1915 from London Paddington to Swansea

[whole diary]

[simonw]

I think tonight's train must be going for an overcrowding record.

All 8 carriages full and no standing room anywhere. People at Paddington where pleading for people to move up to no avail.

I accept that all trains are not this full, but the train manager should be allowed to suspend and odd stop, say Reading to help free up space. I know this is inconvenient for people, but there must be a limit to train overcrowding on long journeys

[phile]

Missing the Reading stop has happened with this train before.   It is booked only to pick up there but all the commuters for Reading who still get on it, got overcarried to Swindon.  Serves them right.

[ChrisB]

Sounds like it needs to happen again....

[Timmer]

The only way you are going to solve this is to remove the Reading stop entirely. Passengers from Reading for Parkway Westwards would need to travel on the service before and change at Swindon. Hardly a real hardship as both trains stop at Platform 4 so no changing of platforms required.

[grahame]

Would we be talking about the first super-off-peak train by any chance?  I remember when "off peak" meant "quieter" ...

[chrisr_75]

For a short while during the Reading station upgrade works, either this train or the one before it (18.45 off Paddington) were actually non-stopping Reading which meant they were busy but not crush loaded like the OP^▸ (Original Poster / topic starter, or Off Peak, depending on context)'s experience today. It made for a rather pleasant peak hours long distance trip back to South Wales. I do hope with Crossrail and the improvements to Reading station, that they ditch the Reading stop on a decent number of the longer distance services - passengers on the South Wales and Devon & Cornwall services would likely benefit most from this.

OP - I'm not sure if you were aware that it's the start of half term in many places today, there were also many numpties on the M4 this evening...

[chrisr_75]

Would we be talking about the first super-off-peak train by any chance?  I remember when "off peak" meant "quieter" ...

I think we may well be! And as I said, it's half term... 

[JayMac]

The only way you are going to solve this is to remove the Reading stop entirely. Passengers from Reading for Parkway Westwards would need to travel on the service before and change at Swindon. Hardly a real hardship as both trains stop at Platform 4 so no changing of platforms required.

That is not the only way.

The way to solve it is to stop Reading commuters boarding at Paddington. Enforce the 'pick-up only' rule at the gateline. Not inconvenience people travelling from Reading to South Wales by having them board a service 20 minutes earlier at Reading and then have them wait at Swindon for 15 minutes.

[ChrisB]

Must agree there. Possible too, if certain platform(s) used

[IndustryInsider]

I think tonight's train must be going for an overcrowding record.

All 8 carriages full and no standing room anywhere. People at Paddington where pleading for people to move up to no avail.

I accept that all trains are not this full, but the train manager should be allowed to suspend and odd stop, say Reading to help free up space. I know this is inconvenient for people, but there must be a limit to train overcrowding on long journeys

Did you see how full it was after departure from Reading?  It's a big call to temporarily remove a stop short notice as by the time you realise it's necessary everybody is on board.  Try telling 200+ Reading commuters they have to get off and you get mass protests and probable delays.

I'm all for removing the call 'permanently' (perhaps just on Fridays) on the busiest trains, providing the train either side has space on board.  That would usually be the case in this example as the 19:22 PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains)-HFD^» (Hereford - next trains) usually has some room on board.  What you don't want is the trains either side swamped and a train missing Reading that's only half full.

Longer term we just need to operate more trains, which as we know is the plan.  Another example of how badly the ratio switch between first/standard class was badly needed to help us survive until that point.

[ellendune]

There was talk of a Paddington - Reading fast shuttle at one time.  Then you could enforce the rules on other trains if you needed to.

[TaplowGreen]

There was talk of a Paddington - Reading fast shuttle at one time.  Then you could enforce the rules on other trains if you needed to.

You beat me to it, I was just thinking that! ..............then again as we are frequently advised from certain quarters, there is no health/safety risk involved in overcrowding, and no-one is "forced" to get on a train! 

[paul7575]

I do hope with Crossrail and the improvements to Reading station, that they ditch the Reading stop on a decent number of the longer distance services - passengers on the South Wales and Devon & Cornwall services would likely benefit most from this.

The recent versions of the post IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project. This will offer more capacity on routes, save money, give a consistent and safe service and meet customer requirements. Intended to replace HSTs.) service pattern (such as in the GW^» (Great Western - used as an abbreviation for the area / lines under the Great Western franchise, as opposed to FGW which includes "First", the company operating them too. For tickets - about) franchise brief) include 2 tph^▸ (trains per hour) non-stopping at Reading.  But it seems to be the additional pair of IEPs to Bristol via Parkway in the off-peak that they've chosen, in the peaks one of these becomes a fast Swansea service and also seems to skip Reading.

Paul

[Timmer]

The way to solve it is to stop Reading commuters boarding at Paddington. Enforce the 'pick-up only' rule at the gateline.

That's the problem, it's not bring enforced. How easy is it to actually do this when you have a scrum at the gateline? I guess in time this would lessen once Reading commuters got the message that the 'pick up only' rule was being enforced week in week out.

[TRAINMAN57]

What else doesn`t help is that the first super off peak to the west country(1903) also is pickup only at reading, and leaves from the adjacent platform!!!!