Why don't SWT Fasts Stop at Clapham Junction

[TEW]

So the current situation is fine then, off-peak Clapham has direct trains to both Exeter and Poole.

 

[455driver]

I am really confused by this thread. Up until July 10th, 1967 when the infamous new timetable was introduced, I took the 07:10 from Guildford to Waterloo via Cobham every morning. It stopped at Clapham Junction P8 at 07:58. And it was nearly always dead on time enabling me to catch the 07:59 to Beckenham Jn. And I can assure you I had no trouble getting off the train (a 4SUB in the early 60s and a 4EPB later). Maybe I was young and could jump the 10 feet out of the door down onto the platform.

It was, I think, the only train of the day to stop at P8. And nothing stopped at p7 and I could never understand why p7 existed. So what is all this stuff about p8 all about?

Pardon my cynicism, but it seems that nothing works on the railways any more. And there is always some bogus excuse that we are meant to believe without questioning. Brakes that don't work because of leaves. Timetables that have such built-in slack to make the trains run on time that they must have been invented to counter Mussolini, or to ensure bonuses for railway management. It used to take 19 or 21 minutes from Waterloo to Hinchley Wood in those days. Now it takes well over half an hour - and most of that is not due to slow line running, but to crawling behind slow trains and stopping at nearly every signal. Sorry to go off-topic but there is a pattern here and it nothing to do with the design of platform 8 at Clapham Jn. It's time for the Regulator to get heavy on the operators, stop buying into all their excuses, and tell them he will get someone else to do the job if they won't.

The Cobhams run slow line because they stop at more stations in the London suburbs than they used to!

As for the rest of your post- what a complete lack of knowledge you have about modern railway operating practices, most of them due to health and safety and the present suing culture in which we live.

I do Cobhams quite often and very rarely get stopped at a red signal but what the hell do I know, I just drive the trains! :roll:

 

[SansPareil]

Looking beyond what other posters have said about the dramatic reduction in the number of paths stopping fast trains would have, could Clapham Junction cope with the extra passengers?

Recent 'improvements' to the overbridge have seen retail units installed that remove circulating space between the busiest platforms.

Peaktime Overground trains northbound are already at capacity with a large number of customers alighting at West Brompton and Shepherds Bush, many to presumably access the Underground network and some of the platforms are frequently crowded and sometimes dangerously overcrowded.

I personally think whats required is a strategic rethink of what the station does, and how it peforms. I can't see that happening within the next 20 years though

 

[TheWalrus]

So the current situation is fine then, off-peak Clapham has direct trains to both Exeter and Poole.

That's not necessarily what I'm saying, what I am saying is if the paths aren't there to stop the trains it can't be done without building more platforms and track!

 

[Eagle]

deleted

 

[PN42]

Perhaps you could present your own proposal for accelerating these particular trains, if they're doing such a bad job of it? It's such a quiet bit of railway too.

Thank you for asking for a proposal. My suggestion is that the Cobham line is put back on the fast tracks between Waterloo and Surbiton. This is where it started in the 1920s and where it stayed for the main part for the next 70 years - except in 1967 when some bright spark had the idea of putting it on the slow tracks for a few months. I rather suspect that one of the main reasons that it is such a quiet bit of railway, as you point out, is that people are so fed up with the crawl into town that they vote with their feet and drive. No doubt someone is going to scream that there is no space on the fast tracks, or that Earlsfield needs more trains so that the travelers from Clandon and other stations just better sit there for a few more minutes. I don't buy it, and I can't imagine that many ticket purchasing travelers on the line buy it either.
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The Cobhams run slow line because they stop at more stations in the London suburbs than they used to!

As for the rest of your post- what a complete lack of knowledge you have about modern railway operating practices, most of them due to health and safety and the present suing culture in which we live.

I do Cobhams quite often and very rarely get stopped at a red signal but what the hell do I know, I just drive the trains! :roll:

First, thank you for driving on this line. No one is more important to the comfort and safety of the passenger than the driver, and I appreciate all that you do for us under stressful conditions.

I realize that the trains stop at more stations than they used to, and that is a problem that has totally degraded service on the line. IMHO it needs to be fixed and I have made a suggestion on that elsewhere - the answer is the fast line and less stops of course.

My lack of knowledge of many topics is indeed vast, and I appreciate you pointing this out to me and to others on this Board. I am a chartered engineer who sometimes does a good job, and sometimes not so good, and the nature of engineering is that one indeed does not know everything. Let me draw an analogy between the electronics industry and the railways. In 1967 I had a state of the art 6-transistor radio. In 1971 Intel brought out an integrated circuit with 2000 transistors. My iPhone 5 has 32bn transistors. And the result of this is that we have a resource in each of our pockets that is equivalent to all the computing power in all the universities in 1967. In 1967 the 17:32 Waterloo to Hinchley Wood arrived at 17:51. I know because I took it. Funnily enough there is a 17:32 today, and it arrives at 18:05. It takes 14 mins, or 74% longer. The word "pathetic" springs to mind.

Thank you for correcting me on the red signals. In the old days one could look out and see the red signals, and fortunately that is not possible today. I assume the crawl that we are subjected to must derive from the slack time tabling that you are forced to adhere to.

You make an excellent point about H&S. The 4SUBs were no doubt death traps measured by today's standards. But these kind of H&S improvements have had to be made by every industry, and are just a fact of life that for sure cost a fortune, but have to be dealt with as background. It is no excuse for a 74% longer journey time.

But we wander from the theme of this thread. The point is that doing something about P8 at Clapham Junction seems hardly to be beyond the skills of the railway engineering community. Modern underground stations have doors on the platform which would have seemed bizarre years ago. If there is a height and distance issue between the train and the platform at CJ, then I am sure that a solution could be found that involves in extremis a moving platform edge. Sounds expensive I know, but if the British engineering community is without ideas on the topic, then I am sure that the Chinese could develop something - and make it very cost competitively. All these things need are a little imagination, and admittedly a dose of cash. I am sure that Brunel would have found a cost effective answer.
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The dwell time in stations for a 4SUB would have been a lot shorter, as people typically started getting off before the train had stopped. Not officially allowed or good practice, but it made things faster when compared to a Desiro.

The railway is also busier than it was back then. There are plans I believe for a bidirectional relief line between Surbiton and Waterloo. Once this is installed it might be possible to have peak trains calling at Clapham Junction again. In the meantime it's unlikely anything will happen.

If everything's running on time, then you probably could have at least some trains calling at Clapham Junction in the peak. The real world however won't allow for perfect time keeping so some padding has to be added to allow the service to recover. Back in 1967, the railway wasn't punished for late trains. Nowadays they get fined heavily for every delay minute. This has forced the rail industry to consider its timetabling more carefully, and consequently timetables have in a many cases ended up slower because it makes them more reliable.

Yes indeed, the speed of on/offs was no doubt quicker in those days. I'd need to see a time and motion study, but I find it hard to believe that this was down to people opening the doors early - though I may be wrong. I suspect that the main issue is that the present design is not conducive to letting passengers on and off quickly - aka there are too few doors. But I truly don't know, and I am sure there are people on this Board who do, and who knows if something could be done about it anyway.

The railway is indeed busier today. But believe me, that 7:10am from Guildford in the 1960s could not have been more packed when it reached Clapham Junction. It was jam packed by New Malden actually, and trying to get off from the opposite side of the compartment was not always easy with people pushing on. So I think the "busy" aspect is more to do with the number of trains. I don't advocate for stopping at Clapham Junction in the rush hours. It sounds like chaos. As for the 5th track - sounds like a fantasy in my lifetime unless the economy gets one heck of a lot better.

And you bring up an issue for which there is no excuse. If the fining system is causing the operators to put in millions of passenger-minutes of slack time into their timetables then clearly the system is not working. What on earth is this costing the economy merely to implement a policy of fines? This is what I mean about the railways - there is always a bogus excuse, and someone needs to revisit the policy so that there is a balance between best efforts and poor performance by the train operators. Allowing building in a ton of slack time is a crazy solution to what is no doubt a real issue of holding the operators' feet to the fire.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Thank you for asking for a proposal. My suggestion is that the Cobham line is put back on the fast tracks between Waterloo and Surbiton. This is where it started in the 1920s and where it stayed for the main part for the next 70 years - except in 1967 when some bright spark had the idea of putting it on the slow tracks for a few months.

I'd imagine a problem with that suggestion, aside from the issue of paths on the fast lines, is that it presumes everyone from the Cobham line wants to go to Waterloo. I don't know what the situation was like in the 1960s, and I don't know about the Cobham line specifically, but from my observations of the suburban SWT lines in general, these days considerable numbers of commuters get off at

• Wimbledon (lots of offices there, besides the large shopping centre),
• Clapham Junction (changing to other lines, plus a large shopping centre outside the station)
• Vauxhall (for the Victoria line, which is much faster for getting to parts of central London than going to Waterloo would be. This is a connection which didn't exist in 1967).

Would you want to make it harder for Cobham line passengers to travel to those places?

I rather suspect that one of the main reasons that it is such a quiet bit of railway, as you point out, is that people are so fed up with the crawl into town that they vote with their feet and drive.

The other side to that is that if you ran Cobham line trains as fasts, you'd presumably cause many of the people who want to get to places like Wimbledon to drive.

 

[PN42]

If you can make a such a sweeping statement and believe it to be true then I would say your knowledge on railway engineering and how it works is poor. Without going off on a tangent there is slightly more to it than "leaves on the line = it goes tits up". Disruption from leaf fall is unfortunately a result of the industry moving away from mechanical signalling systems to electrical ones that are more sensitive to the elements and more importantly because the lineside are no longer kept clear of trees since the demise of the steam locomotive.




In most cases it's the TOC who have to go to Network Rail or the regulator to get permission to run a service and if it's deemed there is insuffient capacity it is vetoed. Contray to what the media says its not always the TOCs who are at blame its the bureaucracy and inflexibility of the system.

Monty - thank you for your attenuation of my, shall we say, passionately put views and for the excellent job you do on behalf of all of we travelers.

As I recall though, there was colour light signalling all the way from Waterloo to Hampton Court junction since before I started traveling in 1960. So I don't follow your argument regarding mechanical signaling, at least for the inner suburban area. Now it is possible that the old electrical signaling systems had electro-mechanical devices that were less sensitive than modern all electronic switches. But if that is a problem then the electrical engineer needs to be re-thinking his design. Technology should advance not retard the system in terms of operating efficiency. I take the point about the trees not being cut. So, in the busiest parts of the system, instead of spending billions of pounds on a 5th track, why not cut the trees like in the old days? Seems like a no brainer to me.

I totally get your point on who is to blame. Probably no one and everyone. There are too many layers of people and organisations is the issue. Each of them no doubt drawing up conflicting rules, fines for each other, strategies etc. We used to be so rude about BR in the old days, but at least we knew who was to blame in those days.

It is truly amazing that the Southern Railway implemented in only 15 years an electrification scheme for the whole of south London, as well as drawing up plans for further out, that was the envy of the world. That would be totally impossible with the bloated bureaucracy today.
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I'd imagine a problem with that suggestion, aside from the issue of paths on the fast lines, is that it presumes everyone from the Cobham line wants to go to Waterloo. I don't know what the situation was like in the 1960s, and I don't know about the Cobham line specifically, but from my observations of the suburban SWT lines in general, these days considerable numbers of commuters get off at

• Wimbledon (lots of offices there, besides the large shopping centre),
• Clapham Junction (changing to other lines, plus a large shopping centre outside the station)
• Vauxhall (for the Victoria line, which is much faster for getting to parts of central London than going to Waterloo would be. This is a connection which didn't exist in 1967).

Would you want to make it harder for Cobham line passengers to travel to those places?




The other side to that is that if you ran Cobham line trains as fasts, you'd presumably cause many of the people who want to get to places like Wimbledon to drive.

Dynamic - you were quick to spot a flaw in my argument that is a real one. One really cannot keep everyone happy and I acknowledge that. The matter is indeed complex and there is no easy solution.

Getting to Clapham Junction in the 60s after the 7:30am from Guildford was a problem. The next train only stopped at Wimbledon and after that it was a case of changing at Surbiton. And there is the rub today. Between 8 and 9 am from Surbiton there were 4 Hampton Court slow line trains to Waterloo in those days and 4 Cobham fast line trains. Now there are two of each. A cut to 50%. Changing trains is ok when there are plenty to change to. But it is not ok if the service frequency is poor, and a half hourly service in the rush hour is indeed poor.

The thing is that there are still plenty of Cobham line travelers who go to Waterloo as evidenced by the two non-stops in the morning today. This is the problem with lengthening trains actually. You solve one problem and you create another one.

And by the way, there must be people who want to go from Southampton to Wimbledon. They have the same problem as their trains don't stop.

My main issue with the Cobham service is outside the rush hour. It crawls, and if it reverted to the fast line and stopped at Wimbledon as it used to, then there would be plenty of connections there to Clapham Junction and Vauxhall - as there were years ago. So actually I think that the whole worry about P8 at Clapham Jn is moot to be honest.

Nothing ever really changes in life. We have computers today to figure out the best timetables, but I doubt for one second that they achieve any more than the experienced guys with a pen and paper did years ago. And the basic issues of the timetable don't change - they only get worse as the traffic gets higher. The need for regular platform 8 stopping at Clapham Junction was not clear 50 years ago, and I don't think much has changed because you can't please all of the people all of the time.

 

[NSEFAN]

Yes indeed, the speed of on/offs was no doubt quicker in those days. I'd need to see a time and motion study, but I find it hard to believe that this was down to people opening the doors early - though I may be wrong. I suspect that the main issue is that the present design is not conducive to letting passengers on and off quickly - aka there are too few doors. But I truly don't know, and I am sure there are people on this Board who do, and who knows if something could be done about it anyway.

You are right about the door arrangements. Having a door in each seating bay is extremely efficient at getting people on/off the train. It's not only having fewer doors that is a problem with the Desiros, but the time it takes to get them unlocked. A delay of 10 seconds or so from the train stopping to the guard unlocking the doors soon adds up when you consider how many trains are running in the peak.

Selective Door Opening is being installed on the SWT route, which hopefully will allow the guard to open the doors sooner once the train has stopped. Currently, the guard has to check if the train is in the platform, whereas SDO has the possibility of removing this check, so the doors can be opened immediately after the train stops.

The railway is indeed busier today. But believe me, that 7:10am from Guildford in the 1960s could not have been more packed when it reached Clapham Junction. It was jam packed by New Malden actually, and trying to get off from the opposite side of the compartment was not always easy with people pushing on. So I think the "busy" aspect is more to do with the number of trains. I don't advocate for stopping at Clapham Junction in the rush hours. It sounds like chaos. As for the 5th track - sounds like a fantasy in my lifetime unless the economy gets one heck of a lot better.

When I said busier, I meant that there are more trains running. Apologies for not making this clearer. Peak time trains are crush loaded today as well, so I'd hate to think what would happen if SWT decided to run a 1960s timetable for the number of people travelling today! The 5th running line proposal has raised its head a couple of times on this forum, but I'm not sure if it's official. To my mind it is inevitable that more running lines will be added, unless the commuter routes can be cleared for proper double decker trains, which would also be costly!

And you bring up an issue for which there is no excuse. If the fining system is causing the operators to put in millions of passenger-minutes of slack time into their timetables then clearly the system is not working. What on earth is this costing the economy merely to implement a policy of fines? This is what I mean about the railways - there is always a bogus excuse, and someone needs to revisit the policy so that there is a balance between best efforts and poor performance by the train operators. Allowing building in a ton of slack time is a crazy solution to what is no doubt a real issue of holding the operators' feet to the fire.

The concept of fining train operators for late trains is something most people would probably agree with. Afterall, we pay the TOCs our money to get us from A to B, so the least they can do is get us there on time. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and sadly "too much" padding is a side effect of this burning desire to get every train running exactly on time.

To a degree, padding the timetable is actually a good thing for several reasons;
1) Minor disruption is less likely to cause a late arrival.
2) Recovering the service from major disruption is easier, as there is enough padding between trains for minutes to be made up.
3) Psychology: given the choice, I'm sure passengers would be glad to know that they've arrived 5 minutes early than 5 late into Waterloo.

Padding also doesn't cost any money to add to the timetable, whereas spending millions more on more expensive, better quality maintenance does. We all want a world-class railway, but who is going to pay for it?

 

[Tomnick]

Just a few more thoughts, since 'PN42' has taken the time to put together such well-composed posts!

If I'm not mistaken, the junction for the Cobham line is grade-separated, branching off the slow line in each direction. Trains going that way, then, would need to cross fast to slow at some point if they ran fast line from Waterloo - which would be quite a significant performance risk on a busy railway and might affect the overall capacity. I suspect (others might confirm?) that the inner suburban stations' demand justifies a more frequent service nowadays, and these trains contribute towards that. Clearly something else would have to pick up these calls if the Cobhams were to run fast - where would these run to, whilst not getting in the way of the others?

Now, slack in timetables. This comes in different forms. I'd guess that most 'slack' is actually the various allowances - pathing and engineering allowances, mainly - that are a necessary part of timetables to make them work. They must comply with a comprehensive set of planning rules that specify such details as the minimum headway (time between trains), margins at junctions and platform reoccupation times. Sometimes it's necessary for pathing time to be inserted into a schedule where it'd otherwise reach a junction too soon, or catch a previous train up. That's about making the timetable workable, rather than an attempt at fudging the figures. Similarly for engineering allowances - it's inevitable that there will sometimes be temporary speed restrictions that mean trains take a minute or two longer through a certain section than normal. Inserting engineering allowances in sensible locations (required by timetable planning rules??) means that the timetable won't fall apart as a result.

There's often a differential between the working timetable arrival time and the public arrival time at the terminus, which seems to be widely accepted as a means of reducing the chance of the TOC paying out for a late arrival. Although I don't doubt that there's an element of this, I look at it from the other point of view - as a passenger, wouldn't you prefer your train to reliably arrive at or before its advertised time, so that you can plan what happens next with relative confidence, than for it to have a more optimistic arrival time that it's much less likely to actually make?

 

[swt_passenger]

If I'm not mistaken, the junction for the Cobham line is grade-separated, branching off the slow line in each direction. Trains going that way, then, would need to cross fast to slow at some point if they ran fast line from Waterloo - which would be quite a significant performance risk on a busy railway and might affect the overall capacity.

There are already trains that make that move, a few each way in the peaks, so it isn't necessarily impossible to weave fast to slow, but some of them are Portsmouth trains that are going that way to avoid the congestion at Woking. Basically anything that PN42 wishes to add to the fast lines will require something else to be removed to make space - as pointed out early in the thread they run trains at an average 2.5 minute headway (24 tph) up the fasts from Surbiton inbound, and use all those paths except two that are there to allow for the usual peak perturbations.

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...The 5th running line proposal has raised its head a couple of times on this forum, but I'm not sure if it's official. To my mind it is inevitable that more running lines will be added, unless the commuter routes can be cleared for proper double decker trains, which would also be costly!

It definitely has the status of an official proposal, it's described in some detail in the London and SE RUS - (complete with possible track layouts) but it is important to point out that it is either/or with Crossrail 2, they won't build it if Crossrail 2 goes ahead. So it isn't as inevitable as you suggest.

Concur with DD trains being highly unlikely, but we've done that debate to death before...

 

[Monty]

Monty - thank you for your attenuation of my, shall we say, passionately put views and for the excellent job you do on behalf of all of we travelers.

As I recall though, there was colour light signalling all the way from Waterloo to Hampton Court junction since before I started traveling in 1960. So I don't follow your argument regarding mechanical signaling, at least for the inner suburban area. Now it is possible that the old electrical signaling systems had electro-mechanical devices that were less sensitive than modern all electronic switches. But if that is a problem then the electrical engineer needs to be re-thinking his design. Technology should advance not retard the system in terms of operating efficiency. I take the point about the trees not being cut. So, in the busiest parts of the system, instead of spending billions of pounds on a 5th track, why not cut the trees like in the old days? Seems like a no brainer to me.

Yes you are quite right, the London end of the SWML and the suburban area had Track Circuit Block signalling quite early on (though I must say the presence of a colourlight signal does not mean that TCB is in use). Another factor I should have probably mentioned is that leaf fall also means increased breaking distances and drivers are often forced to drive at lower speeds to avoid 'over shooting the platforms at stations, I'm sure you can understand how this also doesn't help matters further.

I truely believe most of our problems during leaf fall season could be remedied by keeping the lineside clear of foliage, however Network Rail do not have the same number of permanent way staff as BR did in the 60s so I hate to say it I think such an task would not be feasable.

I do apologise if I came across crass in my earlier post I confess I was tired and in a grouchy mood.

 

[455driver]

Another factor I should have probably mentioned is that leaf fall also means increased braking distances and drivers are often forced to drive at lower speeds to avoid 'over shooting the platforms at stations, I'm sure you can understand how this also doesn't help matters further.

I truly believe most of our problems during leaf fall season could be remedied by keeping the lineside clear of foliage, however Network Rail do not have the same number of permanent way staff as BR did in the 60s so I hate to say it I think such an task would not be feasible.

Most of the times (at least with the 455) we cant get up to any sort of speed simply because the wheels keep spinning because of the lack of grip, and yes I do hand notch them but that also means the train will be slower.

I have noticed a lot of trees have been felled over the last couple of years, they seem to be thinning them out rather than cut them all down, so the problems are being addressed.

 

[Monty]

Quite, it's so easy to overlook just how much a pain in the backside leaf fall can be. I've also noticed that NR have made some effort to thin lineside tree growth though I don't think we'll be ever going back to a railway where lines were almost exclusively clear of trees.

 

[mister-sparky]

This whole thread is a bit pointless really isn't it...

THEY WOULDN'T BE "FASTS" IF THEY STOPPED LESS THAN 10 MINS OUT OF WATERLOO!!!!!

 

[causton]

This whole thread is a bit pointless really isn't it...

THEY WOULDN'T BE "FASTS" IF THEY STOPPED LESS THAN 10 MINS OUT OF WATERLOO!!!!!

They don't call it the busiest station for nothing :roll:

 

[Muzer]

This whole thread is a bit pointless really isn't it...

THEY WOULDN'T BE "FASTS" IF THEY STOPPED LESS THAN 10 MINS OUT OF WATERLOO!!!!!

Just like the trains on HS1 aren't fast

 

[SansPareil]

Just like the trains on HS1 aren't fast

Or the Euston to Manchester services that stop at Stockport, or the ICE services in Berlin that call at both Hautbahnhoff and Ostbahnhoff...

 

[Muzer]

Or Südkreuz

 

[cle]

Not to mention Waterloo East...

 

[Bedpan]

Which is only threequarters of a mile from Charing Cross, and then London Bridge after a further mile, so that's two stops in 1.75 miles.

 

[heart-of-wessex]

This whole thread is a bit pointless really isn't it...

THEY WOULDN'T BE "FASTS" IF THEY STOPPED LESS THAN 10 MINS OUT OF WATERLOO!!!!!

Doesn't stop Brighton Fasts calling at Clapham and Croydon from Victoria though. Going back to the 80's there was at least one XC service out of Paddington that called at Ealing Broadway. I believe there's some HST's that still call at Slough too. So SWT wouldn't be an exemption of slowing down not far off from a London Terminal.

Fast's aren't really fast's anymore, compared to what they used to be when areas had less demand.

 

[swt_passenger]

Doesn't stop Brighton Fasts calling at Clapham and Croydon from Victoria though.

How does the peak frequency on the SN fast lines compare with SWT? Unless they're the same they won't have the same headway and dwell time conflicts.

I see from a quick check of Realtimetrains that between 1800 and 1900 there are 19 down services through P9, but only 13 through P13, so SN's peak is about as busy as SWT's off-peak?

... and Slough is more comparable with Woking than Clapham Jn, in terms of distance from the terminus.

 

[Drsatan]

. I believe there's some HST's that still call at Slough too.

Fast's aren't really fast's anymore, compared to what they used to be when areas had less demand.

Yes, that's right, fast services to Oxford still call at Slough, although I think it was proposed many years ago that fast services no longer call at Slough.

A lot of services can no longer be considered 'fast' like Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads services - I believe in the early 1980s there were HSTs that ran fast from Paddington to Bath Spa.

 

[heart-of-wessex]

How does the peak frequency on the SN fast lines compare with SWT? Unless they're the same they won't have the same headway and dwell time conflicts.

I see from a quick check of Realtimetrains that between 1800 and 1900 there are 19 down services through P9, but only 13 through P13, so SN's peak is about as busy as SWT's off-peak?

... and Slough is more comparable with Woking than Clapham Jn, in terms of distance from the terminus.

I'm not pointing out what's busier, SN or SWT, the post said it's not a fast if it calls 10 minutes out of Waterloo, to me that read's it's not a fast if it stops in the Travelcard zone again up the road or has to stop in a short-ish distance from it's start point.

Like Slough, compared to Woking maybe but going by '10 minutes' it is just over 10 minutes (13 1/2 minutes) to Slough non stop (passing the station). But as Drsatan say's, a fast in the early day's was pretty much fast to Swindon or Bath then Bristol. A proper express would also be the Swansea's, forget about any stop in England from Paddingon, most were straight non-stop to Newport or Cardiff.

 

[swt_passenger]

I'm not pointing out what's busier, SN or SWT, the post said it's not a fast if it calls 10 minutes out of Waterloo, to me that read's it's not a fast if it stops in the Travelcard zone again up the road or has to stop in a short-ish distance from it's start point.

Like Slough, compared to Woking maybe but going by '10 minutes' it is just over 10 minutes (13 1/2 minutes) to Slough non stop (passing the station). But as Drsatan say's, a fast in the early day's was pretty much fast to Swindon or Bath then Bristol. A proper express would also be the Swansea's, forget about any stop in England from Paddingon, most were straight non-stop to Newport or Cardiff.

Ah, I see. I thought you were using SN stopping at Clapham Jn as justification for SWT to do so, given that calling more often was the basic proposal of recent posters...

 

[Antman]

Does seem a bit odd to non stop such a busy station, I appreciate the capacity issues at peak times but why can't all off peak SWT trains stop there?

 

[transmanche]

A lot of services can no longer be considered 'fast' like Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads services - I believe in the early 1980s there were HSTs that ran fast from Paddington to Bath Spa.

I don't know about the 1980s, but I did see from a BBC On This Day article that when the HST was introduced in 1976, the 08:05 from Paddington to Bristol TM only called at Reading and Bath en route (taking 1 hr 33 mins). Whereas today's 08:00 stops at Reading, Didcot, Swindon, Chippenham and Bath (taking 1 hour 45 mins).

And I'd love it if the 08:00 was as empty as 1976's 08:05; which, according to the report, was about a third full. Just goes to show how commuting patterns have changed over the past 37 years.

 

[Drsatan]

Does seem a bit odd to non stop such a busy station, I appreciate the capacity issues at peak times but why can't all off peak SWT trains stop there?

Presumably because stopping all off-peak services at CLJ would mean that it would be more difficult to time others. A good example is the hourly off-peak Salisbury to London Waterloo service, which doesn't stop at CLJ, presumably because adding a stop there today would have knock-on effects.

 

[GodAtum]

I've been the victim of late SWT trains skipping Clapham Junction a few times. Not sure if there is more space to build additional platforms?