Old Oak Common: Train Disruption

Baroness May of Maidenhead Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I have to give your Lordships a brief description of railway geography in west London. The Great Western main line at Old Oak Common has two pairs of tracks. One is called the main line and the other the relief lines. The Elizabeth line now runs on the relief lines and, as my noble friend said, Great Western main line trains run on the main line. However, two of those four tracks sometimes close for maintenance, and if platforms were not built on the main lines, even in the interim period before HS2 provides the full service that it one day will, the station could not be operational because Elizabeth line trains could not stop on the main lines. So it is essential to have platforms on both sets of tracks, and in the long term, when HS2 is operational and serves a whole variety of destinations in northern England, stopping Great Western Railway trains there will be useful to railway passengers.

[Baroness May of Maidenhead (Con)]

My Lords, I refer your Lordships to my entry in the Member’s register. The current fastest train time from Maidenhead to Paddington is 17 minutes. It is possible that the work at Old Oak Common could cause those trains to stop for 15 minutes, which would double the length of time to no benefit to passengers. Will the Government now actively look at creating a proper hub and interchange station at Old Oak Common or Old Oak Common Lane to improve and provide benefits for people coming from the Thames valley, the south-west and Wales?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I was pleased to discuss this matter with the noble Baroness personally recently. Of course, there will be some benefits to travellers on the Great Western main lines and, particularly, the Elizabeth line east of Reading. On the wider interchange at Old Oak Common, which she referred to, there are other railway lines in the vicinity and providing platforms on those would enhance the interchange experience and improve the effectiveness of the site for the development of jobs and housing, but they are not part of the initial proposals, at least. I will not deal in detail with the times that she mentioned, but I do not recognise them. In fact, we are working very hard—I was on the site with all the industry partners in November—and my estimation is that if we carry out this work properly the actual delay for trains that do not stop on the Great Western main lines will be in the region of 60 to 90 seconds.