Along the Central Line

A Relatively Slow Month

2012-01-31T21:50:00.000Z

Crikey, that's the first month of 2012 gone already!

At one point I didn't think I was even going to make 2,000 rail miles for the month, particularly as I was abroad for a week. I didn't even travel to the airport by train!

Anyhow, here are the numbers for January 2012:

Operator	Miles Travelled
Chiltern Railways	2,219.925
London Overground	1.9125
Southern	7.8125
Total for Month	2,229.65

Initial travel plans lead me to believe that there will be a bit more variety and distance next month.

The Light Bulb

2012-01-28T20:02:00.001Z

Near where to I live, there is a light bulb. It lights the road and path under a railway bridge.

The light bulb is dead. It is an ex light bulb. It is no more.

Without light, the path under the bridge is pitch black at night. I mean dark, really dark - you could bump into somebody walking in the opposite direction.

A neighbour (who originally arranged to have the light installed, and arranged the funding), says that the railway company agreed to maintain the upkeep of the light. He asked me to report the fact that the light had died, to the railway company.
The local manager at the railway company declined to fix the light, saying they have no recollection of the agreement to fix it.
I then telephoned the Network Rail Help Line. They tell me that as the bridge is a road bridge, the light is likely to be the responsibility of the 'Highways Authority'.
I dig further and establish that the District Council maintain very few lights, but that the most likely authority will be the County Council.
I speak to the County Council. A very helpful lady zooms in on her map and tells me that they have no lights, for which they are responsible, in our area.
We live in the middle of nowhere.
The nice lady tells me, with some conviction, that the light will be the responsibility of the local Parish Council. She even provides me with a telephone number for the Parish Clerk.
I leave a message for the Parish Clerk, outlining the problem.
I then see a senior manager from the local railway company (the actual person who allegedly agreed to maintain the light, some years ago). He re-affirms that there is no corporate memory of the agreement and again declines to help.
A conversation then follows with the Parish Clerk, who confirms that the Parish is not a 'Lighting Authority' and maintains no lights whatsoever. He follows it up with an email.
I then write to our County Councillor seeking guidance, for I know not what to do next.
The neighbour who original told me that the light is broken, then tells me that the light is definitely wired in to the electrics at the nearby station and, indeed, is controlled by the same timer that controls all the lights on the station platforms.
We go to look at the light and somebody decides to buy an appropriate light bulb from "Light-Bulbs-R-Us" or similar, and repair the light.

Is this a sign of the 'Big Society'?

I know who I think should repair the light. Any thoughts?

Parliamentary Train

2012-01-12T20:12:00.003Z

Thanks to the tip-off by Diamond Geezer last week, today I travelled on the 10.02 Southern 'Parliamentary Train' from Kensington Olympia to Wandsworth Road.

As described by DG, it is indeed a weird feeling to board a train when the public address system explicitly tells you that the train is not in public service.

The only real difference between my journey and that experienced by Mr Geezer last week is that the train guard explicitly spoke with every passenger on board, before the train left Kensington Olympia, to make sure that they really meant to be on the train.

That would be me and a couple who like me, seemed to be on the train simply so as to make the journey that has no real purpose.

We left on time, called briefly at West Brompton and Imperial Wharf, before passing over the River Thames and then crossing a maze of railway junctions, somewhere South of the river.

We stopped for seven or eight minutes adjacent to the carriage works for the Venice Simplon Orient Express, before eventually pulling into Wandsworth Road station a minute early at 10.19.

If the point in travelling is the travel, then the journey was a short success. If the point of travel is to get to your destination, in this particular case, I wouldn't bother, but then I virtually need to use my passport when venturing as far South as Wandsworth.

I did travel North from Wandsworth Road, but back to Victoria. However I note that Ian Visits has previously made the afternoon return trip on this rather unusual, once a a weekday there-and-back train service.

The (Half) Year in Numbers

2011-12-31T17:23:00.001Z

Summary figures for train travel in the second half of 2011 are:

July: 2130mi 66ch
August: 2002mi 26ch
September: 3513mi 04ch
October: 3824mi 76ch
November: 3573mi 35ch
December: 2683mi 59ch

This means that in the second half of 2011 I have travelled 17,728 miles 26 chains by rail, not including the London Underground.

In that time, I have spent 14 days, 5 hours and 8 minutes on trains and have been delayed by 1 day, 16 hours and 49 minutes.

I think that is quite enough of numbers for now, that is all!

December Trains

2011-12-31T15:53:00.001Z

Ok, that's me done for trains for 2011.

Statistics for the month of November 2011 are as follows:

Operator	Miles Travelled
Chiltern Railways	2,657.7
South West Trains	26.0375
Total for Month	2683.75

That's the lowest in a month since August.

Sugar Rush for the End of the Year

2011-12-31T14:03:00.001Z

I've had three days at work this week - as usual it was surprisingly busy (primarily because enough people were allowed to take the week between Christmas & New Year as holiday).

After work on ThursdayI had a house party to go to, which was most pleasant. So much so that I had to return yesterday evening to retrieve my car. Hic!

Tonight is off to some friends to see in the New Year. I said that I would supply the desert.

There won't be that many of us. I think I may have gone overboard.....

Happy New Year!

A line that I did not want to cross

2011-12-30T21:55:00.001Z

I've just checked the new price of my season ticket. £4,008! Yes over Four Thousand Pounds!

Fortunately my ticket lasts another five months, but it is still a rubicon.

Some Chiltern Railways passengers have been moaning because they are currently only offering a 5% renewal discount until 13th January.

A 5% renewal discount applies for annual tickets if peak time punctuality falls below 92% over the previous 12 months. By my way of thinking, if punctuality has been less than 92% for the last 12 months, they will have to have exceptional performance for the figures to go above 91.9% by June. Here's hoping that my mathematics is correct, anyway.

Four Thousand Pounds!

End of holiday family evening

2011-12-27T22:05:00.001Z

Tonight we had a really good (for me) end to the family Christmas.

Six of us went along to Twickenham for the Harlequins -v- Saracens rugby match.

There was a sell out 82,000 capacity crowd, a world record for a normal club rugby match. Saracens beat Harlequins 19 points to 11, breaking the Harlequins' all season unbeaten run in the Premiership. Hah! Merry Christmas!

The temperature was remarkably mild for a 1630 end of December kick-off. The ages of our party ranged from 13 to 69 and we all had a good time.

Next, we have to beat Gloucester at Vicarage Road on New Year's Day. Roll on Sunday!

How not to speak to customers

2011-12-22T21:21:00.001Z

I don't do it very often, but I am going to name and shame.

This evening I went out to try to complete my usual last minute Christmas shopping.

I was in the ladies department of House of Fraser in the Eden Shopping Centre in High Wycombe.

I sought advice from a shop assistant as to style suitability for a top for my Mother. I do try not to buy vouchers every year. The response I got was:

"No, my Grandmother wouldn't like that."

Ouch!

Track Bashing the Chiltern Mainline - Again

2011-12-12T23:17:00.001Z

Three months ago, Chiltern Railways launched their new 'Mainline' service and timetable, to much fanfare.

It would be fair to say that implementation was not glitch free. That is an understatement.

Since implementation of the new timetable, the Public Performance Measure ("PPM") has been below the franchise requirement of 93.75% and monthly season ticket holders have recently been receiving 5% discounts upon renewal. That is not good.

To give absolute clarity, I detail at the foot of this note the PPM measures as reported by The Office of Rail Regulation, for each of the individual 2012 industry reporting periods to date. The Moving Annual Average PPM moved up from its low of 92.6% to 92.7%, for the most recent period.

Back in September I blogged upon my experiences of the first day of the new timetable. It is probably fair to say that I stress tested the timetable and it was not a rip-roaring success.

Today Chiltern Railways had the first weekday of the new Winter Timetable. There are not many changes to the September effort, and the changes that have been made aim to improve reliability and (in the main) the passenger experience.

Today I had a couple of bimbles up and down the line and, as in September, I present the facts and figures on today's track bash.

For the record, this time my travelling today started during the morning peak and finished not long efter the end of the evening peak. The journeys were evenly spread throughout the day although, almost certainly, will not necessarily reflect a sample of every journey type.

Total number of individual train journeys: 11
Total distance travelled: 388 Miles
Longest train journey: 92 Miles
Shortest train journey: 5 miles
Highest individual average journey speed: 77.9 mph
Average speed of all journeys: 60.5 mph
Cumulative delay: 29 minutes
Number of cancellations experienced: 0
Number of times my train was pulled over to allow a Mainline (express) service to overtake: 0

While not perfect, a comparison with 5 September 2011, shows a considerably improved passenger experience. The 11 minute delay in the morning was caused by a track circuit failure just north of Bicester North, while the final journey delay was as a result of a late start, due to waiting for a late-running Mainline service to pass through. I do know that there were problems that did not affect me - for example I saw one Londonbound train from the West Midlands pass through High Wycombe almost half an hour late.

The evening peak service from Marylebone is clearly still not fully sorted yet. There are one or two stations in the Chilterns that are still unhappy with the impact of the new timetable, and the availability of rolling stock is clearly still an issue.

Once again, all of this was made possible thanks to the good people at Chiltern Railways. No free tea today, but altogether a more pleasurable experience than three months ago. Back to normal commuting next week.

PPM: Source Office of Rail Regulation. Extracted 13 Dec 2011.

New Platform Allocations for Marylebone from 12 December 2011

2011-12-11T15:55:00.003Z

The new Chiltern Railways timetable started today. This means that some trains will have had their allocated platform slots changed at Marylebone.

The table below shows the current planned departure platforms from London Marylebone, for the normal weekday afternoon / evening peak timetable.

A big thank you to Tom Cairns and his web based Timetables App via whom I sourced the Network Rail data. He is a very clever chap.

I cannot stress strongy enough that these platforms are not guaranteed, and are all subject to change at short notice!

You have been warned.

London Marylebone between 1600 and 1859 weekdays from 12th December 2011

Dep	Departs to	Platform
1600	Gerrards Cross	1
1607	Birmingham Snow Hill	3
1610	Bicester North	2
1613	High Wycombe	4
1626	Aylesbury	2
1630	Birmingham Snow Hill	4
1633	Bicester North	6
1636	High Wycombe	5
1640	Gerrards Cross	1
1643	Aylesbury Vale Parkway	5
1646	Birmingham Moor Street	3
1649	Banbury	2
1653	Aylesbury	3
1656	High Wycombe	4
1707	Kidderminster	1
1710	Stratford-upon-avon	2
1713	Aylesbury	6
1716	Aylesbury Vale Parkway	5
1719	High Wycombe	2
1723	West Ruislip	5
1727	Aylesbury	4
1737	Birmingham Snow Hill	3
1740	Bicester North	3
1743	Princes Risborough	2
1746	Aylesbury Vale Parkway	4
1750	High Wycombe	3
1756	Gerrards Cross	5
1759	Aylesbury	6
1807	Kidderminster	2
1810	Stourbridge Junction	5
1813	Banbury	3
1816	Bicester North	1
1819	Aylesbury Vale Parkway	6
1822	Aylesbury	4
1825	High Wycombe	6
1829	West Ruislip	4
1833	Aylesbury	2
1840	Birmingham Snow Hill	3
1844	Leamington Spa	2
1847	High Wycombe	5
1850	Aylesbury	4
1853	Bicester North	6
1856	Aylesbury	3
1859	High Wycombe	6

E&OE

The Early Bird Catches the Worm

2011-12-05T21:00:00.002Z

A few weeks ago, I blogged about my homeward bound journey experiences, using the new Chiltern Railways timetable that started on 5 September 2011.

I now tend to catch the same train to work most mornings. The general view of the recent performance of Chirltern Railways is that it has been fairly poor. My own experience is that the performance of my normal morning train has been pretty good.

Because I can geek for England, I tend to record details of my train journeys. Please see below for the detail.

The train (1H03) has been short formed twice (three carriages instead of four). I have had a seat on every day, except for one of the short-formed days.

Chiltern Railways had have had a lot of stick recently from disgruntled customers. It's a real shame that I have had to start travelling at stupid o'clock in the morning to have a decent journey to work - If everyone could have my experience, then there would be lots of contented customers around.

Date	Origin	Destination	TOPS	Dep	Arr		Delay (see note)*	Av Spd
12-Sep-11	PRR	MYB	168217	06:36	07:06		On time	72.6mph
14-Sep-11	PRR	MYB	168217	06:36	07:10		0h 04m	64mph
15-Sep-11	PRR	MYB	168107	06:34	07:05	-	0h 01m	70.2mph
16-Sep-11	PRR	MYB	168005	06:37	07:18		0h 12m	53.1mph
19-Sep-11	PRR	MYB	168219	06:36	07:06		On time	72.6mph
20-Sep-11	PRR	MYB	168215	06:34	07:04	-	0h 02m	72.6mph
21-Sep-11	PRR	MYB	168219	06:33	07:02	-	0h 04m	75.1mph
22-Sep-11	PRR	MYB	168001	06:33	07:03	-	0h 03m	72.6mph
23-Sep-11	PRR	MYB	168002	06:33	07:05	-	0h 01m	68mph
26-Sep-11	PRR	MYB	168003	06:35	07:05	-	0h 01m	72.6mph
27-Sep-11	PRR	MYB	168215	06:34	07:04	-	0h 02m	72.6mph
29-Sep-11	PRR	MYB	168001	06:33	07:06		On time	66mph
30-Sep-11	PRR	MYB	168106	06:35	07:05	-	0h 01m	72.6mph
03-Oct-11	PRR	MYB	168003	06:38	07:09		On time	70.2mph
04-Oct-11	PRR	MYB	168005	06:35	07:05	-	0h 04m	72.6mph
05-Oct-11	PRR	MYB	168001	06:34	07:07	-	0h 02m	66mph
06-Oct-11	PRR	MYB	168005	06:34	07:04	-	0h 05m	72.6mph
07-Oct-11	PRR	MYB	168216	06:37	07:07	-	0h 02m	72.6mph
10-Oct-11	PRR	MYB	168217	06:35	07:05	-	0h 04m	72.6mph
11-Oct-11	PRR	MYB	168003	06:38	07:14		0h 05m	60.5mph
12-Oct-11	PRR	MYB	168215	06:37	07:11		0h 02m	64mph
13-Oct-11	PRR	MYB	168216	06:35	07:09		On time	64mph
14-Oct-11	PRR	MYB	168106	06:37	07:09		On time	68mph
17-Oct-11	PRR	MYB	168106	06:35	07:05	-	0h 04m	72.6mph
18-Oct-11	PRR	MYB	168001	06:38	07:11		0h 02m	66mph
19-Oct-11	PRR	MYB	168002	06:34	07:05	-	0h 04m	70.2mph
20-Oct-11	PRR	MYB	168106	06:38	07:09		On time	70.2mph
25-Oct-11	PRR	MYB	168005	06:35	07:15		0h 06m	54.4mph
26-Oct-11	PRR	MYB	168110	06:36	07:06	-	0h 03m	72.6mph
27-Oct-11	PRR	MYB	168002	06:34	07:08	-	0h 01m	64mph
28-Oct-11	PRR	MYB	168216	06:35	07:05	-	0h 04m	72.6mph
01-Nov-11	PRR	MYB	168002	06:33	07:05	-	0h 04m	68mph
03-Nov-11	PRR	MYB	168109	06:35	07:06	-	0h 03m	70.2mph
09-Nov-11	PRR	MYB	168106	06:35	07:05	-	0h 04m	72.6mph
11-Nov-11	PRR	MYB	168002	06:33	07:03	-	0h 06m	72.6mph
14-Nov-11	PRR	MYB	168216	06:34	07:05	-	0h 04m	70.2mph
15-Nov-11	PRR	MYB	168217	06:33	07:05	-	0h 04m	68mph
17-Nov-11	PRR	MYB	168003	06:34	07:05	-	0h 04m	70.2mph
18-Nov-11	PRR	MYB	168216	06:34	07:04	-	0h 05m	72.6mph
21-Nov-11	PRR	MYB	168217	06:33	07:05	-	0h 04m	68mph
22-Nov-11	PRR	MYB	168005	06:35	07:06	-	0h 03m	70.2mph
24-Nov-11	PRR	MYB	168003	06:34	07:05	-	0h 04m	70.2mph
29-Nov-11	PRR	MYB	168005	06:33	07:04	-	0h 05m	70.2mph
30-Nov-11	PRR	MYB	168216	06:35	07:05	-	0h 04m	72.6mph
05-Dec-11	PRR	MYB	168216	06:35	07:06	-	0h 03m	70.2mph

*NB A Minus Sign (-) in the 'Delay' column indicates that the train was early.

Too Much Time on Trains - Again

2011-11-30T22:52:00.001Z

Statistics for the month of November 2011:

Operator	Miles Travelled
Chiltern Railways	3,135.1875
East Midlands	252.875
South West Trains	48.675
National Express East Anglia	136.7
Total for Month	3,573.4375

Today is a Yellow Day

2011-11-19T15:55:00.003Z

Actually, in this part of rural Buckinghamshire, it is really rather a nice day. As dusk approaches the sky is a clear blue and the ground is dry. All a marked contrast to the weather up in Birmingham this morning, where it was grey, misty, damp and cold.

Yellow Day?

That refers to the leaf falls expected on the railways and indicates that specialist track treatment trains may be expected out and about today.

The Network Rail waterjet train should currently be at Marylebone... If it is, then it will be leaving (or should that be leafing?) for South Ruislip in about 20 minutes (16:15). It should be at South Ruslip just after 16.30 where it will reverse back towards Greenford, will head under the Central Line down towards Ealing, past Ealing Broadway (just after 5.00pm) before heading off to bed in the Willesden area.

Unless you are in the immediate area, not much excitement there.

Chiltern Railways do also run their own Sandite train. It was trowelling around early this morning, but was tucked up back in bed in Aylesbury before most sensible people were even aware that it was Saturday.

Thank you TC for the info. To be clear - it could be that none of the above happens, but given that there are more fresh leaves on the ground now than on any other day, it should.

Here's a really ropey video of the waterjet train passing down the Metropolitan Line late last Sunday afternoon.

Birmingham Christmas Market

2011-11-19T11:17:00.001Z

Earlier this week I was up in Birmingham, for work, when the receptionist told me that the annual Christmas Market was setting up. She was most excited about the prospect.

The Birmingham City Council microsite certainly bigged it up so, this morning, I decided to nip up to take a look.

I was actually quite impressed.

To begin with I walked from Snow Hill station to Victoria Square where to start with I was mildly under-whelmed. However further exploration revealed that the market also stretched the full length of New Street and there really are quite a lot of stalls.

There are unsurprisingly lots of outlets selling Germanic food and drink, but there are also lots of handicraft stalls selling everything from candles through to fruit bowls, clothing and general nic-nacs. Many of the outlets and artisans are local, but there are also plenty of our continental friends who have come over to give the market a truly authentic feel.

I recommend a visit. If possible, I suggest that you arrive as early as you can - by the time I emerged from the stalls at the bottom of New Street, it was really getting rather busy.

The market is open daily from 10.00am to 9.00pm daily from now until Friday 23rd December 2011.

Travel was by Chiltern Railway. They currently have a rather spiffing weekend offer (make sure you follow the instructions and follow the terms & conditions) enabling people to travel across their network for £10.

All in all, a good way to warm up into the Christmas spirit.

Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto

2011-11-11T06:00:00.000Z

The names of the four largest moons that orbit the planet Jupiter.

This is what they looked like when viewed through the lens of my camera last night.

I am quietly chuffed.

CU

Too Much Time on Trains

2011-10-31T23:48:00.001Z

Statistics for the month of October 2011:

Operator	Miles Travelled
Chiltern Railways	3,246.5625
Great Western	549.8125
Virgin Trains	8.225
Cross Country	20.35
Total for Month	3,824.95

Some weeks later.... The Chiltern Railways timetable

2011-10-13T07:08:00.001+01:00

On 5th September 2011, Chiltern Railways introduced their new timetable. It marked the culmination of mega-spend on engineering work (£250m), months of weekend and late night travel disruption and a couple of weeks of blockade in August.

The result is an ambitious little train company, trying to run something approaching a four track railway on two tracks. The new timetable is bedding-in, just about, but whether it is actually fit for purpose is an entirely different matter. Since the company is no longer owned by its management, its ethos on day to day operational matters does seem to be driven a little more by the bean counters than ever used to be the case.

The view of many commuters in to London is that Chiltern Railways has de-prioritised them in favour of the longer distance (commercially lucrative and less captive) West Midlands to London market. Chiltern Railways does still however have some great staff working on the front line, trying to deliver the best possible service, often in difficult circumstances.

My train home

Since the new timetable came in, I now have a new favourite train home. I have caught it on nineteen separate occasions since 5 September. Of those 19 journeys, the train has arrived on time on 9 occasions. If one includes the generally accepted standard of three minutes or less late is 'on time', then the train has been on time on 16 of the 19 journeys.

The remaining three journeys were 14, 12 & 5 minutes late.

Every single journey was quicker than would have been the case before the new timetable was introduced.

I think I've been lucky, but in respect of my homeward journey from Marylebone, I am generally quite content. There are other things I could rant on about, but for now, I shall end on a positive note.

A Day at the Seaside

2011-10-01T20:31:00.003+01:00

It's been a long day today (and I still won't be home for another 2 1/2 hours).

Up bright and early for a reasonable time Chiltern Railways train into London Marylebone. Reasonable time because it was 80 minutes later than the train I usually catch during the week.

A leisurely walk along to London Paddington, and then on to a First Great Western train. The train was bound for Plymouth, though I was to get off at Exeter St Davids. Bit of a wibble on the way - a broken down train meant that at Westbury we were diverted via Bath and Bristol, eventually arriving (after a signal failure thrown in) some 50 minutes late.

After a five minute wait, I then boarded a little two car train down the branch line to Exmouth. To say that the train was packed was an understatement. Apparently it has been a little warm today, so all the world and their dog had decided to go to the seaside.Actually there were no dogs on the train, but hopefully you get the picture.

It was then off to the beach. It's really quite a nice beach.

Don't forget that today is the 1st of October. It isn't supposed to be like this.There aren't supposed to be lots of people on the beach. There aren't supposed to be massive queues at the ice cream shop on the sea front. The restaurants are not supposed to be packed. Clearly late Summer warmth is good for trade in Exmouth.

It was then back onto a train for a few minutes up the line for Digby & Sowton, the nearest train station for Sandy Park, the home to the Rugby Union side of Exeter Chiefs.

It's actually the second time I've been to Sandy Park this year. It has a nice atmosphere and the facilities for spectators are good.

Now, I do confess to being a Saracens season ticket holder, so it was quite enjoyable to see my side win by 17 points to 13. It may not have been the most technical game ever played, but it was an enjoyable afternoon and, of course, the right side won!

Due to the number of people who had been enjoying the sun and sea down in Exmouth, the train back up to Exeter was complete carnage. So much so that it was late enough for me to miss my planned 1802 train back to Paddington.

Instead, I am now sat on the 1856 train, still some considerable distance from London, while I had been hoping to be on my last train of the day by now.

Nevertheless, a good day and I've even caught a bit of colour, which is a good thing for October.

Tomorrow it's a 150 mile round trip drive for a joined-up-meat lunch.

Rumour debunked - And now trains run normally

2011-09-22T05:43:00.001+01:00

Yesterday evening I published a post based upon unconfirmed rumour and malicious gossip. Hah!

The 'unexploded bomb' turned out to be a grenade attached to a barge, believed to be for decoration.

Based upon the tiny amount of information that I have been able to piece together from different sources, I think that the barge will be on the Oxford Canal, near Fenny Compton. In that area the canal is close to the railways for quite some distance.

No further news overnight. The incident is no longer affecting Cross Country Trains or Chiltern Railways. Trains are expected to run normally through the area this morning.

Note to self: Stop scraping the barrel when it comes to finding stuff to blog about.

Unconfirmed Rumour - Unexploded Bomb?

2011-09-21T22:32:00.001+01:00

Late night Chiltern Railways and Cross Country services have been seriously affected by the closure just now of the railway between Banbury and Leamington Spa.

The problem has variously been described as 'a serious incident near the railway' and 'Emergency services are dealing...'.

The good news is that Chiltern Railways have just said that they are able to run trains again, so hopefully the mass of late night cancellations will shortly be uncancelled.

I am hearing that an unexploded bomb (probably an old one) has been discovered somewhere in the Fenny Compton area. It is close to the railway - following a risk assessment it is likely that further action will be taken once the last scheduled trains have run through the area late tonight.

This is all hearsay and innuendo - could be complete rubbish. If it's true, you heard it here. If it isn't, you do read some complete tosh on the Internet!

Sleep well!

Edit:

Emergency services are dealing with an incident near Banbury
Because of this, there are delays of up to 40 minutes to trains between Leamington and Bicester North / Oxford . These delays will continue until approximately 23:30

Every cloud has a silver lining (or two)

2011-09-12T23:00:00.002+01:00

Cloud

Yesterday afternoon I blogged briefly on the personal impact to me of the effect of over-running engineering works in the Leamington Spa area. Or it was also described as a 'broken down train'.

I was on what should have been the first Chiltern Railways train to venture North of Bicester North after the end of the blockade at about 14:15. The train was the first one, the problem was that it left Bicester 50 minutes late, with the following Stratford-Upon-Avon service attached to its rear end. Both services were then terminated at Banbury.

It appears that the train that broke down was an engineering train. To be precise, a tamping train. It had a major mechanical defect and had to be rescued by a locomotive sent down from Coventry. The problem was that the rescue train was apparently sent in the direction of Birmingham International first (ie the wrong direction). This meant that the line was not cleared for quite some time.

My understanding is that single line working was implemented between Banbury and Leamington Spa. This meant that many trains were cancelled and all that remained were seriously delayed for much of the afternoon.

Replacement coaches were laid on, but they were seriously deficient in number. Hardly surprising, because the engineering works should have finished and the coaches should not have been needed. The picture above shows the scene outside Banbury at 16:00. There were lots of seriously delayed people. Shortly after this picture was taken, I think Chiltern Railways managed to run a Birmingham bound service, so hopefully many of the people shown managed to get on the train before it left.

Silver Lining

After a short but seriously heavy downpour at Bicester North, on the return journey, this rainbow was spotted from the platform.

Many camera phones were brought into use by the hordes of designer shoppers, who were all as delighted as I was to see such a bright rainbow.

An otherwise dreary afternoon was considerably brightened.

Second Silver Lining

During the course of the afternoon, I managed to take this picture of a Chiltern Mainline Class 168.

The train was thundering down the new Fast Up Line (towards London), at Princes Risborough, at what would have been the line speed of 85 mph.

Blogging on the overun

2011-09-11T14:55:00.002+01:00

This afternoon's engineering works between Banbury have not ended well.

The Chiltern Railways website currently says 'over-running engineering works'. The National Rail website says 'broken down train in the Leamington Spa area'.

The 1415 departure from BCS (the first train due to run North of Bicester North) is currently sat in Platform 1. The 1438 service from Bicester North to Stratford Upon Avon is due to be attached to the back of the 1415, where both trains will run as one train through to Banbury, where the train will terminate.

Hopefully by then, the following Birmingham service will have caught up, so passengers will maybe get to where they want to. Probably without seats and with a delay of getting on for an hour. Hopefully. Maybe.

Edit: [15:05] The Stratford Upon Avon train has now coupled to the back of the Birmingham train. We are just pulling out, 50 minutes late. Next (and currently last) stop for this elongated train is Banbury.

Someone made a boo boo

2011-09-10T22:15:00.002+01:00

So far as trains are concerned, this post is about as technical as I can get! Sorry.

Tonight there are no Chiltern Railways trains between Bicester North and Leamington Spa, from about now. This is due to engineering work.

The 2039 arrival into Bicester North (1N56) terminated at Platform 2 and then ran into the Bicester North Siding. It was then booked to follow the 2049 Southbound service (1H67) as empty stock, to Princess Risborough, where it was to run up the Aylesbury branch line to the depot.

Tonight it all went a bit wrong.

The empty stock train was allowed to run into Platform 2 at Princes Risborough, early, at about 2115. This was a bit of a problem as the 2116 departure from Aylesbury set off, on time, down the single track branch line.

There then followed what must be the most complicated shunting move I think I have ever seen, which I have attempted to illustrate below.

1. Empty stock train ran into Platform 2 (Up Loop)
2. Train reversed across the Up Main and across onto the Down Main
3. Train reversed again back across onto the Up Main (using the new centre track as a siding)
4. Once the passenger train from Aylesbury (2H72) has left the Up Loop towards London, and when the 2133 to Banbury (1U64) had cleared the Down Main shunt to the East of the station, the train then continued on the Up Main and crossed over onto the Down Main Shunt.
5. The train will then have reversed again from the Down Main shunt, crossing back into the Up Loop (Platform 2) and continuing on to Aylesbury.

I bet the driver was cursing.

I did not actually witness moves (4) & (5), but logically that is what will have happened.

(Please click the diagram to expand it to a readable size)

Track Bashing the Chiltern Mainline

2011-09-05T23:00:00.001+01:00

Today, I confess, has been a day of travelling on lots of trains, for no really good reason other than that I could.

Chiltern Railways today formally launched their new Mainline timetable.

Here and now I am not going to devil into the detail of what has, or has not been achieved.

What has happened is that there has been a complete recast of the train timetable, the aim being for many train journeys to be speeded up. In principle this is achieved by 'waves' of trains arriving into, and departing from, London Marylebone.

The general theory is that the fastest trains leaving (or arriving) are at the front of a wave, with progressively slower trains and those with shorter journeys following on behind. By the time the slowest train reaches its destination, the first train in the next wave is pushing up its backside. If you look at the timetable, you can see these waves.

There will no doubt be plenty of opportunity to analyse how the new timetable meets the broad base of Chiltern Railways' passengers. For today I simply present facts and figures on today's track bash.

For the record, my travelling today started well before the morning peak and finished not long before the close of service. The journeys were evenly spread throughout the day although, admittedly, may not necessarily reflect a sample of every journey type.

Total number of individual train journeys: 17
Total distance travelled: 340 Miles
Longest train journey: 77 Miles
Shortest train journey: 3 miles
Highest individual average journey speed: 70.1 mph
Average speed of all journeys:57.8 mph
Cumulative delay: 89 minutes *
Number of cancellations experienced: 1
Number of times my train was pulled over to allow a Mainline (express) service to overtake: 2 **

*The nature of the timetable is that there is very little slack. Some trains were early or on time, but the reality is that delays increased as the day went on. The delay status of every individual journey is shown to the right. I think that the general pattern of red will probably reflect the experience of many fellow passengers during the course of the day.

** Chiltern Railways operate a two track railway. It is important that some flexibility is built in to allow overtaking. If this manual intervention were not to happen, relatively light delays could very quickly snowball into a passenger nightmare. In times of need, Going as far as Aynho Junction, Northbound trains can overtake at South Ruislip, West Ruislip, Princes Risborough and Bicester North. Southbound trains can be overtaken at Princes Risborough, High Wycombe, Gerrards Cross and West Ruislip. I am happy to be told if this information is wrong. The fact that I was overtaken today is a good thing, but also a reflection of some late running.

My definition of 'late' is arriving after the minute of scheduled arrival - this is rather more harsh than what the railways use as their definition. However, the reality is that three trains were on time, or slightly early. Not fantastic, in fact a disappointment, but it has been Day 1.

All of this was made possible thanks to the good people at Chiltern Railways. I should also say that I was treated to a very pleasant on-board cream tea at the invitation of Adrian Shooter CBE, Chairman of Chiltern Railways. I will not let such courtesy and hospitality cloud my objectivity - I will continue to say what I see and think. What I say may be good, it may be bad, hopefully it will generally be balanced and most importantly reasonably well informed.

It's back to the normal commute tomorrow, so as used to be said, Boing....... Time for bed.

Signalling Problems on Chiltern Railways

2011-09-04T22:03:00.001+01:00

This post is based upon personal experience, supposition and guess work. Bits of it may not be based on fact, but here goes. Sources are a combination of me, the Chiltern Railways website and the National Rail website Live Departure Boards.

Chiltern Railway soft launched their new timetable today. The little table that you can hopefully see shows my personal experience of using my friendly little railway company today.

It does not make pretty reading, when you consider that the new weekday timetable kicks in in about seven hours. These delays were all caused by railway infrastructure issues (not train breakdowns).

It would appear that, just over an hour ago, something caused the majority of trains South of Banbury to grind to a halt. Or not leave their starting stations. A few trains seem to be moving now, but some are terminating short and there have been some cancellations. The reasons are either 'Emergency Engineering Works' or 'Signalling Problems'.

A lot of people need to cross their fingers very hard that whatever has gone wrong is sorted good and proper by the morning.

Sleep well.

High Wycombe has gone all kinky

2011-08-30T21:17:00.006+01:00

Last week, in a post about a particular aspect of Chiltern Railways' Evergreen 3 engineering work, I made passing reference to the set of crossover points that were due to be replaced to the immediate West of High Wycombe station.

In a bi-party exchange of comments, I then drifted slightly off topic and allowed my fingers to start typing words relating to line speeds. I apologise for such a display of utter geek-dom. Regrettably I am unable to promise that there will not be a repeat of something similar.

Anyhow, here is a repeat of my comments relating specifically to the replacement crossover:

The purpose of replacing the points north of the station is to increase the Up (London bound) line speed through the station (through platform 3).

This has been done by 'de-prioritising' the points, reducing the Up to Down line line speed across the points (into Platform 2) from 40 mph to 25 mph.

This picture [click it for a larger version], taken earlier this evening shows the new points. The Up Line (towards London) is on the right, while the track on the left is going towards Princes Risborough & Birmingham, with trains traveling away from the camera.

The points were replaced at some point during the last eight days. While I do not have 'before and after' pictures, I can tell you that the previous crossover followed a straight line whereas the new points have a very obvious kink to them. That is why I described the new crossover as 'de-prioritising' the points.

Trains can now travel much faster into High Wycombe station, however to cross-over from the Up to the Down line, trains can only now travel at a maximum 25 mph.

There are literally dozens of seemingly innocuous pieces of engineering such as this built into the Evergreen 3 project. Each one is safety critical, each one probably incredibly expensive and each one contributing to the journey time savings that many passengers will hopefully see from next week.

I am not a mouth piece for Chiltern Railways. While I hope that all goes well with the launch of the new timetable, many commuters are expressing disquiet about the number of trains due to stop at their stations.

The railway company is hoping to deliver shorter journey times and more seats, this is at the cost of fewer trains at some stations. What this could mean in practise is that commuters have less flexibility as to the timing of their journeys. Only time will tell - I hope that I am being overly pessimistic as to the impact of the new timetable on Heartlands commuters.

Lacey Green Windmill

2011-08-28T22:16:00.003+01:00

Are you looking for something to do in the Chilterns? Well, you could do far worse than visit Lacey Green Windmill, which is open on Sunday and Bank Holiday afternoons (2 - 5), from the beginning of May until the end of September.

Described as England's oldest Smock Mill, the windmill has been carefully restored and preserved by members of The Chiltern Society and is staffed by volunteers. Entrance is £2 for adults and £1 for children (5 to 15).

A Smock Mill is one where the only the top bit (the "cap"), turns with the wind. The cap rotates so that the sails always face into the wind, with the fantail helping to achieve this.

Without the ability for the cap to rotate to face into the wind, the windmill could get seriously damaged in a strong gale.

The sails at Lacey Green generally only rotate properly, with sailcloths, once a year during National Mills weekend. This year it was on 15th May and in 2012 is planned to be on on 13th May. A full description of this year's event may be found here.

The milling machinery at the Lacey Green Windmill does not work, but there is plenty of old machinery to be seen throughout the four floors of the mill.

Access to the mill is gained down three steps and then up from the ground floor to three further levels via some rather steep wooden ladders. For obvious reasons, the inside of the building is most definitely not wheelchair accessible. Indeed access will be seriously inhibited for anyone with mobility problems.

On one of the floors there is a very old workbench with some fascinating tools, adjacent to a rather cobwebbed window through which one could see fantastic views over the Northern edge of the Chiltern Hills over Buckinghamshire and on towards Oxfordshire.

I particularly liked the stack of fence sections stored on the ground floor. Clearly manufactured in a traditional manner, these are used to fence off the areas near the rotating sails on sailing days. To me, the way in which these sections of fence have been made sums up the attitude and ethos of the people that have lovingly restored and cared for this historic building over the last few decades.

The windmill is not overly commercial - the prices are refreshingly good value. There is no gaudy tea room (though there is a nice looking pub at the end of the access path) and the choice of souvenirs is rather nicely limited.

Lacey Green Windmill is about local people caring for a really rather nice piece of English heritage. Don't travel hundreds of miles to see it, but if you happen to be in the area when it is open, please do visit it - England is all the better for having fascinating buildings such as this and a short visit is thoroughly recommended.

The windmill contains a hugely informative set of displays, setting out the historical context of the building. I had never really given much thought to the location of windmills and water mills in the area. I can however guarantee that if you visit this piece of history, you will learn something.

Lacey Green is a couple of miles South of Princes Risborough. It has a reasonably good bus service and excellent travel directions are provided on the windmill's highly informative website. Recommended.

Couldn't be bothered - The Chesham Shuttle lives again

2011-08-28T15:59:00.002+01:00

Here in the UK it's a lazy long bank holiday weekend.

That means over-running engineering works (courtesy of Chiltern Railways) and normal engineering works (courtesy lots of others).

The bonus is that for today and tomorrow, the four car Chesham Shuttle is running between Chalfont & Latimer and Chesham on the Metropolitan Line.

It is quite difficult to get to as Chiltern Railways are only running trains between Aylesbury Vale Parkway and Amersham once an hour, the Metropolitan Line has a bus break between Wembley Park and Northwood, and the shuttle itself is only running every forty minutes.

This all conspires to mean that it would have taken me forever to get to Chalfont & Latimer and to have actually managed to get on the train. To be frank, I was in Amersham and couldn't be bothered to go the one last stop once I'd realised how un-joined up the timetable was.

Instead, you'll have to make do with these pictures I took on the 'Last Day' of the shuttle, in December 2010.

I did like the way that somebody took the trouble to make a commemorative headboard.

It looks as though I was overly optimistic

2011-08-26T18:02:00.001+01:00

Last night I posted as to how well advanced the Chiltern Railways track replacement work was, out in my part of rural Buckinghamshire.

I spoke too soon, for it seems as though the commissioning of the new signalling system is taking rather longer than was hoped. The actually engineering work seems pretty much done - nobody wants a train to crash into the back of another because the driver saw a green light when it should really have been red.

Chiltern Railways have dusted off a contingency plan for Sunday (when trains were supposed to have started running again on the line through High Wycombe). Those planned trains will no longer run.

So far as I can see, this is a summary of what will be happening this Sunday (28th August 2011):

Hourly train service from Aylesbury Vale Parkway to Amersham. Passengers will have to transfer to London Underground services there which will be train to Northwood, bus to Wembley Park and train again to Baker Street;
Hourly train services from Birmingham to each of Bicester North and Oxford;
Bus services from Bicester North to West Ruislip (for connection to the Central Line*)

* Don't forget, it's the Notting Hill Carnival this weekend.

Details of the changes, along with timetables, may be found on the 'Changes' page of the Chiltern Railways website.

That's messed up my plans for Sunday!

Princes Risborough appears on track

2011-08-25T22:00:00.003+01:00

This week there are no trains at all on Chiltern Railways, between Bicester North and London Marylebone.

One of the major pieces of infrastructure being completed is at Princes Risborough. Here a new London bound line has been built, several sets of new points installed along with a new signalling system.

Tonight I wandered along to the station at Princes Risborough to see how they are getting on. It was getting dark, and the pictures were taken on my phone, but it seems that the work in and around the station is pretty much done.

The other major pieces of track work this week are at High Wycombe ( a replacement crossover at the Western end of the station) and in the Northolt Park / Ruislip Gardens area, where the track layout will be totally different than was hitherto the case.

New signals at the north end of Princes Risborough station.

A view from the platform at Princes Risborough, showing the Fast Up Line (in the middle).

Only two days to go before we have trains running again - it's looking good!

Actually, it wasn't too bad

2011-08-19T21:20:00.000+01:00

Actually my blog post of Monday evening was probably a tad unfair.

Yes, my train home on Monday evening was cancelled (and I had a further late night delay on Tuesday), but overall my train journeys this week have not been too bad.

Marylebone station has been closed and two Chiltern Railways trains an hour have gone in to Paddington (on the High Wycombe Line) and two on that line have turned around at West Ruslip.

By all accounts not many people chose to face the Central Line in from West Ruislip. However my experience was that the six or seven car trains laid on from Paddington were adequate.

As you can hopefully see from the table to the right, significant leeway was built into the timetables (every train arrived into Paddington early). The red lined journeys indicate the trains I actually caught rather than the delays incurred.

Door to door, my journeys too and from work were about ten minutes longer than normal, so really I have little cause to complain.

For some people the glass is always half empty - they will always find something to moan about. Some people will have had horrible journeys.

I like to look forward (aaarrrggh - next week may be bad!) - I look forward to the new train timetable on 5th September. I will hopefully be able to gain 70 minutes a day at home, spending 10 minutes a day less in the office. I think I may be one of the lucky ones, but here's hoping.

So far so good. Well done Chiltern Railways!

A bad start to two weeks of travel carnage

2011-08-15T18:41:00.002+01:00

This week Marylebone station is shut, to enable the points and track layout at Neadsden Junction to be remodelled. Next week the track layouts at Princes Risborough and South Ruislip / Northolt Junction are getting similar treatment.

This means that all Chiltern railways trains from Aylesbury are terminating at either Harrow-on-the-Hill or Amersham. Trains on the High Wycombe Line are either diverted to Paddington (or Didcot), or terminate at West Ruislip, for the Central Line.

Tonight the 1645 departure from Paddington was cancelled, due to a member of staff being unavailable.

I saw no Chiltern Staff at Paddington (I am not saying that there were none, I just didn't see any).

The next train, the 1718, was formed of 7 carriages and was completely rammed.

My journey home took over two hours.

Next week will be worse, with no trains at all on the High Wycombe line.

I do hope that Chiltern Railways get their act together. The occasional cancellation is understood, but to cancel a peak time train when there are only two an hour smacks of a lack of contingency planning.

Many passengers tonight have reason to be grumpy.

Stand behind the yellow line

2011-07-19T23:44:00.000+01:00

Can I stress that alcohol and machinery do not mix. Particularly if the piece of machinery is a big heavy train.

Should you be in the High Wycombe area to catch a Northbound train, while under the influence of alcohol, you currently need to stand well (very well) back from the yellow line. If you try to follow the yellow line, you may start to stagger around a little more than usual.

It appears that during last weekend's engineering work, as part of Chiltern Railways' Evergreen 3 programme, a couple of inches were shaved off the platform This is presumably to enable trains to pass through faster than is currently the case.

There appears to be some major track work due to take place at High Wycombe. The North end cross-over is due to be replaced, but the bits seem to have been laying around for ages. Maybe next weekend?

Rural Idyll

2011-07-06T06:45:00.003+01:00

Sometimes my corner of Rural Buckinghamshire hides a dark pool of thieving scum.

For the second time in a month, the village down the road from us has no telephone / broadband service again.

This is apparently because some kind souls have decided to nick a load of cables (property of British Telecom) out of the ground.

Apart from being most annoying for local businesses & residents, it must be a complete nightmare for BT.

Realistically, it is impossible to alarm or truly protect every cable carrying asset that BT uses across this green and pleasant land. Assuming that the thieving problem is not very localised, these sorts of incident must have a drag in the rural economy.

As for those that buy dodgy copper, does anyone have some string and a lamp post?

A history lesson

2011-07-03T22:54:00.000+01:00

This blog started at the beginning of 2006.

At the time I lived in West London, Along the Central Line.

I adopted the name centraluser simply because I didn't know any different - I didn't really know a lot about blogging, or (as with most people) have any idea how much Social Media would take off in the years that were to follow.

The main theme of the blog has always been about public transport. However I do occasionally meander off to witter on about anything else that takes my fancy. That is the prerogative of a personal blogger.

For the first 17 months of its life, most posts were about the Central Line - that's the long red line (well, red on maps) the crosses broadly from East to West, or from West to East, across London. My journey to and from work consisted of walking and traveling Along the Central Line.

Four years ago I moved to Rural Buckinghamshire, but continue to commute in to Central London. Rarely on the Central Line.

This means that I now rarely blog about the Central Line. Also the train company I use (Chiltern Railways) is generally pretty good, so blogging material is sometimes a little sparse. That means my blogging is also pretty sparse.

I shall however continue to post occasionally (at least once or twice a month) - Slightly more frequent ramblings may be found on Twitter.

If you wonder why I've posted this, you'll never know. If you know why I've posted this, there you are - I hope that is clear!

Pip pip!

Chiltern Railways Trains Now Moo-ving

2011-06-09T22:49:00.000+01:00

A brief update as I currently have no Internet connection.

Following the earlier bovine incident, trains seem to now be running.

The railway company are clearly doing their best to get everyone home.

The passenger experience has been bad and there are many grumbles, particularly from those who were stranded at Gerrards Cross.

It'll be interesting to see how the overnight recovery goes. Trains will be all over the place and there is supposed to be engineering work taking place.

Chiltern Railways - Cattle Problems

2011-06-09T20:12:00.002+01:00

No, nothing to do with overcrowding.

Trains are currently seriously disrupted / at a stand, due to cattle being struck on the line between Gerrards Cross and Seer Green & Jordans.

Not the most straight forward of incidents to recover from at the tail end of the evening rush hour.

Coaches are being rustled up between Princes Risborough and West Ruislip, to try to get people mooving.

Where possible trains from up North are being diverted via Aylesbury and then down the Metropolitan Line.

It looks as though the 'shiny new train (Class 172), which entered service yesterday, will probably not get back to London for a while, as it cannot travel down the Metropolitan Line.

It will be interesting to see how this affects tonight's Late Night engineering work.

I do hope all the people involved in the incident are - it seems that the same cannot be said for at least one silly cow.

Other train operators are accepting tickets via reasonable alternative routes.

** I am not Chiltern Railways **

Updated @ 2013 on 9 June

Slack in the timetable

2011-05-14T13:08:00.001+01:00

Here is a classic case of the amount of leeway built into today's timetables.

This morning's 11.53 Chiltern Railways service from London Marylebone to Bicester North left on time.

It was delayed at Gerrards Cross due to a minor fault and left there 9 minutes late.

It is due to arrive any moment now at Bicester North, on-time.

Hmmmm.

Edit: For the record, the train actually arrived at Bicester North at 13.10. I think I must be a little light on blogging material at present.

The Storage of Gas Cylinders

2011-04-26T20:21:00.003+01:00

There has been much comment recently regarding the storage of gas cylinders near public transport infrastructure.

Much of this has of course been as a result of a major fire at a scrap-yard in North London earlier this month. The particular scrap-yard is under the M1 Motorway and was so severe that the road had to be closed for several days.

Initially the major problem was that there were Acetylene cylinders thought to be involved with the incident. The London Fire Brigade doesn't like these particular types of gas cylinder as they can become exceedingly unstable and dangerous if involved in a fire. It subsequently transpired that the real issue was that the fire was so serious that the concrete structure holding the motorway up was seriously damaged. This took some serious engineering to repair enough to enable the motorway to be opened.

My local train station, which is in rural Buckinghamshire, has had lots of Network Rail engineers in attendance over the weekend. Actually, so far as I can tell, they were sub-contractors employed by Bam Nuttall. They worked hard for four days with their engineering work (though most of their work is not visible to mere mortals), and they made a fairly good attempt at clearing after themselves.

They've left just one thing. I don't think it's acetylene, but it is quite literally plonked in the middle of the car park. I wonder if it's been forgotten? I wonder if I should tell Chiltern Railways? I wonder if they'll be interested?

Democracy at work in the Chilterns

2011-04-17T15:03:00.001+01:00

In my part of the country (rural Buckinghamshire), there are three sets of voting taking place on 5th May.

Elections to the Parish Council were due to take place. There will be no vote in this Parish, because there are fewer valid nominations than there are seats on the council.

Elections to the District Council were due to take place. The current representative of my ward (a hard working and caring individual) is not standing for re-election for family & work related reasons. Another resident of the ward has been found to stand instead of the departing incumbent. There will be no vote because just the one valid nomination has been received. A virtually unknown person will therefore be elected, with no public scrutiny, presumably because nobody could be bothered to do anything else.

The third vote taking place on 5th May is a referendum to decide on the voting system to be used for future parliamentary elections.

I suspect that few round here really care. That's a shame.

West Ruislip Depot Full

2011-04-16T08:22:00.002+01:00

I noticed just now, while whizzing past on my Chiltern Clubman, that the Central Line's Ruislip depot is extremely full

All the trains are neatly lined up - I have never seen the depot with so many trains.
Ah! That'll explain it. Just checked - no trains West of Marble Arch

Have now just gone past chiltern's Wembley depot. That has just one 2 car Turbo (165) train and lots of Mk 3 stock. Ah! And that could be because for the first time in yonks, Chiltern are playing with a full train set this weekend.

For the avoidance of doubt, Chiltern Railways have no engineering work this weekend.

Yellow Lines

2011-03-26T10:49:00.000Z

I travel from a small country station in Rural Buckinghamshire.

There will be no trains stopping at, or passing through, the station until Monday morning. This is perfectly normal - Chiltern Railways are currently spending lots of money to shave a few nano-seconds off my regular commute, so for the majority of weekends we have no train service near where I live. This ongoing engineering work means replacement buses running - we actually get more buses than we normally get trains.

Today the Chiltern Railways maintenance people have descended on the local station to take advantage of the lack of trains. They appear to have:

Painted white lines along the edge of the platforms
Painted yellow lines along the platforms
Fixed lots of 'Stand behind the yellow lines' signs to the lamp posts along the platforms

I actually find this maintenance work rather sad. Yes, it makes the station look cared for and maintained, but really it is only being done for elf & safety reasons. We don't have masses of trains call at the best of times. We certainly don't suffer from over-crowded trains and the station could never ever be described as busy.

This isn't a rant - It's rather just a whimsical sigh. I like living in the country and, somehow, these signs of modern rules & regulations appearing in the heart of Rural Buckinghamshire just make me feel somewhat deflated. Sigh.

Soon, they'll be wanting to paint yellow lines down the road as well. Oh! I forgot - they do want to do that!

District Dave

2011-03-18T13:14:00.000Z

District Dave (Dave Maloney) passed away yesterday morning.

Dave was the founder of District Dave's London Underground Site and the separate (but now much bigger) District Dave's London Underground Forum.

Good people like District Dave, people capable of inspiring others, are such an important part of what humanity is about. Sometimes you get used to sitting at a computer with information scrolling past and over you. News of Dave's death brought me to a shuddering stop - he will be missed.

My sincere condolences to Dave Maloney's family at this difficult time.

CU

Temporary break in service

2011-02-26T23:31:00.000Z

Chiltern Railways - Update

2011-01-31T07:28:00.003Z

Chiltern Railways have just been given the OK to run trains through the South Ruislip area after the over running engineering works.

It's going to take a while to get things back to any sense of normality - a train has just left my local station on time, so they are obviously trying their best. I suspect a fairly important contingency plan has leapt into place this morning!

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go.

Sooner or later, it was going to happen

2011-01-31T06:46:00.001Z

Chiltern Railways are currently going through transformational engineering works. Generally this means that weekend trains are significantly affected. Between now and the end of February, for example, there is only one Saturday or Sunday where there is going to be a normal train service running on the line through High Wycombe..

It's horrible, that is the disruption is horrible, but hopefully the pain will be worth it in the end.

Up until now, with the exception of a tiny number of very early morning trains, the months of weekend engineering works have had no knock on impact to the weekday train services.

No so today.

Currently Chiltern Railways have over-running engineering works, South of High Wycombe, with the line not expected to reopen until 0730. Services from Aylesbury to London over the Metropolitan Line are not affected.

I think it is going to be one of those days!

The end of an era

2011-01-28T16:56:00.002Z

I am currently on the last ever Southbound Wrexham & Shropshire service. It's rather full, with a strange and rather mournful atmosphere.

I wonder what the welcoming committee will be like in London?

I know that there are some Chiltern Railway, big cheese, train buffs on board - oh, if only more train services were like this!

A sad day.

More later ........

High Speed Broadband for Wendover

2011-01-13T22:08:00.002Z

Crikey! This is only the fourth time that I have mentioned Wendover since I started this blog five years ago, and it is the second time this week. This post is nothing to do with trains.

Yesterday, BT announced that Wendover is to be one of 41 market towns that will receive high-speed fibre broadband connections of up to 40Mbps by spring 2012.

I suppose that it is good news. I can't immediately think how high speed broadband would change my life, but I suppose it will be a bit like widening a motorway - many people will use it more and more. For the avoidance of doubt, my home is not connected to the Wendover telephone exchange.

Better than expected

2011-01-10T19:39:00.001Z

Happy New Year!

For reasons I won't bore you with, this evening I travelled out form Marylebone to Wendover, a small town in the Chilterns, just South of Aylesbury.

I caught the 1716, which runs fast to Great Missenden. There has been a bit of on-line grumbling recently about overcrowding and short-formed trains. So, as I wandered down to Platform 4, I groaned to myself when I saw that the train was to be formed of only two carriages.

It is however pleasing to report that nobody on the train had to stand (they may have stood, but there was no need to), and it arrived at Wendover only 1 minute late - not bad given that Chiltern Railways trains run the gauntlet of sharing track with the Metropolitan Line for much of the way.

All in all quite a pleasant journey.

Oh, and I've added a Twitter feed to the right - I hope it doesn't distract too much.

The same again (but not quite)

2010-12-29T07:27:00.003Z

I hope that you had an enjoyable Christmas.
Back to the grindstone this morning, although I do hope to be able to bunk off early today to attend a family celebration in Hampshire.
In one way, this morning's journey to work has been remarkably similar to last year's return from the Christmas break. I was the only person to board the train at my station.
The principal difference to last year is that the train was already a third full. That is unusual for a normal day. A check of the timetable shows that the train has come from Banbury - that explains why everybody looks half asleep.
It seems that we are following a First Great Western service (on diversion from Oxford) and a train that started from High Wycombe. The result - only a handful more people have got on since I did and we are now running fast to Marylebone.
I've just noticed that, according to Live Departure Boards, the first two FGW trains from Oxford are due to stop at West Ruislip (interchange with the Central Line). I cannot say that this is a first, but it is certainly highly unusual.

Christmas Greetings

2010-12-25T00:01:00.006Z

I would like to wish my reader a very Happy Christmas and all best wishes for a fruitful, happy and peaceful New Year.

Apologies for the re-use of the card, but I like it!

CU

Chiltern Railways This Morning

2010-12-24T07:27:00.002Z

It's Christmas Eve, I am going to work and I am just about ready. Ready, that is, except for the wrapping and the packing.

Chiltern Railways should have been running a special Christmas Eve timetable today. They are, but I think it's a "Special Special" timetable. At this moment, believe nothing except the Chiltern Railway's website as to what is going on.

Why?

Well, after two days of fairly well organised chaos, station Passenger Information Screens are either wrong or blank. Also the Live Departure Feed on the National RAil website is displaying a normal timetable.

On the up side, today is a long train and the front carriages only 50% full. It must be like the Marie Celeste at the back.

Sent from my iPhone

Getting Better

2010-12-22T07:05:00.001Z

It was definitely less cold last night - the station car park is now a slush pool.

Train only six minutes late (don't ask about yesterday's journey) and it has plenty of carriages.

AND the Passenger Information Screens have been uploaded with the emergency timetable being operated today by Chiltern Railways.

All a vast improvement on the last couple of days.

Chiltern Railways - Snow

2010-12-20T07:21:00.003Z

The trouble with running a railways is that (a) Drivers and other staff have to get to work themselveand (b) Snow and ice do not do much to help improve the reliability of the infrastructure.

As a consequence of this weekend's snow, Chiltern Railways are today running an emergency timetable.

The problem is that the train I am on has another eight stops before it reaches Marylebone. The aisles and vestibules are completely jammed with people already.

It's going to be a fun day. Stay safe.

Chavs breeding Chavs

2010-12-03T12:17:00.003Z

I've previously mentioned Chavs on the trains.
Well, I am currently sat near two, with an accompanying gaggle of screaming Chavlets.
Said one of the bigger ones "Look - when you shout, they all turn their heads and look at you. Shout ('Shaart') as much as you want."
Charming. Roll on Marylebone.
By the way, it is bitterly cold today in Rural Buckinghamshire, with freezing fog. Well done Chiltern Railways for keeping the trains running bang to time.
Edit: OMG - one of them called "Sky". Aargh.

Boris Bikes Go Casual

2010-12-02T07:01:00.000Z

Tomorrow, 3rd December 2010, the Barclays Cycle Hire Scheme (aka 'Boris Bikes') becomes available for casual users.

I hope the launch goes well and that everything goes well technically. There should be plenty of bikes available as during the current inclement weather, fewer bikes than usual are being used. Yesterday afternoon at Soho Square there were about 15 spaces available in the docking station - the most spaces I have ever seen at that time of day.

Be safe!

By the way, I'm back, but still with a small backlog of holiday posts.

Manuel Antonio National Park

2010-11-25T21:21:00.001Z

Today we took a 15 minute bus ride to Manuel Antonio, a small tourist town at the edge of the National Park of the same name.

Having paid our $10 to gain entrance to the park, we then also clubbed together (5 times $10 each) to pay for a guide to show us round on a 2 1/2 hour tour. We definitely swa more wildlife than if we hadn't have had a guide - he also carried a spotter scope which was worth it's weight in gold.

The highlight for me was seeing (and being able to photograph) this Laughing Falcon. We also saw a humming bird sat on its nest. Sadly though when we returned the following day the nest had gone - a sign of the effects of occasional irresponsible tourism.

We also saw lots of monkeys, though in reality they are so tame as to be a pest, as are the racoons.

After the walk, I took the opportunity to swim for an hour or so in the Pacific breakers before heading into town for some lunch. I then caught the bus back Quepos for a bit of shopping and a lazy late afternoon.

Down from the hills

2010-11-24T21:36:00.020Z

Today saw us leaving the Cloud Forests of Monteverde and head out of the cool dampness to the hot and humid Western (Pacific) coast.

We had chartered a mini-bus today as the public bus left at a thoroughly undesirable 4.00am. Before we got on board, we saw our last local wildlife across the road - a woodpecker of some description.

As soon as we left Santa Elena the road became unpaved and remained so for the next hour or so - the bumps were punctuated by the most stunning scenery.

We lunched in Jaco, a tourist town on the coast and eventually reached our next accommodation in the mid-afternoon, just outside Quepos. Some in the group thought the accommodation was a little below par, but for three nights I thought it was OK, if a little disappointing for our final main destination of the holiday.

Frogs

2010-11-23T20:16:00.020Z

I forgot to mention that last night, as it was getting dark, I went for an organised night hike in the forest.

We did see a bit - a Porcupine up in a tree, a rather large Red Kneed Tarantula, a couple of tiny frogs and some birds asleep in the trees. The main thing to remember though was that throughout the 90 minute walk there was a continuous torrential downpour. Fortunately I had proper walking boots on and was wearing appropriate waterproofs, unlike some of my fellow explorers.

Today was a fairly quiet day - I went for a walk back down to Monteverde where there is a large co-operative souvenir shop which is well worth a visit. I then walked back to Santa Elena for some lunch before visiting the Ranario Frog Pond.

Here there were many species of frogs, mostly tiny, in fairly large terraria. Thanks to my guide I did manage to see each species on offer. When I re-visited for my after dark free re-entry (self-guided) later, my frog spotting was much worse.

Up In The Trees

2010-11-22T21:20:00.001Z

Today a few of us went to experience the 'Hanging Bridges' tree-top canopy walk at Selvatura, about 7 KM North of Santa Elena.

We were picked up from our hotel just before 8.00 am. After picking up some other people, we headed up into the Cloud Forests.

The weather was good to us (ie it didn't rain) and so we managed to stretch out the 3 KM walk to tale 2 3/4 hours. Normally that would take some doing , but we thoroughly enjoyed investigating all the the forest trail offered to us to see.

The bridges themselves were eight sturdy structures. All were solid suspension bridges - I do not like heights, yet found crossing. The bridges absolutely fine. Some were very long (over 200M / 600 ft) and most were so high up over the tree tops that one couldn't tell how far it was to the ground.

Following a quick coffee & cake, we then paid a further $5 each (on top of the $25 already paid for the Hanging Bridges), to visit the Humming Birsd garden.

Without doubt the best $5 spent all holiday. I will post some pictures when I get home.

Once dropped off near the hotel, I then walked Towards Monteverde proper. By that, I mean the site of the original Quaker settlement - the main town is actually Santa Elena.

I had a yummy lunch at the Paso de Stella visitor centre and fleetingly called into The Monteverde Cheese Factory shop.

A busy day.

Sent from my iPhone (some days later).

A Bumpy Road

2010-11-21T20:45:00.032Z

We were picked up from our hotel shortly after 7.30 am to begin our journey to Monteverde.

The day was billed as 'Jeep-Boat-Jeep', but for each Jeep read 'Mini-Van'.

A 20 minute journey to the shore of Lake Arenal saw us board a small ferry boat that was to transport us across the lake.

Laguna de Arenal is a man made lake. The principal dam contains a hydro-electric plant that produces 40% of Costa Rica's electricity. Just 5% of the country's electricity is produced using fossil fuel, referee to as 'Dirty Electricity'.

The lake crossing saw many birds, including Ospreys and a Kingfisher.

We then took a very bunny and unlaced road, for a couple of hours, to Monteverde, where we are to stay for three nights. This afternoon was spent wandering around Santa Elena.

Volcano & Hot Springs

2010-11-20T22:40:00.001Z

This morning was spent walking around La Fortuna and catching up on postcards etc.

A quick lunch at Soda La Parada (lots of locals on a Saturday lunchtime), then back to the Hotel San Bosco. From there, six of us were picked up by Aventuras Arenal for our trip to Volcano Adrenal.

After picking up a few more tourists, we traveled less than seven miles into the National Park. We parked and, having split into two groups, walked up to a viewing station to get some fantastic views of the volcano. The top wascovered in could, which is apparently the norm.

We then did a short circular walk which took us a bit higher. We also saw a Howler Monkey, plenty of birds and some unusual orchids.

After returning to the minibus, we were then taken to the Eco-Termales hot spring complex and left for an hour and a half of the most glorious relaxation. Thoroughly recommended.

We were then taken to the Volcano Springs restaurant for a meal. The only good thing about it was that it was included in the cost of the excursion.

All in all, a good day.

Towards the Volcano

2010-11-19T21:52:00.000Z

Another two buses today. The first was to Ciudad Quesada (San Carlos), where we were unable to get on our planned bus.

So, after an extra 45 minute wait, we all managed to board a local bus service to La Fortuna.

La Fortuna is a tourist town that has developed since the sudden explosion of 'Volcan Arenal' on 29 July 1968. It is totally unlike any other place we have visited since arriving in Costa Rica, however it is still pleasant enough.

Tourist town meant my last satisfactory evening meal so far. A deep sleep beckons

A Few Bus Rides

2010-11-18T22:53:00.001Z

Today saw us leaving Cahuita on the 8 o'clock bus, heading for Puerto Limon. The journey took about an hour. For much of the time the road followed the never ending string of beaches along the coast.

Puerto Limon is Costa Rica's principal port on the Eastern seaboard. This means that the local economy appears to depend on the container port / ship trade, along with that of visiting cruise ships.

After 3/4 of an hour and a short stroll to a different bus station to the one at which we had arrived, bus number two set off for Guapiles.

A quick change of buses saw us on the final stretch of the day to Puerto Viejo De Sarapiqui. There we crammed into a number of taxis for the short journey to the El Gavilan Lodge.

The lodge is set in fabulous grounds next to the Rio Sarapiqui. We took a boat trip after lunch and saw some fabulous birds as well as other wildlife.

A Slothful Day

2010-11-17T23:06:00.001Z

Today we went to a Sloth Sanctuary. It was very interesting, though the animals did lack a little pace! Sorry.

Then, after lunch, back to the beach for another final linger in the Carribean before heading inland tomorrow.

I´ll post some pictures when I get home but don´t currently have that technology.

Still chillin´.

Strolling along the coast

2010-11-16T23:18:00.001Z

Nothing on the agenda today, so after breakfast I set off on a longer than exected walk into the Cahuita National Park (yes, I am in Costa Rica).

Saw loads of wildlife, walked round some headlands and came across the most stunning beach. You know, like a picture postcard. White sand, Azure blue sea, like swimming in a bath. Luvverly.

Evening was a please enough meal at a local bar and then a relatively early night to shake off the last of the jet lag.

This sure beats London in November!

Leisurely start to the day

2010-11-15T20:33:00.000Z

Breakfast today was from 6.00am, but on the basis that we weren´t leaving until after 9.00am, most people emerged from their jet-lag at about 7.00am.

A beautiful day, the morning of which was spent on a public bus traveling through lush hills and banana plantations. We then reached the coast and ended up in a small village, heavy on reggae and an extraordinary laid back feel. Now just chillin!

A long day

2010-11-14T23:28:00.001Z

This morning the taxi came at 7.00am to pick me up to take me to Heathrow.

I caught a mid morning flight to Texas, where I then spent 3 1/2 hours on the ground before catching another flight to central America. Total time traveling: 21 Hours. Time spent in hotel room before falling asleep: 10 minutes.

Hopefully some interesting days to come.

Route 18 is fifth in London to banish bendy buses

2010-11-13T07:13:00.000Z

I use the number 18 quite a lot.

Whatever the spin (and it is drivel), my journeys will now be worse.

Traveling along the Euston and Marylebone Roads (long and straight) on a bendy bus (long and straight), with three sets of doors to get on and off, has been really quite painless. Given a choice of buses, the bendy bus has had my preference on this route.

It's early on the first day of the new double deckers - I may nip along later to check them out. I want to dislike them. Boris should be focusing on more important things.

Somebody is in for a telling off

2010-11-03T23:52:00.001Z

This evening's 19.37 Chiltern Railways service from London Marylebone to Aylesbury was terminated early at South Ruislip due to 'a train failure'.

My understanding is that 'a train failure' should more accurately read 'running out of fuel'. Oops.

Wow!

2010-10-26T07:35:00.002+01:00

Sunrise this morning in London is at 07.43.

The whole of the Southern sky is an incredible pattern of deep reds.

Amazing, but probably gone in 5 minutes. Enjoy if you can.

The steam has now stopped

2010-10-18T22:28:00.000+01:00

Coming out of my ears, that is.

Following my earlier post, things went from bad to worse... the trains did eventually start running, though I walked in my front door 50 minutes after I should have done.

Part of the problem, from my perspective, was the short notice (actually 'No Notice') cancellations and changes to stopping patterns. These conspired against me - resulting in a train that could have got me home a lot quicker than I managed, whizzing through a station where I was waiting to catch it, without stopping.

I was not happy.

When things go wrong, it must be difficult for Chiltern Railways (or any railway company) to get things back on an even keel. However passengers have a lot more sympathy, and a lot less to complain about, if communication with them is effective. That should include timely station announcements and station dot matrix indicators being accurate. In both regards Chiltern Railways fell short tonight.

Bad Day All Round

2010-10-18T19:23:00.001+01:00

This morning's journey to Canary Wharf was bad due to the Jubilee Line being part suspended and Bank being closed due to overcrowding.

Unfortunately, the day is now getting worse.

Currently I am sat on a Chiltern Railways' train in West London, stuck behind a broken down Wrexham & Shropshire service. This is not good because they are apparently having to send a fitter out, by road.

Have been stuck here half an hour so far.

Still, I suppose it isn't a good idea to run a train with defective brakes.

No doubt more to follow later.

Coasting

2010-10-06T07:37:00.002+01:00

This morning I am sat at the back of the last carriage of my Chiltern Railways train to London Marylebone.
One of the engines under the carriage is not working, which makes for a strange feeling of coasting along in near silence.
The train is due to head off up to Birmingham in a few minutes. I do hope it makes it.

Evocative Excuse

2010-10-05T08:54:00.000+01:00

Early this morning I had to wait well over 20 minutes for a Central Line train from West Ruislip.

When it eventually came, the explanatory apology over the station tannoy advised us that the delay was due to "A couple of engineering trains floating around". Hmmm.

Monday Morning (Strike) Blues

2010-10-04T07:32:00.002+01:00

Just whizzed past the Ruislip Central Line depot, currently rammed full of trains.
Some people need to get a grip.
Have already had one call from a colleague who would rather take holiday than face a three hour journey due to tube strike.
I don't understand why we should be constantly facing tube strikes. It's been the same for the 24 years that I have been commuting.
My Chiltern Railways train is much quieter than usual, so many seem to have chosen not to travel in today. I wonder if there will be any Boris Bikes left at Marylebone?

Bloglines to bite the dust

2010-09-11T03:32:00.000+01:00

I use Bloglines to bring together all the blog feeds that I am interested in reading.

The browser system has always worked for me, though the mobile version is rubbish.

Bloglines is closing at the end of this month, which is a shame. I don't like change. Never mind, I'll just have to get a grip and move on. I'll leave the link in my Blogroll for a couple of weeks.

Oh, and I've added a couple of blogs to the list.

CU

HS2 at Northolt

2010-08-31T22:47:00.006+01:00

On Saturday I travelled Along the Central Line for a short while, from West Ruislip to Northolt. It was fine.

This picture is taken from the Eastbound platform at Northolt. It is possible to make out the over-bridge station building, which is also where the main A412 crosses the railway.

Running parallel to the Central Line is a little used single track railway line. It runs from Northolt Junction, has a triangular junction at Greenford and then continues on to the Paddington main lines just East of North Acton station. The line used to be double tracked - I think there is a passing loop somewhere just East of Greenford.

The current plans for High Speed 2 involve the entire stretch of parallel line being part of the route from Euston to Birmingham.

There are all sorts of contentious aspects to the HS2 plans - tunneling underneath grumpy people on the route from Euston and carving up parts of the Chiltern Hills, never mind burning truckloads of money that we don't have.

To give some idea of the work involved, never mind the impact on those living nearby, imagine what will be needed to upgrade this single bridge (and probably the entire underground station building) to allow two high speed (up to 400 kph / 250 mph) tracks to pass through the area highlighted. Simply mind boggling.

As busy as a week day

2010-08-28T11:37:00.002+01:00

There is a rugby league match this afternoon at Wembley Stadium. Kick off 2.30 pm.

Both teams are from Up North (it's Leeds Rhinos v Warrington Wolves), so travel is ideally suited to supporters who want to Park & Ride using the services of Chiltern Railways.

Nearly every station between Princes Risborough and South Ruislip has been buzzing with rugby supporters all morning.

Extra trains have been laid on, they are longer than usual, yet still packed.

It's a gloriously sunny day, so a great time should be had by all.

Obviously, by the end of the afternoon, some travelers will be happier than others.

Live life to the full

2010-08-11T22:58:00.003+01:00

Last month I celebrated another birthday. My parents came to stay and we had a really pleasant evening. Early on the morning after the night before, my mother took a phone call to be told that her brother had died suddenly, at home.

Tonight I took a call from one of my best friends, with whom I go skiing every winter. She was ringing to let me know that she has been diagnosed with breast cancer and is to have a double mastectomy next Monday.

Meanwhile, at work, my team has just been given a warning that we could fail a compliance audit because some of our electronic file folders on our network drive do not quote destruction dates.

My 93 year old Grandmother, who has just lost one of her two children, still has an active social life and has a positive outlook.

My friend has, since her diagnosis, bought a BMW sports car and is insisting that we continue to plan for next Winter's ski holiday.

Please keep things in perspective, focus on what you can do in life and try not to worry about the things over which you have no control. You never know what is just around the corner.

Holiday Friday?

2010-08-06T07:20:00.001+01:00

No more major stops for the train this morning, only three out of fourteen seats in use at my end of the carriage.

Just gone over the M25 - Very quiet.

Maybe when I get into town, it'll be quiet enough to get a Boris Bike?

Probably wishful thinking.

Another new mode of public transport

2010-07-31T21:30:00.004+01:00

After my riverboat experience on Monday evening, today I went for a practice spin on a couple of Boris Bikes.

I have paid for annual access and, even though there were no usage fees today, I didn't keep either of my bikes for 30 minutes (which is when usage charges will usually kick in).

I picked up my first bike at the Harewood Avenue docking station outside Marylebone station. There were three members of staff on hand and they made a particular point of telling me that there were no usage fees today.

My first trip was up Harewood Avenue, down Lisson Grove, across the Marylebone Road, along through Marylebone and East into Fitzrovia. After entering a wormhole of infinite circling one-way streets I eventually docked the bike at Foley Street before walking down into Soho.

Result? I am still not entirely sure that I have a sensible route planned all the way to work.

Coming back was much better - I picked up my second bike in Soho Square, walked it up to Rathbone Place and then cycled all the way back to Harewood Avenue in 15 minutes, including a slight wrong turn down some narrow streets (I was trying to avoid main roads).

One family exclaimed "Wow! Look!" as I passed them on the inward journey, while someone else commented "Cool Motor!" to me as I passed. All a bit strange really.

Now I will be the first to admit that I am slightly overweight. Nick Ferrari might call me fat. The Boris Bikes are not lightweight racing machines - they are designed to be functional, hard wearing and vandal-proof. This means that they take a bit of effort to use and they will definitely be useful as part of a calorie controlled diet.

I am thinking that my colleagues might not appreciate me using the Barclays Cycle Hire Scheme to get to work each day, if you get my drift.

The tfl website has a brilliant map showing all the docking stations. It includes live details of how many bikes are available at each docking station and how many empty spaces are available.

Generally most working docking stations seem to have bikes and spaces available. The exception is that at present the docking station in Soho shows that there are 37 cycles available and no spaces. It might be interesting to see how that changes as time goes by. Managing flows and demand will probably be one of the biggest challenges facing the operators of the scheme.

Boris Bike - My Experience

2010-07-31T07:38:00.002+01:00

My first mention of the Boris Bike (sorry.... "Barclays Cycle Hire") was supposed to have been one about ease of use, good bike availability, working docking stations, wind blowing through my hair, fresh air and relaxation.

I was to be an early adopter. My electronic bike key arrived last Tuesday, I was away for 24 hours and then activated the key on-line.

Yesterday was Day 1 though, for various reasons I didn't use a bike. The plan was (and still is) that I am going to go into London today and will have a practice ride or two around central London. I am particularly encouraged by the email that I have received from the Scheme this morning that (a) describes me as a "Barclays Cycle Hire Pioneer" and (b) includes the sentence "As a way of saying thank you for your support we have agreed that no usage charges will be incurred by users today."

Now my real question is 'Can I trust them when they say I won't be charged usage fees today?'. The reason why I say this is that I have just come off the telephone from the Help Line having noticed that I have already been charged twice for my annual access charge to the scheme. If they can mess up with a once a year fee, what chance do they have of getting a Do Not Charge day to work?

So to sum up: I haven't yet used a bike, but if I use one today I can have it for longer than half an hour without paying a usage fee. I've paid forty eight quid twice and am now trying to persuade the Cycle Hire people that I am not fibbing, so that they will give me the money back.

******************************

As a public service, I also detail below the top tips for use of the scheme as emailed to me today:

When you undock your bike,don’t forget to remove your key from the key slot before you set off.
When you return your bike, wait until the light turns green to ensure you have successfully docked your cycle and completed your journey – remember – make sure you get a ‘green light and click at the end of every trip!’
If you have yet to activate your key, do remember to go online and click on “sign in” to activate it – otherwise you won’t be able to hire a cycle.
Look after the scheme – it belongs to London and Londoners. If you see someone vandalising the bikes or docking stations please report it.

A fresh mode of transport

2010-07-26T21:26:00.001+01:00

I regularly have to travel out to Canary Wharf, the large office development that has been built over the last quarter of a century in East London on the Isle of Dogs.

Usually I manage to escape before the evening rush hour. Tonight I didn't.

At about 18:10 I got down to the Jubilee Line platforms to head back over to central London. It was horrendous. So far as I could tell, there was nothing wrong with the train service, the problem was that there were simply so many people trying to get on the trains.

After a few minutes I decided that getting on one of those trains was, on that occasion, not for me. I returned to street level and pondered what to do next.

Then I had a brainwave - it was a nice pleasant Summer evening, so what could be better than a trip on the river? It took me a while to find Canary Wharf Pier, but eventually I found myself a Riverboat and had a very pleasant half hour trip up to Embankment, from where I caught the Bakerloo Line up to Marylebone and then a proper train home.

Much nice, most civilised and just £3.55 with a Travelcard.

Door to door the journey took a bit longer than just catching the Jubilee Line, but I could shave some time off the journey because (a) I now know where the pier is and (b) If I were to make the trip regularly I would plan the start of the journey to fit in with the riverboat timetable.

So a new way home, for use in emergencies. Plus we saw Tower bridge in the Up position, something that I don't recall having seen before.

Early

2010-07-23T07:17:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I caught the first train of the day to Birmingham Snow Hill.

The train ran to time most of the way. It then left Birmingham Moor Street two minutes early, arriving at Snow Hill seven minutes ahead of the public timetable.

That's good, though I would have preferred a lie in! With that sort of timekeeping, I could have caught a later train.

The trip back to rural Buckinghamshire was hassle free.

Coming back, a huge number of people boarded the train at Bicester North. Most had obviously been to Bicester Village, for their dose of designer retail therapy.

Chiltern Railways must be raking in the dosh on the route between London Marylebone and Bicester North.

Well done Chiltern!

2010-07-19T20:17:00.002+01:00

Following a fairly major signal failure in the Beaconsfield area this evening, Chiltern Railways seem to have done a pretty good job at recovering the train service.

There have been some fairly lengthy delays and a small number of relatively short distance services cancelled, but they do now seem to be running most services now, to time.

Not as bad as I (and perhaps many others) feared!

Traveling from Marylebone tonight?

2010-07-19T17:21:00.007+01:00

If you are planning to travel home from Marylebone this evening, 19th July 2010, I'd either head over sharpish or simply be prepared for a long trip home.

This is a snapshot of the Live Arrivals Board as of a few minutes ago.

Logic says that pretty soon, Chiltern Railways are going to run out of trains at Marylebone.

Click for live arrivals and departures or here for the Chiltern Railways page.

Oh dear!

A close shave

2010-07-19T15:54:00.002+01:00

After my quiet commute in to town today, I later had to travel out to Canary Wharf.

I wandered down to the Bakerloo Line, down to Waterloo and then caught the Jubilee Line out to Docklands.

Coming back, I noticed that the electronic boards at the entrance to the station said that there were severe delays to the Jubilee Line. I whipped out my phone and the Live Departure Board confirmed that this was indeed the case.

I then trogged over to the Docklands Light Railway, caught a train to Bank, the Central Line to Oxford Circus and the Bakerloo Line up to Marylebone. I then had to walk half way to Hampstead (well Platform 4 at Marylebone anyway) to catch my Chiltern Railways train home.

I was dripping (ugh).

I've just noticed that the Jubilee Line is now part suspended with severe delays on the DLR.

Could be a fun journey home for many.

If you are reading this on a normal web page, the Live Service Updates should show to the right.

All quiet on the western front

2010-07-19T07:30:00.002+01:00

My journey to work this morning is very quiet. Two reasons. (i) There is hardly anyone on the train - The effect of school holidays, maybe? and (ii) the engines under the carriage of my train are not working, so we are zipping along with only the sound of the air conditioning. It's really quite relaxing on Chiltern Railways just now.

The M25 was exceedingly quiet when we passed over it just now.

Other than an over-run of engineering work on the Victoria Line, all currently appears good on the London Underground.

It all seems to be too good to be true!

Not the best of weeks

2010-07-15T23:14:00.004+01:00

Sometimes, despite the best efforts of those involved, things don't go to plan. My experiences with Chiltern Railways over the last couple of days lead me to believe that the management of my local railway company probably want to stop banging their heads against the proverbial Brick Wall...

Wednesday 14th July 2010

The 0629 train from Aylesbury to London usually consists of a four coach 'Clubman', with an empty two coach 165 class unit tacked onto the back. The train usually arrives at High Wycombe where the rear train is de-coupled. The front four coaches then head off for Marylebone at 0702 with the two coach train then forming the 0708 train, calling en-route just at Seer Green & Jordans and Gerrards Cross.

Yesterday the train was 20 minutes late leaving Aylesbury. The departure boards indicated that it was to terminate early at High Wycombe. When the train came round the corner there was clearly something wrong as the front four coaches were missing and the train was made up of just the two rear coaches.

At High Wycombe no announcements were made. Half the passengers got off and the platform was deserted. The platform indicator did however suggest that the train was to be the 0708, due to leave at about 0720.

While we were sat at the red signal a fast train ran through on the 'Down' line, overtaking us. When we got a green signal we then set off, again without so much as a squeak from the driver. The train was almost empty.

Ten minutes later we pulled into Seer Green & Jordans, a very small station in the middle of nowhere. The train almost filled up with all the passengers that got on. Highly unusual.

At Gerrards Cross a shoe horn would have failed to get all the passengers on board.

We eventually got into Marylebone at 0802 - on the approach the driver made the sole announcement of the journey to apologise for the late arrival.

Problem: A cancelled train will inevtably lead to overcrowding. However communication with passengers (and possibly to the driver) was terrible. Must try harder.

Thursday 15th July 2010

The 0733 Wrexham & Shropshire service from Marylebone broke down this morning and the passengers were turfed off at Wembley Stadium.

The 0736 Chiltern Railways from Marylebone was terminated early (I don't know why) at Princes Risborough. This train usually goes another two stations up the line to Bicester North where passengers have 4 - 7 minutes to cross the footbridge to connect with a fast running Birmingham train that zooms up behind it.

The 0750 Chiltern Railways (aforementioned fast running Birmingham train) today picked up the W&S passengers at Wembley Stadium and then ran non-stop but slowly to Bicester North.

Anyone who wanted to have connected at Bicester today would have struggled because the 0839 arrival didn't get there. If you are still with me, that train had stopped several miles south at Princes Risborough, with no imminent connection to the Birmingham services from there.

I was meeting a colleague on the fast service at Bicester North. Fortunately I had caught the preceding Birmingham service, so 'only' had to wait on the platform for 50 minutes for the fast train which was by then running almost half an hour late. We eventually arrived into Birmingham 24 minutes late.

Problems: Passengers from stations outside London who caught the 0736 departure today, and who wanted to connect to the Birmingham service at Bicester couldn't. This was because they were stranded at Princes Risborough. Also not a single announcement was made at Bicester North about the late running of the Birmingham service. Not good.

This Evening

A tree came down on the Metropolitan Line this evening, somewhere near Harrow on the Hill. This meant that all Aylesbury trains had to go via High Wycombe. One such diverted train (possibly the first?) did stop at Wembley Stadium. The train was then to run fast to Aylesbury on the Highy Wycombe line, but the passengers managed to persuade the driver to stop at Beaconsfield (the nearest alternative station to Amersham). A lot of passengers struggled to get home.

The 1812 service to Aylesbury from Marylebone managed to depart before the 1809 departure. The trains have different destinations and stopping patterns. At High Wycombe trains were randoly appearing and disappearing from the departure boards. No non-automated abnnouncements were made and neither staff or train drivers had a clue what was going on.

Things can and do go wrong, but someone at Chiltern needs perhaps to think about passenger experiences at a micro-level. Communications need to improve.

For much of the evening trains were backing up from Princes Risborough, presumably due to the number of trains fighting to get up the single track line from there to Aylesbury.

OK: I've got that off my chest. Boing... Off to bed. Oh and the bacon baguette sandwiches sold at the cafe at Bicester North are superb.

Geeking about Television

2010-07-14T22:09:00.003+01:00

If I go to the cinema, I generally like to wait until the end of the production credits before I leave. Sometimes I'm worried that I may miss a bit of extra action, often it's because I am looking for the name of someone I know.

It's the same for television programmes that I watch- very often I have met or know people involved in the production of them.

I have just watched a documentary on Channel 4 about Bruce Forsyth called "Living with Brucie". The nature of such programmes is that they tend to include archive footage - that footage is usually subject to copyright. This means that as well as paying the holder of the copyright for the right to use the material, there is usually an acknowledgment in the credits at the end of the programme.

The programme that I have just watched was produced by RDF Television, part of the RDF Media Group. In the acknowledgments the name of one of the copyright holders of some archive footage was spelt incorrectly. That is just sloppy and careless.

I think I need to get a life!

Don't wind up the ticket inspectors

2010-07-13T19:14:00.004+01:00

Last night the Chiltern Railways' ticket inspectors were out in force at High Wycombe. Tonight was the turn of the the good folk of Beaconsfield.

One guy had traveled with a 'Permit to Travel, that he had paid 5 pence for. The 'Revenue Protection Officers' were not happy. I make no observation as to the right or wrong of the situation, however.....

The passenger did have a bit of an attitude.

Observation No 1: It is rarely sensible to accuse a Chiltern Railways ticket inspector of being rude. They aren't.

Observation No 2: If you do want to try to talk aforesaid ticket inspector out of a £20 Penalty Fare, it is probably best not to refer to him and his colleague as 'Tweedle-Dum' and 'Tweedle-Dee'.

What a waste of time

2010-07-12T18:08:00.002+01:00

I regularly have to travel over to Canary Wharf for meetings.

Today's meeting lasted 25 minutes.

I traveled for two hours to get there and it took me two and a half hours to get home.

The Jubilee Line was suspended on the way, which meant that I diverted from Baker Street along the Hammersmith & City Line to Moorgate, then took the Northern Line one stop to Bank and then the DLR out to the East End.

Coming back, I did catch the Jubilee Line, but the gaps in service were such that I missed my train.

I know that dialing in or video conferencing ought to be the name of the game (the meeting room is set up for that), but it isn't, and my boss is rather self centred.

Bottom line - I do as I'm told!

Steaming through the Chilterns

2010-07-10T14:50:00.008+01:00

This picture is GWR King Class 4-6-0 no 6024 King Edward I trundling up through the North Western edge of the Chiltern Hills at about a quarter past nine this morning.

The train was due to have a busy day traveling out from Paddington to Worcester and then back to Paddington later, via Reading.

Quite a few people turned out to see the train which is what I would call a 'Proper' steam train.

Interestingly, while cropping the picture just now, I saw another steam train trundling up the valley with just a couple of carriages behind it. Not sure what it was or where it is going to, as I cannot find the movement detailed on any of the usual websites that show such things.

This morning's train was a few minutes late, so held up a Wrexham & Shropshire service along with a couple of Chiltern Railways' trains.

Edit: Thanks to the tip from Anonymous, I've tracked down this video of the Scots Guardsman traveling through Lancaster, on its way to Carnforth.

Confession Time - and a Thank You!

2010-07-07T20:00:00.003+01:00

Over the last few days I have been finding it difficult to become motivated to blog. It shouldn't be because I don't have the time (I spend three hours a day comuting and can post from my phone). I have even thought about stopping my blog, but the fact is, I quite enjoy it.

I think the problem is to do with work - too much of it.

I need to snap out of my malaise and find some backbone.

Some bloggers are clearly highly motivated. One such person is Diamond Geezer who (a) posts every day with well written and researched posts and (b) clearly has a large and loyal following.

DG has appeared in my blogroll for a little while now. Every year he (?) publishes a survey of blogroll links that link to Diamond Geezer. The survey was published today and my stats have gone through the roof. It shows you (a) the power of recommendation and (b) that I must try harder to drive my own readership. So that is what I shall attempt to do.

Thank you DG for a well deserved kick up the bottom and do, please, keep up the good work.

Note to self: Must try harder.

Tickets Please!

2010-06-28T07:04:00.002+01:00

I am on my second train of the day and have had my ticket checked twice so far.

We have just whizzed through West Ruislip and I noticed a ticket inspector stood on the platform there.

If you are planning to use Chiltern Railways today, make sure you buy a ticket. If you don't, expect no mercy...

Passport Inspection

2010-06-19T23:38:00.000+01:00

Actually, it wasn't a passport inspection, it was an on-train ticket inspection.

First of all, I wish to make my position entirely clear. Within reason, Chiltern Railways can check my train ticket as often as they like. I pay the railway company over £3,500 per year for my season ticket and I think that fare dodgers are scum. They should be caught. sucked into as many civil and criminal justice systems as is possible and spat out of the other end, in bits.

Sorry, I rant.

Yesterday's ticket inspection was a little different. It was a woman I have never seen before, carrying none of the normal 'Revenue Protection Officer' paraphernalia. That was left to an accompanying 'regular' colleague.

She examined each and every season ticket, compared the details on the ticket with the information on the accompanying photo card, and then looked each passenger in the eye to check that the photo card was theirs. Very thorough and a trifle unnerving.

It looked and felt like a check against fraudulent travel (ie forged travel documents or using travel documents belonging to someone else), rather than the usual ticket check.

I wonder who the woman was. I wonder whether she caught anyone? I wonder whether we shall ever see her again?

Compare and contrast with this evening. I am obviously 'known'. The ticket inspector on the train tonight (more of them about than usual, probably because of the 'Green Day' concert at Wembley Stadium) walked past me quickly, saying "hello" before moving into the next section of the train. Now, even though I know plenty of the staff by name I always offer my ticket when I should - tonight I simply wasn't given the chance. Actually, I'm quite chuffed.

Have you got six and a half minutes to spare?

2010-06-14T19:56:00.002+01:00

Should you be the remotest bit interest, the announcement referred to in my most recent post was heard at Princes Risborough station, operated by Chiltern Railways. I have no idea why other than stating that it was clearly a 'malfunction'.

Speaking of which, have a look at this YouTube clip. See if you can last to the end! Enjoy.

Strange Station Announcement

2010-05-26T07:48:00.001+01:00

Announcement just heard:

"Would any passengers for; and Abbey Wood, please make their way to the rear of the station."

Where am I?