Great Western Coffee Shop

It would be interesting to be able to find the editorial material in the article amongst all the adverts - I hadn't realised that the Standard is even worse than our local "newspaper" websites.

It would be interesting to be able to find the editorial material in the article amongst all the adverts - I hadn't realised that the Standard is even worse than our local "newspaper" websites.

What ideas do members think could solve some of the problems in the short and long term.

These are a couple of mine,could trains be drawn up along side one another to take passengers back to where they come from?

if possible could passengers alight at the station platforms at least passengers could make there own way from the station to where ever.

If the problem is between slough and Paddington could half the trains do a shuttle to and from Slough and Paddington,at least you could get a bus/coach to your destination

Long term: extra cross overs?

One thing that the Standard report doesn't include maybe because it is a bit longer term is the replacement of the old overhead wiring into Paddington that was done on the cheap 30 years ago for the Heathrow Express.

Network Rail has announced a recovery plan for the Reading-London Paddington route after months of poor performance.

It made national headlines when broken wires left 4,000 passengers stranded on trains for four hours at night, near Ladbroke Grove, on 7 December.

Most passengers had to walk along the tracks to reach safety. There have also been a spate of failures, including broken rails and signalling faults.

The route is now set to be overhauled in three phases over 18 months.

"Our performance hasn't been good enough," admitted Network Rail's new route director Marcus Jones.

"We have been consistently letting down customers. They cannot guarantee a service every day."

Steve Smith, of the Bedwyn Trains Passenger Group, described it was "absolutely appalling".

"Only one in three of our Paddington trains is on time," he continued.

"We have infrastructure failures, train failures, lack of trains and bad weather, causing flooding. Ultimately this is about lack of investment."

For the next four weeks, there will be fewer trains late at night, while engineers carry out remedial work to the tracks, signalling and overhead wires.

For the last couple of hours each evening, only two of the four tracks will be open.

A six month period of work to stabilise performance, will follow, then a year-long programme to put long-term solutions in place.

Beyond that, the overhead wires will be replaced in west London. They are 30 years old and were installed when the Heathrow Express began.

Services on the Great Western Main Line became so bad that in November the Rail Regulator launched an investigation into whether Network Rail was manging its assets appropriately.

Network Rail's regional managing director, Michelle Handforth, resigned in December. A new team is now in place.

Since Elizabeth Line services started running from Reading, track use has increased by 17%.

The total weight of trains on the route has increased by 38%. The infrastructure has not coped well - there is a fault very nearly every day.

Plus the tracks are now so busy that when things go wrong, delays build up more quickly.
'Pre-empting failures'

"The picture includes Covid and industrial action during which we lost work time," Mr Jones said.

"We are bringing forward planned track work. We are fitting monitoring equipment to pre-empt future failures."

Mr Jones said the Elizabeth Line trains were not to blame.

"The trains are longer and heavier," he said.

"But the evidence we have is that it is not the train causing the failures but the phenomenal growth in services,"

Extensive work to build Old Oak Common station in west London for the interchange with HS2 is planned, with about 70 days of closures over five years.

Network Rail aims to dovetail its Great Western work with the closures already booked, in a bid to minimise the impact on passengers.

Funding will come from within the existing route budget.

"People are not getting a consistent service," said Mr Jones. "We are determined to put that right."

That might just mean replacing the contact wires, of course, though I don't think those can have lasted 30 years unchanged.

What ideas do members think could solve some of the problems in the short and long term.
These are a couple of mine, could trains be drawn up along side one another to take passengers back to where they come from?
if possible could passengers alight at the station platforms at least passengers could make there own way from the station to where ever.
If the problem is between slough and Paddington could half the trains do a shuttle to and from Slough and Paddington,at least you could get a bus/coach to your destination
Long term: extra cross overs?

What ideas do members think could solve some of the problems in the short and long term.

These are a couple of mine,could trains be drawn up along side one another to take passengers back to where they come from?

if possible could passengers alight at the station platforms at least passengers could make there own way from the station to where ever.

If the problem is between slough and Paddington could half the trains do a shuttle to and from Slough and Paddington,at least you could get a bus/coach to your destination

Long term: extra cross overs?

That's good news about old oak common,but can trains not now be turned round at Slough?

taking into account if the "problem" is between Slough and Paddington

That's good news about old oak common,but can trains not now be turned round at Slough?

taking into account if the "problem" is between Slough and Paddington

I think I am correct that the down main and up and down relief lines are bi-directional at Slough?

I would prefer to be 15 miles from my destination that 30 miles

number 5 bus to heathrow then piccadily line to central london?

What ideas do members think could solve some of the problems in the short and long term.

I would hope the money is spent on addressing causes rather than symptoms.

Good on Mayor Khan for sticking his head above the parapet like this and pointing out that NR's performance is unacceptable.

Certain TOC MDs could learn a bit from that.

All well and good Khan doing this in public but it achieves very little if nothing unless you aren’t prepared to meet Network Rail and give both barrels to their face. Piping up in the media now and again is merely a PR exercise.

Prevent freight running on the route at the busiest times of days

I don't know what the busiest times of the day/times are,but I was caught up in two  separate Sunday disruption incidents in the last two months.

In my opinion Sundays have been become very busy and if anything has exceeded pre-covid levels.

Travellers who use weekend services,

may travel only once or twice a year and will not have the experience of how to get away from Paddington like most members on this sight
 

The Mayor for London has regular meetings with Network Rail CEO, my understanding they are very robust meetings.  Politicians have the "freedom" to make critical statements to the press and media about public companies such as NR and TOC's but these companies cannot be critical of political bodies (Government, Local Authorities etc)

I agree I do hope the WW Region spend the money and the extra disruptive access wisely and fix the underlying problems and not just put a sticky plaster over them

The Mayor for London has regular meetings with Network Rail CEO, my understanding they are very robust meetings.  Politicians have the "freedom" to make critical statements to the press and media about public companies such as NR and TOC's but these companies cannot be critical of political bodies (Government, Local Authorities etc)


 

Any company or individual is free to criticise "political bodies, Government, Local Authorities etc" - the failure to do so, even when they or their customers are particularly affected by individual policies/strategies generally comes down to weakness and/or self interest at senior levels -  and as we've seen more recently the meek acceptance/silence is often rewarded after a few years with ermine, knighthoods or lesser gongs.

Any company or individual is free to criticise "political bodies, Government, Local Authorities etc"   Unless it’s a contract stipulation. Which it is.

Criticisms don’t have to be publicly made in order to achieve progress or results.

Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right includes freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.

Isn't the signalling between Paddington and Reading computer controlled that selects the optimum path taking into account where all the trains are?

No good if the overhead wiring keeps falling down.

ARS was installed in the 90s as part of the Paddington remodelling. If it’s still in used it can be selectively enabled/disabled in zones allowing it to support a signaller rather than replacing them. This allows a signaller to focus on a problem area rather than the more routine routing.

I would hope the money is spent on addressing causes rather than symptoms.

Good on Mayor Khan for sticking his head above the parapet like this and pointing out that NR's performance is unacceptable.

Certain TOC MDs could learn a bit from that.

If Khan was serious about getting the infrastructure more reliable he would meet Network Rail, GWR and the freight operators half way and offer to cut the number of trains operating dramatically in those hours when maintenance is possible.

just curious, are the UR/DR lines on a  separate circuit than the UM/DM lines?

With acronyms in mind, I suppose it was just as well when ARS was being brought it in they didn't call it Automatic Route Setting Equipment.

He is, he has, and Elizabeth Line trains are being cut in the manner you suggest.

Worth reading the article linked in the initial post on this thread.

I have. The article states

QUOTE
Between Monday and Thursday until March 28 there will be a reduced Elizabeth line service from Paddington from 9.30pm, with four trains an hour to Heathrow airport and two to Reading.
END QUOTE

This is neither very long - how much can be done in the next three weeks? - and only affects the stretch out to Maidenhead. Removing a couple of trains an hour to Heathrow and a couple of trains an hour to Maidenhead late at night is merely show business.

It all depends on what else has been cut out; for example are there any services starting / terminating at Reading, the removal of the semi fast to Didcot and Newbury. 

It will be about freeing up lines in between Paddington and Acton this will give more time to get the possession and isolation in place on some lines.   The process setting up and giving up possessions and isolations eats into the available time to do actual work, there are ways to speed it up but there are no short cuts in the process.

Oh, quite, I agree. But the subject was about Mayor Khan's implication that the only railway west of Paddington is the Elizabeth line, nowhere was any mention made that other operators use the Great Western Main Line as well. I repeat, his statement was simply show business.

I suspect he's concerning himself with his remit, although he seems to have catalysed something which will be to the benefit of all, in contrast there's been a deafening silence from the upper reaches of GWR.

Khan is first and foremost a politician. As the infrastructure failures also affect all traffic on the Great Western Main Line it is, at best, disingenuous to imply that it’s only the Elizabeth line that is affected.

If he can imply that the blame for the failures lies with Network Rail the implication is that it’s actually the fault of the Government for being tight fisted. He is Labour and the Government is Conservative so why am I not surprised by his statement? He is also playing the ‘fares freeze’ game again. In January he announced that TfL’s fares will be frozen for the current year, see this press release https://www.london.gov.uk/mayor-steps-and-announces-hell-freeze-tfl-fares-year-easing-cost-millions-londoners

What he doesn’t mention is that as a result there will be a shortfall in TfL’s income (again) which will inevitably result in another call on the Government for more support for TfL's investment programmes.

For what it’s worth I reckon that the Great Western has been undermaintained over the last fifteen years or so due to lack of engineering access caused by the Reading station rebuild, the construction of the extra flyovers at Stockley and the flyunder at Acton as well as the electrification work west of Airport Junction and transfer of the signalling control to Didcot. After a while all this deferred maintenance shows its ugly face and with the increase in the number of trains running getting onto the tracks to do stuff is getting more and more difficult.

If Khan was serious about getting the infrastructure more reliable he would meet Network Rail, GWR and the freight operators half way and offer to cut the number of trains operating dramatically in those hours when maintenance is possible.

If not, then it’s only grandstanding.

PS: The original electrification was not done on the cheap - it was designed and installed to cope with four multiple unit trains per hour in each direction. It worked as designed very well until the number of electrically powered trains rose dramatically.

Transport Secretary Mark Harper described it as a “serious incident”. Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall called on Sadiq Khan, who is the TfL chair, to “make a full apology to those affected”.

“What happened on the Elizabeth line was undoubtedly distressing for thousands of passengers. I hope TfL gets to the bottom of how this happened, so it can ensure this never happens again.”

I suspect he's concerning himself with his remit, although he seems to have catalysed something which will be to the benefit of all, in contrast there's been a deafening silence from the upper reaches of GWR.