The Anonymous Widower

Getting To Paddington Station

Over the last couple of weeks, as I’ve been taking my Before Crossrail pictures and going to St. Ives, I’ve been going to Paddington station, rather a lot.

If I haven’t got tickets and I’m going to say Reading or Slough, I always go via Dalston Junction to get the tickets in the machine there, as I get the best price that is otherwise only available with the hassle of queuing up at a Ticket Office.

Transport for London’s recommended route says get to Highbury and Islington station and use the Victoria and Bakerloo lines to get to Paddington. It suggests a time of just over thirty minutes.

But there are some problems with this route, especially if I get a bus to Highbury and Islington.

• There is as much walking, as going to Dalston Junction.
• The ticket machines at Highbury and Islington don’t issue tickets from the Zone 6 Boundary, so I have to pay for an unneeded journey from Paddington to West Drayton.
• In the rush hour or at busy times, this route is horrendous, due to the inadequate Victoria line.
• Sometimes, buses to the station are hard to find, due to heavy traffic on the Balls Pond Road.

It may be the quickest at times, but it is never the easiest.

I tend to go one of two routes.

1. I often use the Overground to Whitechapel and then the Hammersmith and City line to Paddington. This route has the advantage that it is air-conditioned all the way, but it takes about a dozen minutes longer, than the recommended route.
2. If I take a bus to Kings Cross and then take the Hammersmith and City line, this can be around forty minutes.

But if I want to go on a main line train out of Paddington, it puts me at the wrong end of the station, unless I have a booked train.

Today, I’m going to Cardiff on the 13:45 train out of Paddington. As I’m taking my own gluten-free sandwiches and I won’t have to buy a drink, I shall use the Whitechapel route, leaving before 12:30.

Crossrail will change all this in that I’ll still get to Whitechapel in eight minutes and then it’ll be thirteen minutes to Paddington. So it should be under half-an-hour between the two stations and we’ll all probably be delivered to the convenient end of Paddington.

It is interesting to apply my mother’s rule of two minutes a station and five minutes for an interchange to the before and after Crossrail routes via Whitechapel.

Before Crossrail – 35 minutes

After Crossrail – 23 minutes

It’ll be fascinating to see whether the twenty-three minute figure is regularly beaten. Hopefully as the interchange at Whitechapel will be quicker, Paddington station will be much easier and the trains on Crossrail will be very frequent, this will be the case.

October 21, 2014 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Crossrail, Paddington Station, Trains