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It's a start. If, as I said, Crossrail kills HEx off (which I think it well could), that's 4 more fast paths - then implementing pick up/set down restrictions at least in the peaks may well be workable.
(Those peak only restrictions work reasonably well on the WCML - OK, the odd passenger knows which trains stop and gets away with it southbound[1], but they aren't the problem, the main aim of keeping overcrowding off the VTs is still achieved).
[1] You are unlikely to get away with it northbound as manual barrier checks are done on most trains these days. Automated barriers at Euston seem still confined to P1-3. Southbound there is no real way to control it bar shouting at people like they do at Watford; you can't block P4 as P3 is the main northbound slow platform.
We've had this this discussion previously! Although I agree with the concept of keeping the longer distance and shorter flows separated, in practice it is not easy.
Firstly, some numbers. Using the ORR figures, Reading has, roundly, 16 million entrances and exits annually and some 4 million interchanges, while Milton Keynes has 7 million entrances and exits and less than 500,000 interchanges. So Reading has more than twice the number of entrances and exits and 8 times the number of interchanges - managing these flows and keeping people off those non-stop services to and from London which start from further afield will be very difficult. A large number of people interchanging arrive at Reading from different routes (Basingstoke, Newbury, Didcot, Oxford and Wokingham) - a situation which does not exist at a station on a linear route such as MK - and expect to get to London quickly. Why should they be banned from the fast trains?
What works at a smallish station such as Milton Keynes may not work at a busy interchange such as Reading.
There are also implementation issues. At Paddington Platform 1 is ungated as are 8 and 9 as all these offer a route from Praed Street / The Lawn to the Hammersmith & City and Circle Line platforms at the west end of the station. Unless a fenced-off route is created these platforms will remain ungated. The gateline for Platforms 2 to 5 (and potentially 6 and 7 if HEx ceases to operate) feed
all the platforms in the group, so it will be very difficult to keep a passenger for Reading off a Plymouth service if this leaves a few minutes before a Reading-only service from a nearby platform. Similarly the higher number platforms, 10 to 14, are also, essentially, treated as another group.
At Reading, the fast services coming from further west leave from Platforms 10 and 11, the two sides of an island which is reached by stairs and escalators from both sides of the overbridge and by lifts equidistant between the two sets of escalators and stairs. The layout may be seen
here. I cannot see how any form of access control to these platforms can be introduced at bridge level without throttling the flow of passengers across the bridge. And how can one restrict travel? A ticket to London is a ticket to London and is, subject to any time restrictions, valid on any train - if restrictions according to train
type are introduced then the much vaunted 'walk-up' railway will fade away.
The key to limiting demand on the non-stop trains is to increase the number of seats on offer at the peak times. From January next year the number of Class 387 services running non-stop, or limited stop, from Reading to London will increase significantly by starting them back from Didcot as posted by Jimm a couple of posts ago. Persuasion is the key to keeping people happy, not coercion which only increases the number of discontents.
