Diverts Great Western

Apologies all, I've only just come across this post which I wrote in April but I just evidently didn't publish it.

There are a lot of works being carried out on the railway lines west of London out of Euston and out of Paddington. This post will focus on the Paddington disruptions.

Over the Easter period, the Great Western Main Line was shut west of Hayes & Harlington (or rather west of the Heathrow Junction) all the way to Didcot Parkway for engineering works. First Great Western were, however, able to make use of the surrounding track layouts in order to continue to provide an albeit long service.

Stopping services continued to run between London Paddington and Hayes & Harlington (GW) or Heathrow Airport (HC), and the Heathrow Express still ran.

165120 and 165125 at Hayes & Harlington (taken 28/03/15).
CC Aubrey.

Fast HST services to the West were diverted in two different ways. Most services to Bristol and Paignton were diverted via the New North Main Line, a line which is little-used nowadays after trains were diverted away towards Marylebone in 1963. The line normally sees one passenger train every weekday in each direction from South Ruislip to Paddington and back again, run by Chiltern Railways, but over the Easter weekend it had a far greater service pattern with HSTs running up and down the line every 20 or so minutes.

43146 leads a GW HST through South Ruislip towards Paddington.
CC Aubrey.

The trains were scheduled to run via the NNML to South Ruislip, then via the Chiltern Main Line to Banbury, before reversing and heading down via Oxford to return to the line of route just west of Didcot Parkway. Here are some more photos from South Ruislip:

43134 leads a GW HST through South Ruislip towards Bristol.
© Lewis JN

43185 follows a GW HST down the New North Main Line
© Lewis JN

43154 leads a GW HST through South Ruislip towards Paddington.
CC Aubrey

The hourly services to Penzance were diverted to instead start from London Waterloo and run via the South West Main Line past Surbiton and Woking to stop at Basingstoke and then return to its normal line of route at Taunton.
Here are some pictures of the GW diversions at Raynes Park:

43003 leads a GW HST through Raynes Park towards Waterloo.
© Lewis JN

43149 leads a GW HST through Raynes Park towards Penzance.
© Lewis JN

Not a brilliant pic, but here is 43015 leading a GW HST through Clapham Junction towards Penzance.
© Lewis JN

I always think that these services must boost profit, because alongside the original passengers you get loads of railway enthusiasts who want to go for the rare ride too!