If that were to happen, yes - but nobody on this thread has suggested it has.
Skipping stops to recover time has been happening to my knowledge since the 70s.
Possibly, if fewer trains are worked with the same number of crews and units - but even then there will still be times when they aren't.
When that started, I found the whole thing fascinating ! Can just see the company expecting the controller to sit there with a calculator trying to find the best value service recovery mind!
Yes, but as the OP has said, in this case it is happening more often on the line that he (and I!) use. Looking at RTT recently they'll now pull stops even for a 5-10 min delay, even though there is a 15min turnround at Waterloo and 30mins at Reading. That never used to be the case - it had to be seriously impacting the back working for them to do that in the past.
There are creative ways of minimising the fines. So one of the things they used to do was pay GwR to serve either Acton mainline or west Ealing if they had to skip the stop for any reason so you would sometimes get the GwR reading stoppers stop at West Ealing or Acton main line
That’s not an issue at the Reading end.
Perhaps they could bin your stop, and speed up everyone else’s journey? Ah, thought not…
London Overground got much worse for this when Arriva got involved.
Does the train crew have a PNB* booked at Reading? That might be a factor?
No idea, tbh. But this never used to happen before - not under Stagecoach and not until recently under SWR. Just one more thing that underlines the railway's utter contempt for those who travel - the impression is that the railway operates for its own convenience.
Crews are not routinely booked PNBs at Reading as a matter of course. Occasionally during engineering works, rugby special turns, and a night turn for a while not so long ago that had its break there.
An entirely foreseeable consequence of misguided political interference?
It already takes 80 minutes to get from Waterloo to Reading, with, as I recall, there typically being minute long dwells at Staines, Ascot and Wokingham. It doesn't strike me that it should need to get any slower to operate a reliable timetable.
The fact that they aren't first stop Staines now should mean fewer delays in the London area as there is less need for a clear path (although I appreciate the pre-March 2020 stopping service in the London area is more intensive than sixty years ago).
It’s a result of a new way of measuring performance statistics known as T-3 introduced from 1st April (appropriately!) 2021. Previously lateness was measured based on the arrival time at the terminus station, now it is measured at every calling point en route. As the name suggests, every station served 3 or more minutes late counts as a failure and, therefore, presumably a penalty payment . It would appear that the alternative penalty payment for omitting to stop at the station is less, therefore it is that course of action which is taken. As per usual it is the fare paying passenger who is the unfortunate pawn in this game and is left standing on a station to watch his/her 4 minute late train pass through without stopping and arrive at its destination (where it had a half hour turn around time) early having left many of its intending customers behind in doing so. No doubt the statisticians and accountants who are behind this nonsense will be less pleased with themselves when the affected passengers vote with their feet and abandon the railway in favour of their cars. (I was going to say or fall victim to the policy themselves when travelling on the railway but then realised such a concept is so ridiculous that it could only have been sanctioned by someone who never used trains in the first place!)
Thank you. That explains it.
