Too few trains on Ealing/Richmond branches?

What about the demand from the people on the Ealing/Richmond branches? The crowding on those is just ridiculous at times.

So in theory you should get a train from, say, West Kensington to Stamford Brook about every 5 mins? That often doesn't seem to work out in my experience...

Well ... I'm fairly sure I've often heard the "there is a good service on the District Line" mesage being repeatedly bellowed out whilst waiting longer than that.

Are we talking about the service today?

If we are, you would have a very long wait for an Ealing train as they are only running from High Street Ken (funnily enough, every 20 minutes) owing to Engineering works east of Tower Hill.

The reason they are only running from High Street is that trains can only reverse in Tower Hill & Mansion House bay roads (because of the said engineering works) and so one western destination has to loose a 'city' service. Ealing is the branch that suffers because unlike the Wimbledon or Richmond Branches, it has the Central & Piccadilly lines providing back up.

Yes the Wimbledon branch has the Edgware Road service, but the Wimbledon branch is also busier than the Ealing & Richmond branches combined.

It is every 20 minutes as there is only one platform to reverse in at High Street - the other being used by the Olympia service - and also because the train stock for the service at the west end of the line is being provided solely by Parsons Green sidings & Ealing Common depot. In short, it is impossible to provide a normal level of service without the train stock from Upminster (and of course east end drivers). Something has to give, and being as the Ealing branch has alternative lines to help it out, that is the one that suffers the most.

The moral is always always take the first train on SSR, and change where neccessary. Had you done so and changed at Earls Court, you wouldn't be left waiting for a non exisitant train.

Although I have explained the situation, I fully expect some of you to say 'Well that's not fair' or 'LU isn't giving good customer service' or 'Why isn't it being publicised more' etc etc. At the end of the day I'm simply a driver explaining things as they are - I neither agree nor disagree with the rights or wrongs of the contents of this post!

EDIT: There's been a few posts made whilst I was typing this one - the post by londonstuff is a good example: on SSR always take the first train!! Granted Ealing or Richmond trains should always go through St James Park, but what if an Olympia was diverted from High Street Ken, for example? By waiting for a direct train, you could miss that one passing through Earls Court had you boarded a Wimbledon train preceding yours.

Then there are the last minute diversions at Earls Court - how often have you been caught out and forced to change at Earls Court as your train gets diverted?

Never ever wait on SSR - take that first train and change if you need too!!

I was referring to the line's working in general, not sure about whether this was what @tubeflight was suggesting or not?

The Ealing & Richmond frequencies are 10 mins off peak and 8 mins in the peaks (assuming the normal working timetable is in operation and there are no problems).

The current pattern of off peak westbound services (say through St James Park) is:

Circle
Richmond
Ealing
Wimbledon

Can you see the problem (and the railway reference ;D ;D)?

In theory it's a train towards Turnham Green every five minutes - in practice it's not actually like that.

The reason for this pattern is that Richmond & Wimbledon trains are giving a balanced 5 minute headway east of Tower Hill - the Circle & Ealing trains fill the gaps between them. Mind you, with the December timetable change, the Ealing & Wimbledon trains will swap places, so things should improve....

Not sure what you mean by 'swap places' from December?

The pattern will be the same as you've shown off peak:
UPM-RMD
UPM-WDN
THL-EBY
ERd-WDN
HSt-OLY

With regard today, Ealing are providing 3 less trains than a normal Saturday- where are they? (there is obviously enough in there for Mondays start-up)

Couldn't they come out and be added to the High Street service and provide a 10 or 15min frequency?
Tower Hill copes quite well with a single platform every 10mins.

It was my understanding that the Wimbledon's would go round at Tower Hill and the Ealing's would run through to Upminster from the December timetable change - clearly that plan has now changed:


I would suspect it has more to do with available drivers than anything else (did Barking provide any to the west end this weekend?) - and Tower Hill was already being used by the Richmond service.

Not sure what you mean.

In the new WTT 138 stand time at Wimbledon reduces from, on average, 15 - 18 mins to 8 - 11 mins. Ealing increases slightly from (average) 8 - 10 mins to 10 - 12 mins. Richmond increases notably from, on average, 11 - 13 to 17 - 19 mins.
All of which is actually rather sensible as extended dwell times reduces the need to short trip a late train and curtailing or diverting an Ealing or Richmond service is more critical than a Wimbledon service where there is twice the frequency and where the point of origin (generally) alternates between Upminster and Edgware Road, hence any delay causing late running is generally only going to affect alternate trains.

Having examined the running timings a bit closer now, they aren't as grim as it first looked, it would appear the off peak running times to Richmond and Wimbledon are the same. The Ealing service gains an average of 6 mins running time off peak and 10 mins peak. Richmond an Wimbledon gain about 6 mins extra running time peaks only. One assumes the additional times on the Ealing service are attributable to the delays caused by the Piccadilly Line service at Acton Town and Hanger Lane Junct. All of this is probably relective of actual performance (especially the peaks), so the retimings are reasonable (though better prioritising for District's at Acton would mean a reasonable quicker journey, but I suppose we must deal with what is bound to continue to happen in reality, so the new WTT does allow for it).

Only other note is that whilst the peak service will continue to change from the off peak Upminster - Wimbledon, Tower - Ealing pattern, instead of going to the present Tower/Barking/Dagenham - Wimbledon and Upminster - Ealing, it appears to go to Tower/Barking/Upminster - Wimbledon and Dagenham/Upminster - Ealing. As before there are odd trains that "buck the trend"

This stuff would probably have sat better in it's own thread than a drift on a "gripe" thread, but hey !!

In that paragraph, those are the actual additional book/scheduled running times in WTT 138 when compared with the current WTT 137

I use the term "delays" to reflect a position that is generally an Ealing Broadway bound train departs Chiswick Park on time, or an eastbound train departs Ealing Broadway on time and is then delayed by Piccadilly Line trains mainly occupying the local platforms at Acton Town when they are booked to be occupied by the on time District Train, or the District train is delayed by blocking back of Piccadilly Line trains. Thus my remark is intended to reflect that whilst that problem has obviously been identified, hence lots of addtional running time purely between Turnham Green and Ealing Broadway, it would have been thoretically nice to have some priority afforded to keeping the local platforms clear when an on time District approaches rather than shoving a Piccadilly Line train in them that is late because it is booked to go in the local, even though the fast platform is unoccupied (or there is a delay such that the Pic will gain nothing by using the local other than draging the District down with it). Like I say at least something is done to recognise the problem. (On a good day however there will be an awful lot of dwell for District's, on a good day there already is without 6 more mins to loose !!!)

If you're talking about the south side of the Circle and saying 'Circle Richmond Ealing Wimbledon' CEWR or EWRC would be nearer the on-book pattern from memory.