Mintona
Established Member
GWR and Network Rail are apparently working on new sectional running times at the moment to finalise the draft timetable for next January but I fully expect GWR to deliver the promised fastest journey time between London and Worcester of two hours, with other services taking five to 10 minutes more, depending on calling patterns.
Apart from all the extra Bristol off-peak services (and I think the third South Wales service each hour in the peaks) that will be introduced next January and will, er, run non-stop for long distances at sustained high speed between Paddington and Bristol Parkway
The biggest challenge is going to be finding fast paths in amongst the stopping paths. Presumably you’ll want the Bristol trains departing Paddington every 15 minutes; it will be tight to keep the stopping train ahead (supposing stops at Reading, Didcot and Swindon) by the time the fast train reaches Wootton Bassett Junction. I have little doubt that it can be done technically, but in real life, particularly with the bottleneck that is Didcot East Junction, it’ll require things to run pretty much perfectly. And that’s before you add in 2 South Wales trains and 1 to Cheltenham using the first 77 miles of track, never mind freight and other bits and bobs.
Very interested to see how the new timetable will fit in.