Passenger Engagement and Public Toilets

Before reading any further, I must first of all point out that I am not in the habit of taking pictures in public toilets. Honestly.

A significant part of the role of a corporate Marketing & Communications team is to increase customer engagement with your brand. 

The word engagement is something that means different thinks to different people. Thanks to the English language, context is of course important. 

Employee Engagement is part of the modern management lexicon of corporate-speak. A cynic might say that someone with a high level of Employee Engagement is likely to accept less remuneration (or lower pay rises) and is less likely to leave, than would otherwise be the case. 

For a train company, customers are in the main your passengers. Passenger Engagement can therefore mean different things, but if a Marketing & Communications team can successfully increase brand perception, then that is good. It is what they are there for. 

A strong brand increases loyalty from existing customers and will also help attract new ones. For a train company, that means new passengers.

I am probably fairly high up the target list of a passenger that a train company would want to keep loyal. I do not say that because I have an over-sized head but because (a) my local Train Operating Company gets sack loads of my dosh every year (b) I use twitter to communicate with and about them and (c) I occasionally write blog posts about my experiences. 

For me, there is no chance of another TOC getting my day-to-day business. Chiltern Railways operate a monopoly in my area so, along with thousands of other commuters, I am not going anywhere else. 

It's a different story however for Chiltern Railways when looking at the entirety of their route. The London to Birmingham route is highly competitive. 

Here are the options and a snapshot view of each brand and offering (my views alone). 

• Virgin Trains. London Euston to Birmingham New Street. Fast. Expensive. 
• Chiltern Railways. London Marylebone to Birmingham Moor Street / Snow Hill. Not so fast, better value. 
• London Midland. London Euston to Birmingham New Street. Really slow. Good value. 

So, see what I've done? I have ranked and compared three multi-million pound businesses based on just two comparatives and my perceptions. 

Each of those comparatives (speed and price) can easily be challenged, or proven wrong, or may be completely irrelevant to particular passengers. 

Speed (time a journey takes) is affected by a number of factors including your specific start and finishing points, ease of connection to onward trains and even the time or day of the week. 

Price, as far as the UK railway industry is concerned, should be the subject of a Masters Degree in Confusion and Complexity. I will simply say that a single one-way journey between London and Birmingham can sometimes be obtained for as little as 50 pence (a newspaper promotional offer) to as much as £135. Of course the vast majority of passengers pay somewhere in the middle and well below the mid-point of those two prices. 

Other passenger relevant variables might include;

• The availability of wi-fi and it's cost. 
• Tables
• Refreshment services
• Station ambience
• Plug charging points
• Types of trains
• View out of the window
• Friendliness of staff
• Availability of seats
• Awareness of what choices there are
• Cleanliness of toilets

Everybody is different and each individual will have their own personal decision-making matrix that they use. That is complicated and is difficult to model or to communicate effectively. 

That is where the Communication and Marketing team comes to the front. Can they encapsulate little snippets of information that subtly make people want to use their services over those of a competitor? Perhaps a self-deprecating choice of language. Humour. Honesty. Integrity. Everything helps, almost anything goes. 

So, what has all that got to do with toilets?

Take a look at the toilets at Marylebone Station and you'll find out!

CU

A question of ticket checks...

A question was asked on Twitter this evening as to why, having just passed through the ticket barriers at Marylebone, a passenger's ticket was then checked on the train a few minutes later. 

A perfectly reasonable question. 

It got my mind racing in a number of different directions - The following are some of my thoughts on the topic, from the perspective of an ordinary honest fare paying passenger, traveling mostly with Chiltern Railways. If you a reading from the perspective of someone less scrupulous, please go elsewhere. 

From a revenue protection perspective, Chiltern Railways will want to check that (a) a ticket is valid on a particular train and (b) that a ticket covering the journey is held at all. 

I suspect that the barriers are not that clever and will open with any ticket that is valid from that station at roughly that time of day. That could include tickets to any one of literally hundreds of destinations, tickets that are valid only during peak periods, or even tickets valid on just one specific train. 

The vast majority of passengers are honest and travel with valid tickets, some honest passengers travel on trains for which their tickets are not valid due to ticket-type restrictions, and some passengers travel dishonestly. 

It is possible to buy tickets in advance, for specific trains, that can cost as little as £6 or £9 to travel between Marylebone and Birmingham. By buying an 'Advance' ticket at such bargain prices, the passenger forfeits much of the flexibility that a more expensive ticket would provide. If you have an Advance ticket for a specific train, you must travel on that train, otherwise you you can expect to have to buy a replacement full fare ticket if it is checked by a ticket inspector. 

On a weekday, trains arriving into or departing from destination stations at peak times have specific ticket restrictions, meaning it is more expensive to travel at those times. Peak time restrictions do not apply on weekends or Bank Holidays. 

London stations are peculiar in that a tap of an Oystercard (a smart card ticket) will make the ticket gates open. Oystercards are valid from London Marylebone, but only as far as West Ruislip or Amersham. A surprisingly large number of people travel outside of the London Travelcard zones having simply tapped in, in London. If caught, they will usually be made to buy a full ticket and will also have the problem of an unresolved (unfinished) journey on their Oystercard to contend with. 

The unscrupulous passenger might buy a ticket far short of their destination, in the hope that they don't get caught. That is totally illegal and anyone who knowingly does this deserves to have the book thrown at them. 

The busiest stations (Marylebone, Gerrards Cross, Beaconsfield, High Wycombe, Leamington Spa and the Birmingham Terminii) have ticket barriers, as do London Underground stations at which Chiltern Railways trains call. Banbury will have barriers installed later in 2014. As most passengers have valid tickets, staff only have to deal with the small number of exceptions. Ticket barriers have to be left open if a station is unstaffed, so they are not a complete solution. 

South of Banbury, only the locomotive hauled trains (plus one other) have Train Managers on board. Other than that, surprise ticket checks are carried out on-board by a small band of roving ticket inspectors. 

There are also random 'blockades' at stations, where tickets are fully checked. 

North of Banbury, every train has a guard on board, so tickets will usually be checked. This extra presence is because a Driver Only Operation is only permitted between Marylebone and Banbury. DOO is not possible on the locomotive hauled trains and is not allowed on the one eight car weekday morning commuter train. 

Revenue protection is all about checks and balances. A commercial decision has been taken to not have ticket inspectors on every train. However when a member of staff is on board it makes sense for them to check tickets, for the reasons I have given. 

Most people welcome their tickets being checked on-board as it provides reassurance that the money they have paid is not subsidising people who have not paid the correct fare. 

During the week, it is not possible to check many tickets on-board, because the trains are too full and uncomfortable. That is however an entirely different story...

So in summary:

-Ticket barriers help prevent ticketless travel and, broadly, help to enforce peak / off-peak ticket restrictions. 

-On-board ticket checks help to minimise the number of people traveling with invalid tickets. 

The ticket checking regime is not perfect, but I for one welcome anything that stops my fares going up unnecessarily due to people not paying the correct fares for train travel. 

Virgin Trains along the Chiltern Line - Sunday 25 August 2013

Engineering works are taking place today that will significantly affect Virgin Trains Operating out of Euston.
This means that for much of the day one train an hour, in each direction, will be diverted via the Chiltern Line.

Virgin Trains
Sunday

• Some trains are diverted to run between London Euston and Birmingham International, Birmingham New Street and Crewe via High Wycombe, Leamington Spa and Coventry
• Trains between London Euston and Birmingham New Street / Wolverhampton and Manchester Piccadilly will run to an amended timetable
• Until 12:00 trains will not run between London Euston and Rugby
• After 12:00 trains will not run between London Euston and Milton Keynes Central

For those interested in such things, I have pasted below a snapshot of the anticipated time for all of the diverted trains to pass through Princes Risborough. Thanks to Tom Cairns and the Realtimetrains website.

If you click this link, you will be taken to the live version of the same data - Click away to your heart's content! The data should be retained for 7 days, after which it probably won't work any more.

As a consequence,Chiltern Railways services on their Mainline Route (Birmingham - Stratford-upon-Avon - Banbury - High Wycombe - London Marylebone) will have minor changes to their timetable. There will also be additional carriages on many trains as the planned closure on West Coast Main Line from Euston will mean additional passengers using their services.

___________________________

Virgin Trains through Princes Risborough

Sunday 25th August 201
(Click image to enlarge)

Edit: The original image has been replaced with one that shows what actually happened at Princes Risborough on Sunday 25th August 2013.

Class 67 Problem Tonight at Bicester

Traction power for the Chiltern Railways Silver Trains(and for the old Blue and Grey set) is provided by Class 67 Locomotives.

Tonight the 1706 Silver Train from London Marylebone left London three minutes late. It trundled through North West London and even took the scenic route around the South Ruislip Loop.

The train was booked to run non-stop to Bicester North, before calling at principal stops to Birmingham Snow Hill. The train is then supposed to run empty from Birmingham to the depot at Stourbridge Junction, arriving there just after 2000.

Well, tonight the train eventually limped into Platform 1 at Bicester North just before six o'clock with a technical fault, and the service was then cancelled. Northbound passengers were transferred to either the following Statford-upon-Avon service which left Bicester at 1824 or the next Birmingham service which left at 1837.

Neither the original driver, a replacement driver or a fitter sent to repair the problem were able to fix the train, so Platform 1 (the Northbound platform) at Bicester North was blocked for some hours. Fortunately the track and signal layout allows trains to use platform 2 in either direction, so that is what happened for every Northbound train until just before eleven o'clock this evening.

Eventually a rescue locomotive was sent up from Wembley Depot, attached to the front of the broken down engine, and the train was hauled up to Banbury, leaving Bicester at about 2150.

Apparently DB Schenker who lease the engine are to send a couple of engineers down tomorrow to try to fix the problem, hopefully in time for the start of the working week on Monday.

So, currently there is a set of Silver Train carriages not where they should be (though they could be en-route to Stourbridge, I don't know). There is a Class 67 locomotive out of action, and the Blue & Grey set of carriages sat at Wembley without an engine.

It'll be interesting to see what Monday morning brings.

The best laid plans

Yesterday I posted an article giving details of all the Class 67 Silver Train times (and also the old blue and grey train) operated by Chiltern Railways.

At the foot of the article I placed a caveat which might be summarised as 'maybe'.

Today is a maybe day.

The 0744 from Princes Risborough is the old blue and grey set today (more seats for Beaconsfield).

Thiscould mean that the 0845 from London Marylebone to Birmingham Moor Street will be the same old slam door train with no Business Zone, though with other Silver Trains due to arrive in to Marylebone at around the same time I suspect that this will not be the case. Some swapping of trains will probably occur.

The 0750 from Banbury is apparently a 168 'Clubman' today.

Basically - for today, ignore my article of yesterday because the morning Class 67 trains are all over the place!

Chiltern Railways Silver Train Times (Class 67 Loco Hauled Services)

This blog is now quite Chiltern Railways centric. This means that I can tell from from peoples' search results that they look for all sorts of weird and wonderful things to do with trains, and end up here.

One such popular search is by people looking for when Chiltern Railways timetable the running of their 'Silver Trains'.

The Silver Trains are actually sets of five refurbished Mark III coaches, plus a Business Zone carriage with a small buffet. Each train has a Class 67 locomotive at one end and a Driving Van Trailer ("DVT") at the other. This means that, generally when heading South (but not always), traction power is provided by the locomotive at the back, with the train being pushed to London.
There are three sets of Silver trains currently in use, plus an extra train formed of six un-refurbished Mark III coaches. The old blue and grey train usually runs just two services a day - Banbury to London Marylebone every weekday morning and London Marylebone to Banbury every weekday evening (at 1850).

The weekday service is usually run with just three Silver sets. There were rumours that a fourth Silver Train was to be available by now (in theory a 'spare'), however I have seen no evidence of this, other than a couple of random carriages sat at Wembley depot.  This old rolling stock (not the Class 67 engines) is a mixture of old and new technology, so the trains are quite high maintenance. A spare is often needed and often that one spare set would not be enough.

From the most recent timetable change on 9th December 2012, Chiltern now run Silver Trains seven days a week. I have detailed below the train services that are currently scheduled to be operated as Silver Trains. This timetable currently runs until 18th May 2013.

Monday - Friday

• 1H17 07:44 Princes Risborough - Marylebone (No Business Zone supplement payable, no buffet open)
• 1H19 06:09 Kidderminster - Marylebone
• 1H22 06:38 Stourbridge Junction- Marylebone
• 1H21 07:44 Banbury - Marylebone (Old Blue & Grey set)
• 1H44 10:55 Birmingham Moor Street - Marylebone
• 1H53 12:55 Birmingham Moor Street - Marylebone
• 1H65 15:55 Birmingham Moor Street - Marylebone

• 1R16 08:45 Marylebone - Birmingham Moor Street
• 1R22 10:15 Marylebone - Birmingham Moor Street
• 1R34 13:15 Marylebone - Birmingham Moor Street
• 1R48 16:47 Marylebone - Birmingham Moor Street
• 1K50 17:15 Marylebone- Kidderminster
• 1K54 18:15 Marylebone- Kidderminster
• 1U56 18:50 Marylebone- Banbury (Old Blue & Grey set)

Saturdays

• 1H06 07:12 Kidderminster- Marylebone
• 1H13 09:10 Kidderminster- Marylebone
• 1H24 13:55 Birmingham Moor Street - Marylebone

• 1R25 11:06 Marylebone - Birmingham Moor Street
• 1G49 17:06 Marylebone - Birmingham Moor Street
• 1G53 18:06 Marylebone - Birmingham Moor Street

Sundays

• 1H31 10:13 Birmingham Moor Street - Marylebone
• 1R54 18:33 Marylebone - Birmingham Moor Street

Please note that these times are subject to change, particularly if a Silver Train is out of service. As of January 2013, when this post was written there have been a number of days when a Silver Train has been out of service, sometimes two.

This means that until reliability issues are overcome, the times above are the planned schedule - don't necessarily go out of your way to catch a Silver Train, because it might not be one!

**Updated 10th January 2013 with regard to 'spare' train and reliability issues **

A twelve minute delay, and this is what happens.....

Us normal rail travellers often don't realise how much pedalling behind the scenes takes place to attempt to keep an on-time railway running.

This afternoon I caught the Chiltern Railways 1555 Mainline Silver Train from Birmingham Moor Street to London Marylebone.

Once it was past Leamington Spa, it was reported that the Class 67 Locomotive (67012), pushing it from the rear, had dumped a load of oil. This was obviously reported very quickly, because six minutes before we arrived into Banbury Chiltern posted on their website that the train would be held at Banbury, due to a train fault.

Fortunately the driver(s) were unable to find anything wrong, so we left Banbury just 12 minutes late.

Regular Marylebone commuters will know that orchestrating on-time arrivals and departures is an art. The train plan has services darting in from all over the place - The train to form the flagship 1807 departure to Kidderminster is the train that was running late.

Clearly something had to be done to prevent carnage at Marylebone.

What actually happened tonight was:

• The 1702 departure from Bicester North to Marylebone was held for 6 minutes at Princes Risborough for us to whizz past. It arrived into London bang on the Working Timetable (1813) and three minutes ahead of the published public timetable.
• The 1648 departure from Bicester North to Marylebone was pulled over onto Platform 2 at High Wycombe, from where it left seven minutes late. It arrived into Marylebone one minute late. Being plonked there caused the 1710 MYB/SAV service to be delayed by six minutes, but that train should easily make up that time. [Edit: The SAV train actual missed it's slot at Aynho, so eventually arrived into Stratford-upon-Avon two minutes behind the public timetable.]
• The 1723 departure from High Wycombe to Marylebone was pulled over onto the slow line at West Ruislip and held at a red signal for us for about six minutes. That train arrived into London bang on time.

What that means is that due to some nifty footwork, the Silver Train was made to unexpectedly overtake three other trains and itself arrived into Marylebone on Platform 3 at 1758 (officially 9 minutes late). It left for Kidderminster a minute late at 1808. A pretty quick turnround. It is still running about one minute late, but that is neither here nor there.

All in all there were quite a few judgement calls to be made by the control staff. I would say they did a pretty good job tonight.

Without the manual intervention by signallers, it would have been total carnage at Marylebone. Trains would have been in the wrong platforms, hundreds or even a couple of thousand passengers could have been delayed, and there could ultimately have been significant costs to the railway company. All avoided bar some relatively minor inconvenience to a much smaller number of passengers.

Quite a bit of work caused by one late running train, but all's well that ends well!

Well that was a little strange

I am not even sure how I found out (because I wasn't following him on Twitter), but today is Geoff Marshall's fortieth Birthday. Happy Birthday Geoff!

Before today I had never met Geoff and had never spoken to him either. Our only interaction had been a brief exchange of emails some years ago.

Just to give some background, Geoff was for a period the World Record Holder for travelling to every London Underground station in the shortest possible time. He also undertook a road trip to visit a place in each of the forty eight connected US States that had the same name as a London Underground station (and blogged about it). I am sure that you will notice a certain theme here - probably not a million miles from the sort of stuff that I have been known to blog about.

Anyhow, there I was up in Birmingham, about to catch a Chiltern Railways train home when I discovered that Geoff was organising a flashmob at five forty this evening at Forty Lane in Wembley.

I decided to go....

I did the proper thing and picked up an appropriate birthday card at Marylebone Station. I then checked my phone to discover that the Metropolitan Line service to Wembley could best be described as 'erratic'. While on the train, the adjoining Jubilee Line was suspended, followed shortly thereafter by the Metropolitan Line. Fortunately I had successfully wended my way through the tube detritus to reach the appointed place, about twenty minutes early.

Being just about the warmest day of 2012 so far, I needed no excuse to sit outside the local pub, soaking up the late afternoon sun. Meanwhile Geoff was tweeting away, mildly swearing and generally berating the misfortune that he and his friends were having trying to reach Wembley.

We were communicating by tweets, but at the appointed time it was clear that without Geoff & Co the flashmob was to consist of one person. Me.

It didn't happen.

Having had notice that the mob had arrived at Wembley Park shortly after the arranged time, I wandered back down towards the station. I then successfully stalked the party crowd up the road and successfully merged into them as they approached Forty Lane.

All a bit weird really.

Anyhow, I was made to feel most welcome, took a group picture, handed over aforesaid birthday card, and then travelled with most of the group back down to Baker Street, having been asked to sign a tee shirt on the way.

I am not sure why that all happened and, as I say, it was a little strange, but all in all it was rather fun.

Happy Birthday Geoff!


Oh, and check out the professional show reel - Geoff's pretty good at what he does for a living.

Today is a Yellow Day

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

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.

High Wycombe has gone all kinky

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.

Coasting

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.

Early

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.

Not the best of weeks

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.

High Speed 2

First things first.

I live in the beautiful Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire, to the North West of London. Designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and part of the Green Belt, supposedly safeguarded land.

I like where I live, and moved here for some very specific reasons which include peace & quiet, natural beauty and an abundance of Flora and Fauna. I particularly like the fact that I live in an area that packs in an unbelievable number of Red Kites.

Recently the current government announced its plans for 'High Speed 2', a high speed train line to link London with Birmingham and eventually cities further North. The preferred route will head through West London before diving into a tunnel just before the M25, traveling underground for several miles before emerging to desecrate the landscape somewhere in the Great Missenden area. The line would then continue through the AONB towards Aylesbury and then on towards Birmingham.

The total width of the line and associated workings will be approximately 25 metres wide - the same as the length of a typical municipal swimming pool.

This afternoon I traveled on a Chiltern Railways train from Aylesbury to Amersham - the stretch of line between Wendover, Great Missenden and Amersham passes through some fantastic scenery. The thought of that countryside being forever blighted by a 25 metre wide concrete scar, with electric pylons and express trains passing through every two and a half minutes is not something that fills me with glee. Many people feel the same.

As the proposed route is the preferred choice of the existing Labour government, it is natural that their manifesto has the most specific detail on the proposals. Explicitly it says:

Rebuilding our transport infrastructure

Britain needs to invest in modern, high-capacity and low-carbon transport infrastructure. At the heart of our growth plan is the commitment to a new high-speed rail line, linking North and South. Built in stages, the initial line will link London to Birmingham, Manchester, the East Midlands, Sheffield and Leeds, and then to the North and Scotland. By running through-trains from day one, cities including Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle and Liverpool will also be part of the initial network. Journey times will be slashed – those from the West Midlands to London will be as little as 31 minutes. We will consult fully on legislation to take forward our high-speed rail plans within the next Parliament.

I am not overly keen on the proposed route tearing up and through, as it will, a relatively nice part of the South East of our Green and Pleasant Land. I will admit to breathing a sigh of relief that none of the three preferred routes in the HS2 Report cut through or near the valley where I live. Call me a nimby if you like.

The Conservative Party's election manifesto states:

We will begin work immediately on a high speed rail line connecting London and Heathrow with Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, with construction beginning in 2015, as the first step towards our vision of a national network joining up cities across England, Scotland and Wales. Stage two will deliver two new lines bringing the North East, Scotland and Wales into our high speed rail network.

What worries me about this is the directly stated intention to connect HS2 to Heathrow Airport. The reason this causes me concern is the lack of specifics on the stated route that such a line would follow - one possibility is that from being a reasonably content but unhappy nimby, I would become an "Oh my God you've got to knock my house down" nimby. That is not a good position to be in. A level of ambiguity and uncertainty that leads me to dislike a Conservative manifesto pledge.

The Liberal Democrats' transport policy is exceedingly wishy washy on HS2 simply stating:

Only the Liberal Democrats have costed plans to put the passenger first, with plans for a rail renaissance, reopening closed railway lines and new stations and building a High Speed Network to cut journey times to Scotland and the north of England.

So, I have previously been open about my political leanings. I need to cast a vote inside of two weeks. What difference will my single vote make in the context of a relatively safe-seat parliamentary constituency?

I know which political party I believe will be best for the country. I know which party's view is least worst for me on HS2. I know which is potentially the worst for me, and I know which one says nothing to help me form any opinion.

Conundrum, conundrum.

Lost in space...

... or perhaps that should be 'How to throw the losing dice'?

This image, from the excellent radarvituel.com shows four long haul British Airways jets currently heading for Heathrow.

So long as you are not geographically challenged, you may notice a slight problem.

The planes left Lagos (Nigeria), Calgary (Canada), Vancouver (Canada) and Beijing (China).

Houston, I think we have a problem!

Whether they end up in Madrid or Paris (either of which looks possible), I think if I were a passenger, I would rather have been diverted to Newcastle or Durham Tees Valley, both of which appear to be capable of receiving flights at this moment in time.

Ho hum.

20.30 I think the most easterly of the four planes was from Beijing and that plane landed at Amsterdam's Schipol airport. The 'orange' flight from Calgary is due to land at Paris CDG, the flight from Lagos has just done a circuit over the Channel Islands and doesn't seem to know what it is doing while the flight from Vancouver is currently doing lots of circuits over the Irish Sea.

20.50 The flight from Vancouver appeared to be about to land in Dublin, but then headed out over the Irish Sea again.

20.57 I've just noticed that flight BA254 from Lusaka (Zambia) appears to have done an about turn just South of the French coast and may now be heading for Spain? This looks interesting.

21.09 I hope the B747 from Lagos has plenty of fuel - it is still doing circles over the Cherbourg peninsular. The Vancouver flight is currently over Chester at 26,000 feet and heading South East towards Birmingham (currently closed). It must be an interesting evening on both of these planes.

21.20 The fligh from Lusaka appears to be heading for Barcelona and is currently descending through 17,000 feet. The Vancouver flight got as far South as Stratford-Upon-Avon and then did an about turn and has now done a circuit over Birmingham! The Lagos flight is still going round in circles.

21.27 I can't find the Lusaka flight any more. I am getting bored. You must be!

21.33 Just a thought... I wonder whether BA are trying to bully the UK authorities into letting them land at Heathrow. Currently there is a flight from Vancouver doing circles over Birmingham, a flight from San Fransisco that did a fantastic dance off the West coast of Ireland and which is now heading for the Welsh Coast, a flight from Lagos whic is still doing circles off the French coast, a flight from Los Angeles currently over Plymouth and a further two from Abuja (Nigeria) and Mauritius which have been circling over France and which are now heading across the English Channel.

Away we go again

Back in January I went to Stockport, to watch Saracens play Sale Sharks. Except I didn't, but I did.

The match was cancelled due to snow, but I went anyway. I went anyway, because the trains were running and I couldn't get the money back that I had spent on my train ticket.

Anyhow, the re-arranged fixture was last night. I took the day off work and traveled up in the afternoon.

The match was enjoyable. Unsurprisingly there were only a tiny number of Saracens supporters who had made the trip up North (I'm guessing, less than 40), although the game they saw had just the right amount of stress.

The final score was Sale Sharks 19 - Saracens 30, so a good result for a small proportion of the people at Edgeley Park (Stockport County's ground).

There's a football match on at Wembley this afternoon, so there were quite a few Aston Villa fans out and about on the way down from Birmingham earlier.

Again Chiltern Railways and Cross Country Trains both behaved themselves each way.

Igloo on Wheels

The 10.18 Chiltern Railways departure from London Marylebone is currently en-route to Birmingham Snow Hill.

Don't get on the third ("Quiet") carriage. The lights are off, plenty of people are sitting in it, and they've all got their coats on. The engine underneath the carriage isn't running and I suspect that unless the driver gets it started, the train will struggle to maintain time all the way to Birmingham.

*Perhaps Igloo isn't the most appropriate description - I understand that igloos are supposed to be surprisingly warm inside.

Not Good Enough

This post is about money and what passengers should expect for it.

I had some upper middle-aged relatives stay with me earlier this week. They live up in the North East of England. Like most upper middle-aged people (I have to be careful, as they may read this), they have free bus passes which work on all local bus services across the UK.

They also have annual passes for the Tyne & Wear Metro. As upper middle-aged people they pay £12 a year each for those passes.

They were somewhat gobsmacked when I told them how much I pay each year to travel to and from work. When I renew my ticket this year, it will cost me over £3,600. That is a lot of money.

Two single journeys and one return journey, between London Marylebone and my local station, cost each of my relatives somewhat more than twice what they pay, each year, to travel on the Tyne & Wear Metro. They were somewhat surprised at the cost. The journeys were not in the morning peak and all were bought with Upper Middle-Aged Railcards.

While traveling out of London the other day, a work colleague mentioned that he is seriously considering driving in to London from Oxfordshire, simply because his train and car park tickets cost so much.

The trains are all diesel and each carriage has engines. It therefore follows that every additional carriage costs more money to run. However, as I have already pointed out, passengers pay good money to use the trains.

It has been noticeable over the last week or so that Chiltern have been running shorter trains than is normal. Generally just the odd carriage here and there. The problem is that their usual train lengths are based upon very accurate records and monitoring of passenger flows.

Specific examples were on a number of evening peak trains from London last week. I know that snow caused a few issues, but there does seem to be a drip, drip, of shorter trains.

This afternoon's 16.12 train from Birmingham Snow Hill to London Marylebone was a 2 coach train. It was pretty full at Princess Risborough (a very small number of middle 'glower loudly' seats were available). At High Wycombe about 50 people tried to board, hardly any will have got a seat and many didn't even try to get on. The train was to run none stop to London with a journey time of 30 minutes.

On a weekend it really should not be necessary to stand for half an hour on any train.

The Chairman of Chiltern Railways stated publicly, only yesterday, that the purpose of the the business was to make money. I have no problem with that - that should be the aim of all businesses. He also said that this was achieved by listening carefully to what passengers wanted.

Chiltern Railways regularly publish performance and Customer Satisfaction Results. They are generally excellent, though it is noticeable that the last figures show that only 46% of customers think that their journeys are good value for money.

So, there are two possibilities:

1. The train company may be suffering from an abnormally high number of train failures, leading to shortened trains. If this is the case, Chiltern Railways should be open about this, tell their passengers, and advise what they are doing to fix the problem, or;
2. The train company is deliberately shortening trains to save money. Obviously they wouldn't want to publicise such a policy and I hope it is not the case.

Regardless, Chiltern Railways need to look at their train lengths on certain services. My observation from the last couple of weeks is that some trains are simply too short.

I am generally pretty supportive of Chiltern Railways (they are after all one of the best run railway companies in the UK), but if the current situation continues then they will start to see a drop in their recorded customer satisfaction scores.

Shadows stitch me up

This picture is of the South end of the Bullring shopping centre in Birmingham. It's easy for me to get to as Moor Street Station is just across the road - Chiltern Railways call there twice an hour in each direction.

'Stitch me up' can mean 'Make me laugh'. By the quirkiness of the English Language it can also mean that someone had something pre-arranged for me.

In this context I am being ridiculous - The shadows stitched me up, and they didn't make me laugh.

Click on the picture and you'll see what I mean. The ability of the software on my computer to stitch together pictures only goes so far.