Escorts in Eton, SL4: the trip out from town, agreed in writing

Windsor and Eton Central is the end of a short Great Western branch from Slough. Nothing runs through it and nothing stops between: every train that leaves goes back up the branch, and the junction at the other end is what counts. Slough sits on the Great Western main line into Paddington, and the Elizabeth line calls there as well before running on beneath the West End and the City, so from almost anywhere between Paddington and Liverpool Street the quick way to Eton has a change at Slough in it.

Windsor and Eton Riverside belongs to the other railway, the one out of Waterloo. Its trains call at Datchet, Staines, Richmond and Clapham Junction among a string of smaller stops, which makes it the slower of the pair, but it asks for no change at all. For an evening that starts south of the river, or anywhere Waterloo is simply the easier station to reach, one seat the whole way can be worth more than the minutes the other route saves.

The branch is easy to use and easy to be caught out by. Its trains simply go to and fro between Windsor and Slough, so a dinner in town with a return to Eton afterwards is planned backwards from the last train on the branch, as the timetable prints it on the night, rather than from the bill. Miss it and the last stretch from Slough is a taxi ride.

The same shape works in reverse for a guest who is staying in London and wants an evening by the river. The Waterloo trains suit a hotel on the south-western side of town, the change at Slough suits one near Paddington or anywhere on the Elizabeth line, and in either case the journey back belongs in the plan from the first message rather than the last hour.

Windsor shares both stations with Eton, and everything said here about the two lines holds there too; the difference is that the Windsor side is already where the trains stop. Datchet is the first stop out of Riverside on the Waterloo line, a village with its own platform. Slough, at the top of the branch, is where the town's trains meet the main line and the Elizabeth line.

Of the four, Eton is the only one without a station of its own, so escorts in Eton who come by train finish the journey the way every other passenger does, on foot over the river.