A disastrous day on the Thames Branches

Thursday 11th July 2024

It’s been ages since I’ve explored the four branch lines off the Great Western Main Line between Paddington and Reading, so I put that right on Saturday taking advantage of GWR’s Thames Branches Day Ranger. With a Senior Railcard, it costs a very reasonable £17.20 including travel on the main line and all four branches.

I arrived at Paddington to begin the day soon after 08:45 and immediately realised I hadn’t chosen the best day for the adventure. Seeing the proliferation of brightly coloured blazers and lots of expensive dresses I checked on Google, and sure enough, it was the finale weekend of Henley Regatta week.

I made sure I was in pole position to get a seat on the eight coach GWR train leaving Paddington for Didcot Parkway at 09:08 which stopped at Twyford for the connection to Henley-on-Thames – ironically branded The Regatta Line, which was to be my first exploration. What a mistake.

Being ahead of the crowd, boarding the train, went well and I even worked out where to sit for the best door to exit the train at Twyford at 09:37 and cross over the footbridge ahead of everyone else to the platform for the shuttle train to Henley-on-Thames due to leave at 09:56.

As we pulled into Twyford something didn’t look right at all. Platform 4 was already heaving with Regatta goers indicating to me that the previous train at 09:27 hadn’t operated.

Undaunted, I crossed the footbridge… noting the crowded platform below…

…only to find extensive barriers outside the station holding more queuing passengers preventing us new arrivals from getting on to the platform,where the crowding was made worse by everyone sheltering out of the rain on the covered part of the platform.

Everywhere you looked Twyford was a sea of umbrellas…

… and the only impressive thing was seeing how well prepared Regatta fans were for the poor weather.

Unfortunately I wasn’t so prepared..

Checking the online departures…

… and the GWR social media feed…

… it became evident the branch line was blocked with the (specially extended) seven coach shuttle train marooned between Wargrave and Shiplake due to a fallen tree which had come down half an hour earlier.

As I queued in the rain and reflected on the situation, rather than get increasingly wet for the next couple of hours in a queue that wasn’t going anywhere, I decided the best thing would be to abandon the idea of Henley and instead catch a train back to Maidenhead and begin my day on the Marlow branch.

But first I had to work out how to get through the queue to reach the platform as due to the Henley shuttle being a seven coach train, GWR was using the platform on the eastbound slow line towards London for the shuttle, hence why everyone who’d arrived earlier was waiting there.

The only way was to dodge the sea of umbrellas and retrace my footsteps round the zig-zag barriers back to the footbridge and try and get on to the platform, which the staff kindly let me do when I explained what I was doing. But then it was announced the next eastbound Elizabeth line train to Maidenhead wouldn’t be stopping due to the overcrowding on the platform. This seemed an odd devision at the time, as I reckoned it would enable more people to leave the station (and get a taxi from Maidenhead to Henley – all the taxis in the Twyford area were been nabbed by Regatta goers) than would get off a train which had only begun its journey, one station before Twyford, at Reading.

I enacted Plan C which was to go back over the footbridge and catch the next westbound train to Reading from platform 3 and then double back to Maidenhead from there. Waiting on the much emptier platform 3 were two GWR staff going to work and they rather gloomily advised “apparently it’s a big tree, I reckon it’ll take a couple of hours to remove”. It reinforced my view I was doing the right thing in abandoning the Henley idea and making an escape from the chaos.

But worse was to come as it was then announced no Elizabeth line or GWR trains in either direction would be stopping at Twyford until further notice “due to overcrowding”. Control staff feared more Regatta bound passengers would disembark adding to the large numbers already stranded at the station, whereas some of us just wanted to leave. The frustration was enhanced as Elizabeth line trains crawled non-stop through the station with hardly anyone on with two further trains stopping just to let staff off who’d come to assist with crowd control and doing so by stopping at the far end of the platform….

… only for the more or less empty train to glide through the station and leave us standing there.

We all felt completely marooned until unexpectedly and bizarrely the next westbound GWR train did stop and many Regatta bound passengers did alight, presumably not having been advised there was no onward shuttle, but at least this enabled me and other like minded passengers as well as others just caught up in the chaos going to work or shopping in Reading, to escape the chaos.

After arriving in Reading I caught the next eastbound Elizabeth line train with the driver announcing it wouldn’t be stopping at Twyford, only for that to be rescinded as three hours after it all started the tree had been removed and it was anticipated the service would start running again with the 12:27 departure from Twyford being the first away.

I decided to press on to Maidenhead and enjoy a ride on the shuttle train via Furze Platt, Cookham and Bourne End to Marlow.

This is by far the most interesting of the Thames branches as it originally continued beyond Bourne End to High Wycombe but that connection was severed in 1970, so now the train changes direction in Bourne End with the guard changing tokens to enable the train to proceed on the two mile link to Marlow.

In the above photo the line from Maidenhead is on the left and the line to Marlow is on the right with a dead end behind the photographer…

… where the line once continued to High Wycombe.

Bourne End is a more substantial station than Marlow, which is located at the end of a no through road about a third of a mile walk from the town’s High Street with no facilities other than a small brick built waiting area and ticket machine at the buffer end …

… of a single platform with shelter and real time sign..

Bourne End on the other hand, being on the former more substantive line to High Wycombe, has a more substantial building including a ticket office and toilets albeit only open on weekday mornings with National Rail advising its now closed on Saturdays, although GWR still advertises Saturday opening hours.

Both Furze Platt and Cookham also have ticket offices but National Rail are currently advising the former is closed completely and the latter only opens on weekday mornings and is closed on Saturdays.

It’s single track all the way from Maidenhead to Marlow with some lovely glimpses of the River Thames on the last stretch towards Marlow.

Last year the six mile branch celebrated its 150th anniversary by sticking a vinyl on the side of one of the Class 165 trains which GWR usea on the line, although on Saturday it was to be found on the Windsor branch (see below).

Bourne End retains its two platforms and double track which comes into its own during weekday peak periods when the service splits with two shuttle trains operating on the single track line in two sections. One operates a shuttle between Marlow and Bourne End connecting with another shuttle train running between Bourne End and Maidenhead. This enables a half hourly frequency to be provided with the two trains, whereas in the off-peak one train provides an hourly through service on the line between 09:00 and 16:00 and after 20:00.

After enjoying that wander, along with a decent number travelling both up and back to Maidenhead, I made a quick cross-platform change on to a GWR train to Slough to catch the shuttle train to Windsor and Eton Central on the next branch.

This single track branch sees one busy train shuttling up and down on a tight schedule providing a 20 minute frequency with a six minute journey time for the three mile line.

You get a glimpse of the famous Windsor Castle landmark as the train approaches the terminus and crosses the River Thames…

… as well as one of the River’s very own branch lines.

The terminus itself is a true dichotomy…

… a one platform buffer stop…

… but housed in one of the most magnificent staton buildings on the network…

… now given over to high class tourist type retailers and many eateries and the odd steam train.

There’s a rather nice ticket office…

… which is open seven days a week (allegedly). It was a busy journey both out and back with both locals and tourists enjoying the short ride.

After Windsor it was back to Slough and onwards to West Ealing for a ride on the Greenford shuttle. Because of the stopping patterns of Elizabeth line trains on the western section, this involved catching a train to Ealing Broadway and then doubling back to West Ealing, where I just missed the Greenford shuttle as I arrived.

After half an hour it was back again and we headed off to Greenford stopping at London’s little used stations at Drayton Green…

…Castle Bar Park…

and South Greenford.

Unlike the other three Thames Branches located in the historic county of Berkshire, this branch is fully within the Greater London metropolis yet there are still some lovely views along the way…

… but best of all is the way the line waves its way upwards between the two Central line tracks…

… to arrive in a centre platform at Greenford station.

All the signs point to this being a TfL Underground station (which it is)…

… but there is a concession to acknowledge the presence of this half hourly National Rail anachronism in the form of a timetable poster for the GWR shuttle to West Ealing.

GWR hope to introduce an adapted Class 230 train with battery power and fast charging top ups at West Ealing.

The equipment has been installed…

…but despite a media launch some months ago nothing has appeared in public service – which, as previously blogged about, is par for the course for these unreliable former District line trains.

The ride to Greenford and back had been the least used train of the three – with just a handful of passengers travelling – and it does make you wonder whether a heavy diesel train chugging up and down this oddball branch line really is the most efficient and cost effective way of providing a service.

Back at West Ealing I wondered about returning to Twyford for a ride out to Henley-on-Thames but decided to call it a day as I’ll be back there at the end of the month checking out the bus competition that’s about to kick off on the Reading corridor as explained in last Thursday’s blog.

Until then here are a couple of photos from my last trip on the line a few years ago.

And finally, no surprises that having submitted my Delay Repay claim to GWR when I got home on Saturday for the two hour delay I experienced trying to get to Henley-on-Thames, I received an email back on Tuesday advising my claim had been “unsuccessful”, telling me I had to “contact our customer relations team who will be able to discuss this further”. Suffice to say Beth in the customer relations team had no idea why my claim had been declared unsuccessful as the delay repay team don’t give the customer relations team such information.

She advised to resend the claim with an image of my ticket cut in half (even though it’s expired) and an image of my Senior Railcard – neither of which are specified on the form as requirements, but that’s GWR for you. Once again the company displays complete contempt for its passengers when inconvenienced. Not content with delaying you with a three hour gap in service (albeit for a reason outside of its control), leaving you stranded in the pouring rain for three hours by consciously preventing trains from stopping so you can escape, the company refuses to settle a delay repay claim. It’s about time Mark Hopwood sorted this disgraceful way of dealing with passengers (which keeps happening – see previous blogs) once and for all.

Two very final thoughts on the day: my Thames Branches Day Ranger ticket didn’t open the gates at Paddington when I began my travels but after that no one asked to see it and there are no gates at Bourne End, Marlow and Windsor & Eton Central (where I left the stations – and I returned home via Farringdon changing to Thameslink within the gateline) and secondly well done to the Network Rail Response Tesm for getting the tree removed and service restored within three hours which was good going, especially if it was “a big tree”.

Roger French

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