swt_passenger
Veteran Member
- Joined
- 7 Apr 2010
- Messages
- 31,376
You’ve answered your own point. The IETs can run faster than the HST timings, but as regularly pointed out here, the timetable will not be changed to reflect this until Dec 2019.There is quite large amount of padding in the timetable. On the way west we had over 10 min wait in Reading and on the way back we were early passing through Bristol and so early in Reading that we had to wait 20 min for the departure. In fact guard suggested that there is train to Paddington departing earlier from the opposite platform.
I do understand why the padding exists but too much of it makes journey too slow and frustrating.
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Overall I found the units performing relatively well. Ride was smooth, noise level acceptable etc. I hope once the the timetable is rejigged they will speed up the services west.
But also, (having just scanned realtimetrains for Reading for Easter Sunday), numerous services were running on VAR timings anyway - a fairly common occurrence on weekends when there’s engineering work going on.
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