Cleared: Service disruption between Birmingham Snow Hill and Kidderminster

Update: Chiltern trains are now running between Birmingham Snow Hill and Kidderminster.

A full normal service is expected tomorrow morning 1st October 2014.

Trains suspended between Kidderminster and Birmingham Snow Hill

Edit: The problems referred to below have now been resolved. A normal service is expected to run tomorrow morning.

Owing to a line side fire at the Hawthorns all Chiltern trains are suspended between Birmingham Snow Hill and Kidderminster.  Disruption is expected until 09:00 01/10.

All Chiltern trains will start from Birmingham Moor Street tomorrow morning 1st October. Passengers travelling tomorrow from stations between Kidderminster and Birmingham Snow Hill are advised to leave earlier than usual to take a London Midland train to which, depending on the state of the fire, will either stop at Birmingham Moor Street or Birmingham New Street where a walk to Birmingham Moor St will be required. Please allow plenty of extra time to reach Birmingham Moor Street, from where Chiltern trains will run at their normal times to London.

Tonight, local bus services are conveying passengers between Birmingham Moor Street and Kidderminster in both directions until further notice.  Arrangements have been made for Chiltern Railways rail tickets to be accepted for these journeys. 4M, 9, 53, 80, 87, 120 and 127. Ticket acceptance on all London Midland trains via any reasonable route is in place until further notice.

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.

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

Wemberleey!

For a reason that I haven't really been able to fathom out, Saracens are playing this afternoon's rugby match against Northampton Saints at Wembley Stadium. Somewhere around 35,000 / 40,000 rugby fans are expected on what could be a Bluebird Day (if it had snowed last night, which obviously, it didn't).

It suits me fine as it save a drive to Watford and the dreaded Match Day Parking CPZ around Vicarage Road - Today I can let the train take the strain, and possible have a sherbert or two, something I cannot normally do.

Chiltern Railways have extra trains stopping at Wembley Stadium - great for me, but with engineering works on the Amersham branch, and no Metropolitan Line from Northwood to Wembley Park and the Jubilee Line also out for engineering works, I suspect that London Midland services (serving both Northampton and Watford) at Wembley Central will be a bit busy.

Hopefully the rugby will not play second fiddle and it should be a great afternoon.

It's not too late to go - tickets are £10 on the door, £5 for children. Shades and shorts required.

Imagine if you will that..

... You have a full time job that involves working mixed shifts. The job is safety critical, with potentially dire consequences if you make a mistake.

The company you work for says that it will pay you double time if you volunteer to work exrra hours on Sundays.

After a period of time, the company decides that it no longer wants to pay you as much in return for you volunteering to work on Sundays.

You decide that you would rather spend the time with you family and friends.

Now imagine that you are a driver working for London Midland.

--
Sent from my mobile device

It appears that some people couldn't run a bath

I am sure that many people will find this quite incredible.

London Midland is a train operating company with a fairly extensive network of services.

Today (Sunday 6th September 2009) nearly all of London Midland's train services have been cancelled, due to many staff not volunteering to work today.

According to Bob Crow, the failure to volunteer "was not organised action by workers but a case of the contractual right not to work being exercised".

I find this a little strange. I don't know how many people have failed to volunteer to work today, but it strikes me that if London Midland have had to cancel most of their trains, the number must be statistically significantly different to the norm. In my experience, such a significant variation in the behaviour of people is rarely un-coordinated, or without cause.

Which ever way you look at it, this appears to be a case of management incompetence at London Midland.

Alternate day problems for Chiltern Railways

I have already mentioned that, on Good Friday, Chiltern Railways had to suspend services between London Marylebone and High Wycombe for almost three hours due to signalling problems.

At about 8.00pm on Easter Sunday services were affected for a while by a broken down train just outside High Wycombe.

Today (Tuesday) services are badly affected by a derailed freight train in the Birmingham Moor Street area, causing all Birmingham services to start/ finish at Dorridge. The derailment means that this disruption is likely to continue until the close of play tomorrow (Wednesday).

Chiltern have published an emergency timetable for tomorrow (pdf). Be aware that it appears to only cover trains that would have been north of Banbury for any part of their journey. People wishing to travel are advised to check any of the following information sources:

• Chiltern Railways Phone: 08456 005 165 (Mondays to Fridays 0830 to 1730)
• Chiltern Railways website (This link may change)
• National Rail Enquiries website
• National Rail Enquiries Phone: 08457 48 49 50

Please note that the Chiltern Railways website gives explicit guidance on other train operators acceptance of Chiltern Railways tickets.

Some London Midland routes are also affected by these problems - I am afraid you will have to do your own digging for more information on that Train Operating Company. This link is currently active.

I hope this information is of some use.

Important: This blog is not actively updated during incidents such as this. Please ensure that you check alternative sources of information. All information is believed to be accurate as at 21.15 on Tuesday 25th April 2008.