The Anonymous Widower

Towards A Thames Valley Metro!

After my visit yesterday to Twyford Station and the Henley Branch and today to The Marlow Branch, I think something bigger could be emerging.

On the Great Western Main Line, between Paddington and Didcot, there are several branch lines and other more major routes that run local services into Reading and/or Paddington.

Taken in order from Paddington, they are.

• Acton to Northolt Line – 11 miles – Rather a leftover line that gets used for all sorts of traffic, including freight, diversions and driver training.
• Greenford Branch from West Ealing – 2.7 miles – Another leftover line, that is being rerouted to a bay platform at West Ealing – Could be transferred to the London Overground.
• Brentford Branch Line – 4 miles – Freight only
• Staines and West Drayton Line – 5.5 miles – Freight only.
• Windsor and Eton Branch from Slough – 2.5 miles
• Marlow Branch from Maidenhead – 7.15 miles – I wrote about it in The Marlow Branch.
• Henley Branch from Twyford – 4.5 miles – I wrote about it in Twyford Station and the Henley Branch
• Waterloo to Reading Line – Electrified, but links to the North Downs Line for Gatwick Airport, which isn’t!
• Reading to Basingstoke Line – To be electrified, with possibly some extra stations.
• Cherwell Valley Line from Didcot Parkway – To be electrified.

What follows are my observations.

Class 387 IPEMU Trains

Great Western Railway is to receive twenty-nine Class 387 trains from Thameslink and eight new ones from the factory.

These could easily be upgraded to IPEMU variants by the addition of batteries.

Once the power is switched on as far as Didcot Parkway station, I suspect that all these mainly short branches could be run using IPEMU trains, if passenger services were required or required to be run by electric trains.

Some like Greenford, Windsor and Eton, Marlow and Henley, would be as now, one train per branch. But elderly two car diesels would be replaced by new four car electric trains with a superior performance.

In Rumours of Battery Powered Trains, I reported on an article in Modern Railways magazine, which speculated that the extra Class 387 trains were to be IPEMUs and that they could be used on routes like Bedwyn and Oxford.

So it’s not my speculation!

Electrification Of The Branches

Some of the branches like Marlow Branch with its unusual layout and the Bourne End bridge and Windsor and Eton Branch with the historic nature of where it goes, will not be straightforward, as I suspect the heritage lobby will have a field day. As I wrote in Why We Should Use Independently Powered Electric Trains, the opposition to electrification in sensitive areas is stirring.

Electrification of the Greenford Branch might be more straightforward, but with five stations and a terminus in a bay platform at Greenford, I would suspect that a dedicated Class 387 IPEMU would cost less and only require the bay platform at West Ealing station to be electrified.

North Downs Line

In some ways, the North Downs Line is the most interesting, as I think that a dual-voltage IPEMU could easily supply a high quality service between Reading and Gatwick.

At present the direct service is hourly and takes around eighty minutes, using a two car Class 156 train.

Reading to Gatwick by Crossrail and Thameslink could on current figures and predictions for Crossrail times, take a few minutes over a hundred.

So the current direct route is quicker now with Class 165 diesel trains!

What difference would a faster four-car electric train make?

Crossrail’s Effect On The Great Western Main Line

The biggest effect will be when Crossrail arrives at all stations on the Great Western Main Line from Paddington to Reading.

Stations like Slough, Maidenhead and Twyford, where branches connect, will see a positive effect, as I suspect that more connections to and from the branches will be easier and involve less waiting.

Improving Services On The Branches

I think we could see some reorganisation of the services on the branch lines to give increased frequencies?

I think if Great Western Railway take the IPEMU route instead of electrifying the branches, there is scope for providing improved services from Slough to Reading and on the branches in the area. Diagrams could be arranged that after trundling down a few branches, the IPEMU did a section on the electrified lines to charge the batteries.

On thing I noticed on my trip to Marlow, was that Network Rail seem to be installing a lot of bay platforms at Crossrail stations. Some are London-facing for flexibility in the Crossrail schedules, but some are facing the other way. Could Network Rail be thinking out of the box and making sure, they don’t compromise any possible future services?

Reading As An Important Hub

As the routes develop, it would almost be like a Thames Valley Metro centred on the extremely well-connected Reading.

• Great Western Railway to Wales, the West Country and London
• Crossrail to London and beyond.
• Cross-Country Trains to the South, Midlands and North
• In a few years time the East West Rail Link could join Reading to Oxford, Milton Keynes, Bedford and the East.

The Class 387 IPEMU trains could serve the following stations from Reading, with very little extra electrification and perhaps the odd curve or two.

• Basingstoke
• Bedwyn
• Gatwick Airport
• Heathrow Airport
• Henley-on-Thames
• London Paddington
• Marlow
• Newbury
• Oxford
• Windsor and Eton Central
• Wokingham

If the Marlow Branch were to be extended, the trains could even reach High Wycombe.

Reading is going to have a very interesting time!

December 12, 2015 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Class 387 Train, Electrification, Great Western Railway, IPEMU, Reading Station, Trains