The Early Bird Catches the Worm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Too Much Time on Trains - Again

Statistics for the month of November 2011:

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

Today is a Yellow Day

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.

Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto

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

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

I am quietly chuffed.

CU

Too Much Time on Trains

Statistics for the month of October 2011:

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

Some weeks later.... The Chiltern Railways timetable

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

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

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

My train home

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

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

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

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

A Day at the Seaside

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rumour debunked - And now trains run normally

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

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

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

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

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

Unconfirmed Rumour - Unexploded Bomb?

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

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

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

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

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

Sleep well!

Edit:

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

Every cloud has a silver lining (or two)

Cloud

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

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

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

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

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

Silver Lining

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

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

An otherwise dreary afternoon was considerably brightened.

Second Silver Lining

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

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

Blogging on the overun

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

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

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

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

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

Someone made a boo boo

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

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

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

Tonight it all went a bit wrong.

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

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

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

I bet the driver was cursing.

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

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

Track Bashing the Chiltern Mainline

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

Chiltern Railways today formally launched their new Mainline timetable.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Signalling Problems on Chiltern Railways

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

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

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

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

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

Sleep well.

High Wycombe has gone all kinky

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lacey Green Windmill

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Couldn't be bothered - The Chesham Shuttle lives again

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It looks as though I was overly optimistic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's messed up my plans for Sunday!

Princes Risborough appears on track

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

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

 

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

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

New signals at the north end of Princes Risborough station.

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

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

Actually, it wasn't too bad

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?

Rural Idyll

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

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

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

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

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

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

A history lesson

This blog started at the beginning of 2006.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pip pip!

Chiltern Railways Trains Now Moo-ving

A brief update as I currently have no Internet connection.

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

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

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

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

Chiltern Railways - Cattle Problems

No, nothing to do with overcrowding.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other train operators are accepting tickets via reasonable alternative routes.

** I am not Chiltern Railways **

Updated @ 2013 on 9 June

Slack in the timetable

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

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

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

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

Hmmmm.

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

The Storage of Gas Cylinders

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

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

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

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

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

Democracy at work in the Chilterns

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

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

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

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

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

West Ruislip Depot Full

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

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

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

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

Yellow Lines

I travel from a small country station in Rural Buckinghamshire.

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

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

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

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

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

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

District Dave

District Dave (Dave Maloney) passed away yesterday morning.

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

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

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

CU