and take them to Paddington.  A delayed arrival at Paddington for the 7.07 and the 2 trains behind it that are caught in that 12min window is not, in my opinion, as important as people arriving at the station and having no service to take them at all, particularly as it still found time to stop at Reading which has a wide range of fast services.
If the 7.07 becomes a victim of frequent curtailment then what will likely happen is that myself and my fellow passengers will cease to 'expect' it to arrive and will therefore squash on to the 7.02, negating any benefit of the upgrade in formation.  It is also worth noting that Maidenhead used to have the 7.10 (slough and paddington only) that used to catch anyone who really wanted a seat or whose train had been curtailed but this has now been removed.  That means that the capacity in that super-peak window of 6.45-7.15 has shrunk from 23 carriages to 20, and this morning was only 12.
 
I was really happy with GWR services over the past year.  I really thought that they had got their act together, but the new timetable feels like a backward step, in my opinion.
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Sixty3Closure
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« Reply #87 on: December 17, 2019, 18:12:53 »

I'd echo Nick's sentiments but from a Twyford viewpoint. It's very frustrating when the 'fast' Maidenhead/Twyford trains go non stop to London/Reading as that's not where the capacity issues are. Similarly we seem spoilt for choice on stopping services but they're pretty empty from Twyford and I'd imagine its the same at Maidenhead. Equally though they're packed by the time they reach London. Without changing the topic its why I'm not convinced about Crossrail for this area.

I still have high hopes for Twyford and the new timetable if only to replace the terrible 5 car IET (Intercity Express Train) at 06.53. This was a reasonable service (with hindsight) when a 6 car turbo so hopefully its just infrastructure issues that means the (eventual) 12 car replacement is packed. Maybe its the butterfly flaps its wings effect and a change someone else we've not clocked is causing it to be packed? Can't think what though as it was already a Didcot stopper and pretty full from the Henley connection.

The 06.44 non stop to Paddington still exists (on paper anyway). That has variously been a 9 car 125 to a 3 car turbo and always crowded. Not sure what it is currently but if that was upgraded (if it hasn't been already) then it would ease some of the pressure on Maidenhead. The previous 5 car IET though didn't make it worth the grief from a personal point of view.

It does make me worry what it will be like in a couple of years time with all the house building promised/threatened.
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IndustryInsider
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« Reply #88 on: December 18, 2019, 00:00:08 »

Maidenhead has an acknowledged capacity problem (that will only get worse when another 10,000 homes are built in the next decade) and therefore curtailing a popular peak service such as the 7.07 so that it doesn't 'hold up the mains' fails to acknowledge that there were actual people expecting that train to arrive and take them to Paddington.  A delayed arrival at Paddington for the 7.07 and the 2 trains behind it that are caught in that 12min window is not, in my opinion, as important as people arriving at the station and having no service to take them at all, particularly as it still found time to stop at Reading which has a wide range of fast services.

I can see the logic, and I can see your point about sacrificing the Reading stop rather than the Maidenhead one, but in terms of just delaying the next two trains, I'm afraid it's far from that simple.

Between Ruscombe to Taplow that train recovered five minutes this morning, so that's approximately the 'cost of the stop' in terms of time.  Doesn't sound much, does it?  But it's not just the one, two or three trains that might have caught it up running behind, it's the concertina affect that can have further back - a bit like when a motorist touches the brakes on the M25 that resulting in a log-jam a few minutes later a junction or two back. 

Then there's the feeding points to the main lines to consider, so at Maidenhead East, Slough West, Dolphin Junction and Airport Junction there are all possible conflicts with trains coming off the relief lines to the mains.  If they have to wait five minutes they can knock on trains behind them, or possibly trains heading on the relief line in the other direction when they do get to cross over.  If they get the signal ahead of the 07:07 then that can lose much more time very quickly as it catches up with them. 

Then there's the flighting of platforms at Paddington to consider - everything arrives and departs on a sequence, so an extra delay to an arrival can mean a delayed departure to other services.  Or if bad enough the next working of that train can be delayed, which can affect other arrivals and departures, even if, like that one, the train only goes to North Pole Depot after arrival.

The new timetable is tighter than ever in that regard, hence my comment about brutal decisions being more likely.  Saving five or so minutes on a critical part of the route can save knock on delays reaching the hundreds of minutes surprisingly easily.  I do get understand all that is not the passengers problem, but hopefully that explains a little more why a decision such as this morning's is taken in the wider interest?

If the 7.07 becomes a victim of frequent curtailment then what will likely happen is that myself and my fellow passengers will cease to 'expect' it to arrive and will therefore squash on to the 7.02, negating any benefit of the upgrade in formation.
 

That train is certainly more fragile than it was and is likely to be more susceptible to problems.  That's basically down to it now running as a 5-car from Worcester and getting another 5-cars attached at Oxford, rather than running as a 9-car throughout.  Previously it had five minutes booked at Oxford, and if on time usually arrived a couple of minutes early, so there was a bit of leeway should it be running a few minutes late.  That booked time at Oxford is now seven minutes, but with the coupling procedure that time is instantly eaten up - indeed this morning it lost a couple more minutes.  Expect that operation to get a little slicker over time, but this is the first time IET (Intercity Express Train)'s have coupled at Oxford, and the first time for a lot of drivers that they have coupled up in service ever.  More time is ideally needed.  It then has two minutes less to get to Maidenhead which was slack in the old HST (High Speed Train) based schedule, but again that gave it a little more scope to make back a few minutes worth of delay.

We will see whether it becomes one of the genuine problem trains that action has to be taken over when a little more data on it is received, but like I say, I fear it will be far less reliable - initially at least - than the old incarnation of it.

It is also worth noting that Maidenhead used to have the 7.10 (slough and paddington only) that used to catch anyone who really wanted a seat or whose train had been curtailed but this has now been removed.  That means that the capacity in that super-peak window of 6.45-7.15 has shrunk from 23 carriages to 20, and this morning was only 12.

The 07:10 was principally designed to be a commuter train for the good people of Slough, rather than Maidenhead.  It hasn't been removed, it just runs 5 minutes later from Maidenhead (arriving 4 minutes later at Paddington).  It's the 07:18 that's been removed from Maidenhead which no doubt is the reason behind the extra passengers for the two earlier trains.  I wonder how the following 07:32 now loads?

The capacity in the the 'super-peak' 06:45-07:15 window you describe is now:
06:45 - 9-car IET
07:02 - 12-car 387
07:07 - 10-car IET
07:15 - 8-car 387
Total: 39 carriages, but down to 29 today.

Stretching that window slightly, it used to be:
06:42 - 5-car IET
07:01 - 5-car IET
07:08 - 8-car IET
07:10 - 8-car 387
07:18 - 8-car 387
Total: 34 carriages.

I can see how the 07:07 is a big loss, but it's nowhere near the shrinkage you describe, and is an increase when everything goes to plan.  Fingers crossed for tomorrow!
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TaplowGreen
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« Reply #89 on: December 18, 2019, 05:46:36 »

0707 is running today (as I write this) but the 0715 & 0735 are cancelled (amongst many others this morning).
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