"D DB 90001" wrote

Pardon me for stating the obvious, however, surely the whole point of
crossrail is to effectively divert all ex-Heathrow Connect and FGW-
Local services into tunnels. Therefore, platform 12 will be largely
redundant (as will 13 and 14, however they are not in the immediate
vicinity...). Unfortunately Platform 11 would also be cut short if the
buffers were to be relocated. Interestingly enough, platform 11's
length is limited to 8 carriages unless platform 12 is out-of-use
because of the placement of the points to access platform 12.
Therefore, if platform 12 was permenantly closed, then the length of
platform 11 would be increased from 8 to 14 carriages permanently. If
it was shortened by 2 carriage lengths then it would still have a
total length of 12 carriages, the same length as platforms 4-10.



It's several years before Crossrail trains will head down the GW Relief
Lines, and until then Paddington needs all its existing platforms. 11 and 12
could probably be shortened a bit, but they'd still both need to be able to
hold 6-car trains of 23 metre stock.

After Crossrail, it partly depends on whether someone (DfT, are you
listening) gets a grip and extends Crossrail to Reading. If Paddington
terminus sends all its trains down the Mains, its difficult to see how it
will need more than 11 platforms. So the buffer stops could be lined up, 12
made into a walkway, and to reduce congestion on the H&C platforms, close 13
and 16 and run trains from the City into 14 and trains to the City into 15.

Peter



So I would propose that 12 could be closed and 11 kept at a length of
approximately 12 carriages.

Regardless, if the buffers were relocated tomorrow, platform 12 would
still be usable for day-to-day operations because it is almost solely
devoted to serving Heathrow Connect services formed of 4 cars (and the
current platform length is 8 cars).

Of course, if you really want to go all in and get maximum platform
lengths, you could perform some serious trackwork changes and merge
platforms 12 and 13 to make use of the face of platform 12, without
jeopardising platform 11's length.

Cheers,

TSM