Platform work to delay Paddington to Cheltenham trains

[whole diary]

[Andypandy]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-20910387
 

Refurbishment work at Reading station will mean trains travelling between London and Cheltenham Spa will travel at an average speed of less than 50mph.

From April the service will leave Paddington 12 minutes early but the original timetable will apply at the Gloucestershire end.

It means passengers will have to wait more than 20 minutes at Gloucester.

Network Rail apologised for the delays but said once complete, journeys would be much improved.

"The planned timetable change for April is a temporary measure owing to the works to remodel Reading station to unlock a bottleneck," a spokesman said.

'One of worst'
 
"Four platforms are being renovated and will be closed, with another four reopening, reducing the number of paths for trains along the route during this time.

"This means that trains from London Paddington to Cheltenham Spa have to remain for a number of minutes at Gloucester until a path is free," he added.

Barry Doe, a contributor to Rail magazine, said at the best of times the intercity service between the capital and Cheltenham was "one of the two worst" in the country.

He added the revised timetable would make the journey between the capital and Cheltenham Spa station nearly two-and-an-a-half hours.

"If you were travelling from London to Manchester instead you'd have arrived there and be walking into the city centre in two-and-a-quarter hours," he added.

[bobm]

To be honest I am surprised they didn't cut the service back to become a Swindon/Cheltenham shuttle as they do at times of disruption.

[Southern Stag]

It is quite a strange situation. It seems that they can't run at xx48 any more because the xx45 Swansea service is leaving Reading a couple of minutes later because an XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) service which currently uses Platform 9 will instead be using Platform 8 and running on the main lines to Reading West Junction. That means there is no longer a path between the xx45 Swansea and xx50 Oxford service. The earlier arrival at Gloucester means that two services will depart for Cheltenham Spa whilst the through service from London sits there.

[paul7575]

So

... The earlier arrival at Gloucester means that two services will depart for Cheltenham Spa whilst the through service from London sits there.

So won't the journey planners therefore automatically recommend passengers change to one of the earlier services - and this will be a bit of a non-issue?

By the way I don't quite follow this line in the quoted article:

"Four platforms are being renovated and will be closed, with another four reopening..."

It really doesn't reflect what we know is actually happening. None of the existing four through platforms is actually being closed until August, and there are four brand new platforms opening, not reopening.  The issues are primarily due to limitations of the interim track layout west of the station, not the actual numbers of platforms available... 

Does this mean they asked the wrong spokesman?

Paul

[ellendune]

Can someone explain the logic of this one to me.

Got the 06:50 Swindon to Cheltenham today.

This now leaves Paddington at 05:36 and was waiting in P3 at Swindon when I arrived at 06:40.  After waiting for ten minutes till its booked time of 06:50 we proceed a few more yards to sit and wait for the 07:01 Swindon to Paddington to clear the single line section on time. 

We could have easily left at 06:55 and saved the wait. 

Why so much slack in these services now?  I seem to recall someone saying it was to do with the new layout at Reading, but there are now twice as many platforms for westbound HST^▸ (High Speed Train (Inter City class 43 125 units)) than there were before.  If any re-timing surely it should be on the return services.

Can someone explain?

[Southern Stag]

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=11824.msg123780#msg123780

I've explained it in the above post, it's to do with the replatforming of XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) services basically. Platforms for XC services have had to change at Reading because of the loss of the bay, Platform 3.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Admin note:

With thanks to Southern Stag for his helpful link to a previous discussion on this particular subject, I've taken the opportunity to merge these topics here, in the interests of continuity and ease of future reference.