Cable Fire at London Marylebone

Sunday 15th June 2014

Overnight, there has been a cable fire just outside London Marylebone. This means that the signals don't work, so there are no trains running to or from Marylebone at present.

Full guidance from Chiltern Railways is available here.

In a nutshell....

• Passengers for the High Wycombe line should travel to/from West Ruislip using the Central Line.
• Passengers for the Aylesbury via Amersham line should use the Metropolitan Line. Chiltern Railways trains will start/finish at Harrow on the Hill. 

The situation could change during the day, so check before you travel. 

Information is also available via the National Rail Enquiries website.

Edit: 1038. It appears that some trains on the High Wycombe line may be starting / finishing their journeys at Wembley Stadium station. However connections by public transport there are poor into Central London (and it won't be all trains anyway. It is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED that passengers follow the official advice and travel directly to West Ruislip for travel to railway stations along the High Wycombe line. 

Edit: 1345. Most trains towards London (on the High Wycombe line) are currently stopping at South Ruislip to drop off for connections to the Central Line. Trains out of London however are still picking up at West Ruislip. It is clearly proving difficult to run all trains to time - many have extra stops, so allow plenty of time and expect delays.

Edit: 1630. The Central Line is currently suspended between Westbound between Marble Arch and a White City. Not good news for Chiltern Railways passengers trying to get to West Ruislip. 

Options seem to be:

1. Northbound Bakerloo Line to Wembley Central and then a 10 minute walk to Wembley Stadium station or
2. From Bakers Street or Edgware Road (H&C) stations take the Hammersmith & City Line to Wood Lane. White City station is a 3 minute walk from there, from where the Central Line runs to West Ruislip. Allow at least an hour from Marylebone. 

The day just got worse. 

Edit: 1715. Unsurprisingly, the Central Line suspension between Marble Arch & White City is now both ways. Expected to last until 1900 but no guarantees on this. 

Edit: 1745. It appears that a through service has now resumed on the Central Line. Severe delays are reported at present. 

Edit: 1950. Central Line has improved. Now just 'Minor Delays' reported. 

Email received at 1920 from Chiltern Railways re tomorrow morning:

"Dear Customer,

Marylebone station is closed due to a cable fire. Around 2 metres of signalling cable in the tunnel into the station has burned away meaning the signalling system is not working. Without signals we cannot safely run trains, so are not running to or from Marylebone until new cables are installed and tested. Engineers are on site however, disruption is expected and Marylebone will be closed into Monday morning and until further notice.

We strongly advise passengers to avoid travelling on Monday unless essential.

Chiltern tickets are valid on Virgin Trains, London Midland, FGW, CrossCountry & London Underground services."

Final Edit: 2320. Marylebone is not expected to open in time for the Monday morning rush hour. An emergency timetable has been published for the Amersham line. The Wycome line version will hopefully be out in the next hour or so.

Good night everyone.

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.

Railway Children Special

There is a rather unusual railtour happening today down in my neck of the woods. Why unusual? Well it will be a train full of enthusiasts that will travel through Chiltern Railways depots, pass across unusual sets of points and will generally reach areas of track and infrastructure only usually ever seen by insiders.

It is hoped that the event will raise £10,000 - £12,500 for Railway Children with ticket sales, on board raffle and sales etc.

The train is being provided by Chiltern completely free of charge, the trains crews are donating their pay to The Railway Children and Network Rail are not charging for their work in planning and  running  the train etc. The whole day has been facilitated by the Branch Line Society.

Below is full detail of the Working Timetable for this unique, interesting and unusual trip. In Twitterland I occasionally use the hashtag "#traingeek". Well, looking at today's itinerary I think that today's trip possibly takes train enthusiasm to a new level. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I hope that a good day is had by all and that lots of money is raised for charity.

Tickets for this event have been sold in advance. If you don't have a special ticket, please do not attempt to board the train.

For operational reasons the timetable for today has been organised into  six different chunks. Hopefully live tracking will be available via the following links, which may act as a historical record just for a day or two.

The timetable data and Real Time Train data has all been extracted using the Real Time Trains web site.

• 1Z21 (Starts from Maylebone at 1105)
• 1Z65 (Starts from Gerrards Cross Siding at 1320)
• 1Z66 (Starts from Aylesbury at 1500)
• 1Z67 (Starts from Great Missenden at 1710)
• 1Z68 (Starts from Aylesbury at 1733)
• 1Z72 (Starts from Bicester North Turnback Siding at 1952)

 =======================================

Working Timetable Information for the Day

=======================================

1Z21 1105 London Marylebone to Gerrards Cross Siding
Operated by CH
STP schedule UID U50894, identity 1Z21
Runs SuO on 26/05/2013 only
TSC 25217004
Unadvertised Express
	WTT Working		Realtime
Location	Arr	Dep	Dep	Dly
London Marylebone formed from 2H19 from Bicester North		1105	1105	RT
Marylebone Up Tunnel Sdgs	1108	1115
London Marylebone	1118	1125	1121	-4
Neasden South Jn	pass	1133	1129	-4
Wembley Gcj	pass	1135
Wembley Lmd	1137	1227	1220	-7
Wembley Stadium	pass	1229	1223	-6
Wembley Siding	1231	1238	1240	2
Wembley Stadium	pass	1240	1242	2
Neasden South Jn	pass	1242	1243	1
Neasden South Jn Sig Me525	1243	1250
Neasden South Jn	pass	1251	1247	-4
Wembley Stadium	pass	1253	1252	-1
Sudbury & Harrow Road	pass	1254
Sudbury Hill Harrow	pass	1254
Northolt Park	pass	1255
Northolt Park Jn	pass	1257	1256	-1
South Ruislip	pass	1258	1256	-2
West Ruislip	1301	1302	1259	-3
Denham	pass	1305
Denham Golf Club	pass	1306
Gerrards Cross	pass	1309	1306	-3
Gerrards Cross Siding	1311			-3
1Z65 1320 Gerrards Cross Siding to Aylesbury
STP schedule UID U50895, identity 1Z65
Runs SuO on 26/05/2013 only
TSC 25217004
Unadvertised Express
	WTT Working		Realtime
Location	Arr	Dep	Dep	Dly
Gerrards Cross Siding		1320	1320	RT
Gerrards Cross	pass	1322	1322	RT
Denham Golf Club	pass	1323
Denham	pass	1324
West Ruislip	1328	1335	1336	1
Denham	pass	1338
Denham Golf Club	pass	1339
Gerrards Cross	pass	1342	1342	RT
Seer Green	pass	1344
Beaconsfield	pass	1345
High Wycombe	pass	1350	1349	-1
West Wycombe	pass	1352
Saunderton	pass	1355	1353	-2
Princes Risborough	1359	1400	1358	-2
Monks Risborough	pass	1406
Little Kimble	pass	1413	1410	-3
Aylesbury	1421			-2
1Z66 1500 Aylesbury to Great Missenden
STP schedule UID U50898, identity 1Z66
Runs SuO on 26/05/2013 only
TSC 25217004
Unadvertised Express
This train started from Aylesbury due to a decision by the train operating company (TR)
	WTT Working		Realtime
Location	Arr	Dep	Dep	Dly
Aylesbury		1500
Aylesbury D.M.U. Depot	1505	1537
Aylesbury	1542	1542
Aylesbury (Sdgs 1-7)	1603	1610
Aylesbury	1613	1619
Aylesbury (Sdgs 1-7)	1622	1629
Aylesbury	1632	1633	1626	-7
Aylesbury North Loop	1637	1640	1639	-1
Aylesbury Sig Me302	1642	1649
Aylesbury	1652	1653	1650	-3
Stoke Mandeville	pass	1657	1653	-4
Wendover	pass	1659	1655	-4
Great Missenden	1704			-4
1Z67 1710 Great Missenden to Aylesbury
STP schedule UID U50899, identity 1Z67
Runs SuO on 26/05/2013 only
TSC 25217004
Unadvertised Express
	WTT Working		Realtime
Location	Arr	Dep	Arr	Dep	Dly
Great Missenden		1710		No report
Wendover	pass	1718	pass	1710	-8
Stoke Mandeville	pass	1720	pass	1714	-6
Aylesbury	1723		1716		-7
1Z68 1733 Aylesbury to Bicester North Turnback Sg
STP schedule UID U50896, identity 1Z68
Runs SuO on 26/05/2013 only
TSC 25217004
Unadvertised Express
	WTT Working		Realtime
Location	Arr	Dep	Arr	Dep	Dly
Aylesbury		1733		1734	1
Little Kimble	pass	1742	pass	1742	RT
Monks Risborough	pass	1745	No report
Princes Risborough	pass	1748	pass	1747	-1
Saunderton	pass	1752	pass	1751	-1
West Wycombe	pass	1755	No report
High Wycombe	1759	1805	1758	1801	-4
West Wycombe	pass	1808	No report
Saunderton	pass	1811	pass	1806	-5
Princes Risborough	1815	1816	1809	1812	-4
Princes R'boro Ace	1818	1841	1814	1847	6
Princes Risborough	1843	1848	N/R	1847	-1
Princes Risborough Me666	1850	1855	No report
Princes Risborough	1857	1909	1852	1906	-3
Haddenham & Thame Parkway	pass	1915	pass	1910	-5
Blackthorne	pass	1923	No report
Bicester North	1927	1927	1923	1923	-4
Bicester Signal Me2034	1929	1934	No report
Bicester North	1936	1941	1928	N/R	-8
Bicester North Turnback Sg	1943		1932		-11
1Z72 1952 Bicester North Turnback Sg to London Marylebone
STP schedule UID U50897, identity 1Z72
Runs SuO on 26/05/2013 only
TSC 25217004
Unadvertised Express
	WTT Working		Realtime
Location	Arr	Dep	Arr	Dep	Dly
Bicester North Turnback Sg		1952		1952	RT
Bicester North	1954	1955	1954	1956	1
Blackthorne	pass	1958	No report
Haddenham & Thame Parkway	2007	2008	2006	2008	RT
Princes Risborough	pass	2014	pass	2013	-1
Saunderton	pass	2017	pass	2015	-2
West Wycombe	pass	2019	No report
High Wycombe	2022	2023	2019	2021	-2
Beaconsfield	2029	2030	2027	2028	-2
Seer Green	pass	2032	No report
Gerrards Cross	2036	2037	2034	2035	-2
Denham Golf Club	pass	2039	No report
Denham	pass	2039	No report
West Ruislip	pass	2042	pass	2039	-3
South Ruislip	pass	2044	pass	2040	-4
Northolt Park Jn	pass	2044	No report
Northolt Park	pass	2045	No report
Sudbury Hill Harrow	pass	2046	No report
Sudbury & Harrow Road	pass	2047	No report
Wembley Stadium	pass	2049	pass	2044	-5
Neasden South Jn	pass	2051	pass	2045	-6
London Marylebone	2059		2052		-7

Edit: While the formating is particularly rubbish, I have now (22:50) edited the WTT above to show what actually happened during the day. All data is drawn from an automated system, hence why some places have no data.

The 1750 Train - My, was that a Mistake

I am lucky in that my job is relatively flexible. This means that I usually catch a reasonably early train to work and a reasonably early train home.

Today I was a little later than usual leaving work, so I had to catch the 1750 Chiltern Railways train from London Marylebone. I also had a party to go to to wish a friend 'Bon-Voyage' on a trip to Australia. She leaves tomorrow.

Problems, problems, problems.

• The train is supposed to be a six car train. Tonight it was three carriages long. That is a significant reduction in capacity on a busy train. The train was absolutely rammed more than five minutes before it was due to leave.
• We did not leave on time. In fact we left eleven minutes late. Apparently the driver was delayed on an in-bound service and a replacement had to be found.
• The slower 1753 train (bound for Aylesbury) left in front of us, two minutes late. The 1750 Sardine Special (which left Marylebone at 1801 and which terminates at Bicester North) caught up the slower train before Denham. A quick analysis showed that we would be a minimum of 19 minutes late from High Wycombe. It would not be possible to overtake the slow train.
• In the event the train left High Wycombe 21 minutes late and arrived into Princes Risborough the same number of minutes late.
• This is where it got annoying.
• Someone took the decision to hold the late running train at Princes Risborough to allow the 1815 & 1818 Marylebone departures to overtake it.
• The original 1750 then left Princes Risborough 32 minutes late. It then left Haddenham & Thame Parkway 35 minutes late and terminated at Bicester North 34 minutes late, according to the Working Timetable.

If the train had been allowed to leave Princes Risborough without being held, It would have arrived at Bicester at about 1906. It would not have delayed any Southbound trains, but would have delayed each of the following two trains by a few minutes. This is a potential problem approaching Banbury - a freight train and a Cross-Country train to York might have been delayed.

The reality is though that passengers for High Wycombe and Princes Risborough would have been better off if they had caught the 1753 from Marylebone.
Passengers for Haddenham & Thame Parkway and Bicester North could have caught the 1818 train and got home earlier.

All in all, catching the 1750 was a bad mistake tonight if punctuality was your aim. The train was badly overcrowded and deeply unpleasant for many. Passengers for Haddenham and Bicester would have been deeply dischuffed to see two trains overtake them.

To rub salt into the wound, the train, while 34 minutes late into Bicester according to the Working Timetable, was actually 'only' 29 minutes behind the Public Timetable, meaning that Charter Claims for late running might be declined, while claims for Haddenham & Thame Parkway will be valid and honoured without quibble.

I have said before that running the railway involves make many tricky decisions with often conflicting priorities. I do not claim to know how to run the railway better than those that do, but instead simply present a passenger's view. Many passengers will however have been deeply hacked off this evening.

Does anyone have a shoe horn?

The 0744 Silver Train from Princes Risborough, supposedly provided by Chiltern Railways,was cancelled again this morning.

The 0715 from Bicester North ran 10 - 15 minutes late and Chiltern Railways got it to stop at Princes Risborough to fill the long gap that would have been caused by the cancelled train.

The 0744 is usually full and standing (calling at just High Wycombe and Beaconsfield).

So today we had all the passengers from the Bicester Train, plus all the passengers on the Princes Risborough train. To say the train was full would be mild understatement.

There were probably about 150 people left on the platform at Gerrards Cross.

Train currently due into Marylebone at about 0831. Lots of annoyed commuters. Not a good start to the day.

Track Bashing the new Chiltern Mainline Timetable (Episode 3)

Today saw the third significant recast of the Chiltern Railways timetable in 15 months. Technically the new timetable started yesterday, but the majority of the impact and changes affect weekday travellers.

As has become customary on these days, I have spent just a little too much of my time today stress testing the new timetable.

Disclosure: I pay for an annual season ticket for travel on a reasonable chunk of the Chiltern network. However for today I did approach the railway company for a day ticket that would enable me to travel further afield without paying any extra. They kindly agreed and I am most grateful. It was on the clear understanding, agreed with no difficulty, that anything I wrote would be my own and would not (on my part) just be a piece of marketing blurb for Chiltern Railways.

I should also add at this stage that I have significant and ongoing disagreements with Chiltern Railways relating to local matters, but those are for an entirely different time and place.

So, how did the day go?..... Well I suspect that Chiltern Railways will be fairly please with themselves tonight. Compared with the September 2011 and December 2012 Timetable days, today was considerably better.

Here is a summary of the day, using exactly the same format for the facts and figures that I used previously:

• Total number of individual train journeys:15
• Total distance travelled: 533.9 Miles
• Longest train journey: 111 Miles
• Shortest train journey: 4 miles
• Highest individual average journey speed: 78.5 mph
• Average speed of all journeys: 61.8 mph
• Cumulative delay: 15 minutes
• Number of cancellations experienced: 0
• Number of times my train was pulled over to allow a Mainline (express) service to overtake: 0 

By referring back to my previous posts, immediately it is possible to see that I experienced far fewer problems today than on either of the previous two Track Bash days, despite travelling on more trains and travelling further.

Last December I also made made reference (with a chart) to the PPM (Public Performance Measure) for Chiltern Railways. The PPM is an important Key Performance Indicator used within the railway industry to measure both punctuality and reliability. I believe that there is a target for 'All Day' performance, and also a requirement that the target must be separately hit in the three hour morning and evening 'Peaks'.

From first thing this morning, through to late this evening, I have been monitoring the cumulative PPM punctuality performance for Chiltern. Hopefully you can see from the above graph that while there was a dip at lunchtime (caused mainly by a failed train), the punctuality across the network has been pretty good, particularly for a new and virtually re-written timetable. Senior Management at Chiltern Railways are probably patting themselves on the back - without doubt the performance today has been absolutely stellar compared to the last two significant timetable changes.

A word of caution though: At some times of the day there is a ridiculously large amount of slack built into the timetable, meaning that a train has to be running a huge amount behind what it is capable of, before it is considered to be officially late.

However notwithstanding this, the measure is the measure and performance has improved.

In no particular order (other than vaguely chronological) here are a number of observations from the day:

• I spoke to five people before I boarded my first train of the day. Three were most unhappy with the new Timetable and what it would do to their work / life balance. Two were fine - they both travel just one stop to work.
• Much confusion at High Wycombe with the main 'London Platform' departure board out of order. I witnessed a number of people miss a train because it was unclear from where they entered the station which platform their train would leave from.
• The car Park at Princes Risborough was considerably quieter than normal till much later than normal. This can probably be attributed to the one remaining non-stop train running 20 minutes later than was previously the case.
• One train (the train that started from Princes Risborough at 0644) being full at the front from High Wycombe and roughly a third full in the rear two carriages. If you want a seat on the 0701 from Beaconsfield consider moving towards the back.
• Some people getting significantly animated (again, at Princes Risborough) with two senior Chiltern Railways staff about the withdrawal of their second morning non-stop train (there isn't one at all any more in the evening).
• The look of confusion when a Mainline Silver Train pulled into Princes Risborough (with 15 minutes to spare), to form the 0744 service to London. Quite a few people were on the train when it started. A lot more got on at High Wycombe and it is estimated that 150 people were standing from Beaconsfield, throughout the length of the train.
• I saw a Class 172 train heading to Stratford-upon-Avon, two cars long, capable of 100 mph, nor wi-fi or tables. The first I have seen that type of train on that route.
• A mixed train formed of a 75 mph two car unit and a 100 mph Class 172. The service was timed for 100mph. Not possible.
• Throughout the day, many more trains terminate at Bicester North than was previously the case. I witnessed three instances where terminating trains blocked or delayed the paths of Southbound trains. I have no doubt that this will have already been identified by the railway company, but instinctively it seems plain to me that the timetable modelling at that location has not worked.
• A 'key' service (the 1715 from Marylebone to Kidderminster, first stop Leamington Spa) left with no more than 180 passengers on board (a generous over-guesstimate). Fifteen people in my carriage and three sat in the Business Zone. That seems an under-use of a valuable resource.

So, quite a lot of trains. A fair few facts and some objectivity. However, that is the problem - that is how the railway is run.

None of this measures that countless people have have definitely had their working day extended, or their home day diminished. There will inevitably be delays and cancellations, but the fact is that people need to be where they want to be when they want to be. At some stations the only way this can happen is by passengers leaving for London earlier than was previously the case, or by leaving London later than was previously the case.

Some passengers have praised the new timetable. Many have been most uncomplimentary. Measured objectively, it broadly works. Measured from how people feel, some people are not happy.

You cannot please all of the people all of the time. Many passengers will be happy tonight, many will not. Change happens, but people don't have to like it. For some, change is a positive experience, for some it's a real negative, and some just work around it.

Personally, the new timetable will involve me changing my working pattern and some additional expense. Others won't be affected. I would like to think however that senior management at Chiltern will listen and act on all constructive or heartfelt feedback, not just measure their success by reliability, punctuality and passenger loadings.

I am grateful to Chiltern Railways for giving me the opportunity to Track Bash the Chiltern Mainline today.

For the record, my first journey this morning was at about 6.00 am, while my last finished at about 8.00pm. It would appear to be time for a beer and bed!

CU

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!

An idea for Chiltern Railways - How to improve the Wembley experience

Earlier today Saracens played Harlequins at Wembley Stadium. Kick off was at 15.00, though the pre-match entertainment started at 14.15.The whole event was great fun and a fantastic family afternoon out. I am not going to talk about the result!

Wembley Stadium has a spectator capacity of 90,779. In the event there was an official attendance at the match of 83,761 which was a world record for the number of spectators at  club Rugby Union match.

Chiltern Railways have a station at Wembley Stadium. Compared to Wembley Park underground station (which is designed to cope with several tens of thousands of spectators very quickly), Wembley Stadium station is a relatively sleepy backwater. It is however an integral and important part of the public transport infrastructure of the stadium.

Despite having a special timetable in place and laying on extra trains and carriages, the service received by Chiltern Railways' passengers on the way to the match today was shocking. I accept that it is always difficult to accurately predict passenger flows, but the level of overcrowding on trains was dangerously unacceptable and a very poor reflection on the railway company.

For quite some time now, Saracens have been putting out regular announcements as to how many spectators were expected to attend the event. On Wednesday they stated that 'only a few hundred tickets remain on sale' and none were available on-line yesterday.

It was fairly common knowledge that quite a few tickets had been given away. I think that means a lot of tickets were given away, but I don't know. Chiltern Railways seem to have taken this to heart - I have it on very good authority (please note that this is hearsay) that their plans took account of an actual attendance today of around 60,000 spectators.

I have no idea what percentage of event attendees travel to Wembley using Chiltern Railways, but one doesn't need the brains of a rocking horse to realise that a 23,000 underestimate will have led to several extra full capacity trains that it would seem were not planned for. Don't forget that, today, the Metropolitan Line is not running North of Harrow due to engineering works. I know that a lot of people drove down to Chiltern Stations - that is what people should do when they have to make alternative travel arrangements and cannot be described as unexpected behaviour!

My personal experience today is that the train I caught with three friends was standing room only from High Wycombe. Nobody was able to board at either Beaconsfield or at Gerrards Cross. The train was also made to stop at Denham (where nobody could get on), presumably because the waiting passengers could not board the previous train. We could only wave at a friend on the platform at Gerrards Cross, through the train window. She got to her seat at the stadium just over 1/2 an hour after us. She was not happy.

A couple of hours beforehand, I also witnessed passengers being unable to board trains as far out as Princes Risborough.

Many Chiltern Railways passengers were not happy.

I should say that after the match, when passenger flows are much easier to predict, things were much better. Yes trains were full, but boarding was possible and well managed. I also noted that Chiltern were using some (if not all) of their new Class 172 carriages which have fast acceleration and deceleration and are capable of travelling at speeds of up to 100 mph. We caught a four car Class 172 train home.

I cannot assist with any bright ideas as to how to accurately predict unpredictable passenger flows, however I do have one simple suggestion as to how Chiltern Railways could improve the passenger experience on Wembley event days.

My suggestion is that for a period of about three hours, two four car Class 172 trains should run a shuttle service between Gerrards Cross and London Marylebone, calling at Denham South Ruislip and Wembley Stadium only.

These trains could run as ECS (Empty Coaching Stock) from Marylebone back out again to Gerrards Cross, and each train could easily do the round trip in an hour. If these trains were to leave Gerrards Cross immediately after the 1/2 hourly 'fast' services from way up North, they would significantly reduce the match day experience of passengers from stations just outside London. With some decent publicity, Chiltern Railways could earn some decent goodwill from this.

My suggestion is not the entire solution (as I say, some trains were full from Princes Risborough), but it could perhaps help.

Let's face it, the railway company must absolutely coin it in on match days - how about putting on enough trains and in the right places?

Track Bashing the Chiltern Mainline - Again

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.

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.

Actually, it wasn't too bad

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

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

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?

Sooner or later, it was going to happen

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 same again (but not quite)

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.

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.

Don't wind up the ticket inspectors

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'.

Over Running Engineering Works - EG3 v1.0

After a few weeks of relatively harmless week-night engineering works, the gremlins hit last night.

Early this morning, Chiltern Railways didn't seem to be able to run Up (London bound) trains between Princes Risborough and High Wycombe.

Inevitably a few trains were cancelled. Trains have been running through for the last hour or so, but there will still be some problems for a while yet, as a few trains will be in the wrong places.

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.