Slough commuters

[whole diary]

[eightf48544]

As one who travelled from Slough or Taplow from 1968 to 2005 except for a year in the early seventies and 5 years when I went the other way to Reading from Taplow. 

Right up through top end of Loco hauled teh basic Slough service off peak was 2 tph semis from Reading to Padd All stations to  Slough then  (Hayes) Ealing Padd and 2 tph stoppers from Platform 6. A few Mainline tains stopped at Slough off peak. However there were regular loco hauled fasts in the peak which either ran on the Reliefs and crossed at Dolphin or on the mains probably having crossed to the mains at Maidenhead East or Rushcobe in both directions.  In NSE^▸ (Network South East) days two of these trains terminated at Twyford and ran ECS^▸ (Empty Coaching Stock) to Reading where the loco ran round on the goods lines, doing virtually to Tilehurst to crossover and ran back main line ECS to Padd to form a later service. At  the end these were formed of Mark 2  from the Liverpool Street Cambridge Kings Lynn line when EMUs^▸ (Electric Multiple Unit) took over the service. In 68 there was even one train a day in each direction fast from Taplow to Padd stopping on the mainlines at Taplow.

With the Turbos the same basic pattern was retaied although I seem to think the timings were tightened up compared with the 117s. With the loss of the loco hauled Slough still had mainline fast trains in the peak but they tended to be the through trains to Bourne End and Henley and crossed at Dolphin (Sometimes at Hayes West Down only). Also the semis had Hayes stops introduced. 17:36 was my regular train for years starting with when it was loco hauled.

2005 saw the change to current pattern. Whereby Slough got fast trains on the Relief Lines. This was an absolute disaster of a timetable. I graphed the up peak and you could see the trains piling up from Ealing to Padd because of the dead time a fast was occuping the line   in theory you  had longer gap after the fast train arrived at Padd before the start of the next sequence. However in reality the slightest delay to any tain in the previous sequence that margin was used up and the next sequence was affected and thus the delays rolled back.

The curent timetable seems  betterer timekeeping wise  but at the expense of lots of Padding such that the journey time from Taplow in the peak is now 46 minutes compared with 32 when I travelled regularly. All the extra time being more stops East of Slough so Slough suffers with the semis.

[paul7575]

It's already six track. It's just that one of them isn't currently passed for passengers. It's a lot cheaper to convert an existing track to passenger use for a 3 mile stretch than build an extra 2 tracks that don't exist for around 30+ miles.

Agreed - an oversimplification on my part - upgrade/resignal/renew platform faces to allow a 6 track passenger route would have been a better description of what they are planning.

Paul

[Electric train]

That will probably be the case, and hopefullymay free up some of the trains that have come from Slough and the west to miss out stops at places like Hayes & Southall, hence speeding them up. Just getting rid of those Greenford trains in the peaks will do a lot to remove the suburban capacity issues.

The Hayes stop is worth while as it allows us from the west to change at Hayes to / from the Heathrow Connect although Crossrail will change this.  I believe NR^» (Network Rail - home page) are planning to do the bay at West Ealing in CP4^▸ (Control Period 4 - the five year period between 2009 and 2014)  ahead of Crossrail who down to do it

[eightf48544]

I've always believed the bay at Hayes is an underutilised resource especialy as it is electrified. The problem with it is that you have to run down the Up Relief from Southall West to Access it. However, if you look there is a track from the goods loop, which is also electrified acroos the canal bridge. A simple crossover from the end of the bay and a few yards of wire, would mean terminating and orginating trains from teh bay could use the goods loop to Soutahll West and thus not block the Up relief.


Up to 2005 my train in the Up used to connect  at Hayes all staions start up.