Tom Anderson wrote:
On Mon, 17 Dec 2007, Graeme Wall wrote:

In message i
Tom Anderson wrote:

On Sun, 16 Dec 2007, Graeme Wall wrote:

In message i
Tom Anderson wrote:

Point taken, though, Twyford is a far more important station than i'd
realised.

It taps into a lot of traffic from the Wokingham area which would
otherwise have to take the slow service to Waterloo.

Ah, i see.

Hmm. It looks like a train from Wokingham to Waterloo takes 68
minutes; a
train from Twyford to Paddington which stops at Maidenhead only takes
32,
and one which stops at eight stations on the way takes 50 minutes.
Crossrail would presumably be more like 50 minutes.

I would hope an electrified service would do better than that.

How much difference does it make? And why? This is something that's
always puzzled me, actually - why are electric trains so much preferred
to diesels? Do they accelerate faster? I assume it's not a question of
top speed.

Asside from the comments made so far, electric equipment is generally
more reliable because they have fewer moving parts to wear out, and
don't vibrate as much to shake things loose.

Robin