On May 5, 4:32*pm, MIG wrote:

On May 5, 4:28*pm, Mizter T wrote:

[snip news of Crossrail to Reading safeguarding measures]

It's only safeguarding of course, which doesn't mean it's actually
going to happen, just that if it ever does it'll be a bit easier.

There have been plenty of comments on these newsgroups in the past
that getting Crossrail to Reading might not be all that it's cracked
up to be in certain quarters, what with a Crossrail train from Reading
into central London being slower that a fast non-stop service to
Paddington (where interchange with Crossrail would of course be
available).

I don't hold any particularly strong opinions on this issue (not that
my opinions on such things really matter!), but I'd be interested if
anyone could explain why extending Crossrail to Reading is widely held
to be so important.

Given the ELLX experience, I wonder if there might yet be a tradeoff
so that the service for people heading to Reading from intermediate
stations is dramatically cut, and existing stopping services merely
replaced by Crossrail between Maidenhead and Paddington.

If Crossrail ever got to Reading, I'd fully expect it to take over
most if not all of the existing stopping services - indeed that would
only make sense, would it not?

In fact surely a large part of the argument for Crossrail going as far
as Reading is that of operational convenience - Crossrail would simply
take over the existing FGW Reading to Paddington stoppers. Indeed if
this weren't to happen then you'd have to deal with the issue of how
Crossrail trains that terminate at Maidenhead mesh with stopping
services from Paddington to Reading, when simply combining the two
services would be logical (or at least appears to be so). This
wouldn't leave passengers any worse off either.

Readers paying any attention will see a volte face from my original
comments, which is the unfortunate side-effect of using usenet for the
purposes of thinking aloud! I'm afraid I've never paid that much
attention to the Crossrail to Reading issue (and it shows!).