A new railway is born

With a minimum of fanfare (I have seen no publicity), today a new railway company was born.

Wrexham & Shropshire started running passenger services today. Trains do what they say on the tin - offering a direct service from Wrexham & Shropshire to London Marylebone.

Currently the timetable has five return trains on each weekday, four on a Saturday and three on a Sunday.

Train politics mean that you cannot get on a train from Banbury to Marylebone (or from Marylebone to Banbury) - you have to use Chiltern Railways services instead.

I wish the new venture well - any new service has to be welcomed.

Trains have been running empty for a month for driver and route training, so hopefully today's niggles will soon be ironed out. There were unfortunately a couple of serious delays today, but I doubt that many people were affected.

Alternative career choice looming for train driver?

I was waiting at Princes Risborough train station this afternoon for a fast train to London (one stop only en-route, at High Wycombe).

Out of the Aylesbury branch line there suddenly appears a rubbish train which I know is heading for the WLWA Transfer Station in South Ruislip.

"Uh-Oh" me thinks - my train is going to catch that up.

Sure enough just as we are adjacent to Ruislip Gardens Central Line station my Chiltern Railways "Clubman" service grinds to a halt. It transpires that the waste train has suffered some kind of technical hitch while entering the siding and is blocking the points and the main line in towards Marylebone.

Driver: ".... the rubbish train is blocking our path and we can't get around it, maybe that's why they call it the rubbish train".

Maybe you had to be there, but the whole carriage cracked up. Definitely a comedian in the waiting.

Anyhow, we soon got moving and arrived only 7 minutes late into Marylebone.

In the manner of a Hedgehog

Eh?

Bloody stupid name.

Erinaceous.

Cute to look at from a distance with but prickly to handle.

Ancient history for me but a big worry for a while. Gone.

Sorry to talk in riddles.

Do I have 'Gullible' stamped on my forehead?

I switch on my PC, it goes through the normal warm-up routine. Mailwasher launches.

While I am out of the room the normal couple of dozen spam emails are deleted.

Three are left:

• One from the "Executive Governor, Cent. Bank Of Nig" offering to courier me USD 10 M in cash.
• Another from "OFFICE OF THE SENATE HOUSE
• FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA" apologising for the delay in sending a different wire transfer to me for USD 11.3 M
• and the third from a named individual simply described as 'The Legal Representative'. This man purports to be a barrister distributing the assets of a dead person. This offer is low at only USD 5 M.

Wow! That's USD 26.3 M waiting for me in Nigeria, all in the last eight hours. I am so excited. Not.

The most worrying thing is not that I am particularly gullible (my job ensures that I receive regular Fraud Prevention and Anti-Money Laundering Training), but that the scammers have managed to get as far as the penultimate wall of my anti-spam armoury.

Fortunately I just see the words and smile. They sit in a benign environment on a preview screen in Mailwasher and I simply hit 'Process' and then they are gone.

Empty screen. Till the next...

Edit: I haven't even finished proof reading this post and another one has arrived. This time it's a paltry USD 1.3 M. Change of country - this one is from Benin. Grrr.

What do we expect from 'A Good Service is Operating on ....'

Some time in my pre-blogging days, London Underground changed its house style so that a 'Normal Service' became a 'Good Service'.

This means that when you are stood on a packed platform at Oxford Circus desperately hoping that, if you fold yourself in half and leap over the heads of 25 people stood by the door on the next train to gain access, you are safe in the knowledge that this isn't just Normal but it is actually rather Good.

This linguistic nuance bothered me when the change occurred and it still grates a little.

Yesterday morning the Southbound Bakerloo Line platform at Marylebone was absolutely heaving, such that I eventually managed to squeeze onto the second train that arrived, and that was after going to the very last door. All the while we were breezily being told by the public address system that this was 'Good'.

The Eastbound Central Line platform at Oxford Circus was worse - this time I had to let two trains through despite, as instructed using 'The Full Length of the Platform'. At least there was a man there making the announcements rather than an automaton.

For a long time last year the Inner-London part of my journey involved a bus or tube along the Marylebone/ Euston Road to the The Station Supervisor's territory, then a meander down through Fitzrovia to Soho. I think I shall have to revert to it, as my current journey is not good for the soul.

Have we lost the spirit of the Olympics?

Diamond Geezer has this morning posted a poignant blog about the parade of the Olympic Torch around London yesterday.

I cannot add much to DG's observations. DG's posts are always written well, but I think that the mood of yesterday's dispiriting and rather tacky event is wonderfully encapsulated here. Take a look.

Sorry to harp on about it, but compare and contrast to the sea of rugby supporters at Vicarage Road yesterday afternoon. The only police there were either outside keeping an eye on the traffic, or inside the stadium getting a cup of tea.

It was a bit nippy

I went out at 10.00am and it took 10 minutes to clear the snow off the car. There was a good two inches. There was a tiny bit of snow on the road for the first couple of miles, but then plain sailing all the way to Watford.

The rugby match was good. I was perhaps a little surprised by the result, but the good thing was that compared to the previous meeting in Cardiff two weeks ago, my side won.

Hat and gloves were worn throughout. The car definitely won today - the train times meant that going by public transport would have doubled the journey time.

I note that while I was out today, the Olympic Torch has been traveling around London, causing a bit of fuss on the way, and itself needing a fair pit of protection.

Compare and contrast with these three pictures that I took of Sir Richard Branson, 4 years ago, outside Tottenham Court Road tube station. I think I got a bit closer than most people were allowed to today.

Oops - And I have a rugby match to attend

I like snow. I think snow is great to walk around in. It is also great to ski down mountains that are covered in loads of snow.

What is less good is when I looked out of the window just now and saw that we had had the first covering of proper snow of the winter. It is only an inch or so here, but having lived in London for 18 years, I am a member of the "Snow = National Emergency" brigade when it comes to driving.

Every route from where I live to Watford (directly across the huge mountain range North West of London called The Chiltern Hills) involves steep hills or narrow country roads. The trouble is I don't particularly want to take the train. There is a very high risk that something will go wrong with either Chiltern Railways or the Metropolitan Line, and I do have to get back.

Why Watford?

There is a 12.30 kick off for the Saracens -v- Ospreys match at Vicarage Road. It is an important match and the stadium has totally sold out (all 18,214 tickets have been gone).

Having just listened to the travel news on LBC, the tube appears to have problems on the Bakerloo, Central and Metropolitan Lines. Common factor: all in North West London, not far from Watford.

I shall have to put on a pan of porridge and then carefully consider my options.

It seems that next week's tube strike has been called off

According to the BBC News site and tonight's Evening Standard the 72 hour tube strike, due to start on Sunday evening, has been called off.

Perhaps I should have put a pound on that happening after my recent thoughts on the matter.

Interestingly the tfl website just says that the industrial action has been 'suspended', so we'll just have to wait and see whether it really is all sorted.

Happy days. The only problem is, I have no excuse now for not going to Canary Wharf for a meeting next week.

To strike or not to strike?

Ok... the pressure is building.

A joint strike is planned on the London Underground from 1830 BST on 6 April to 9 April by the Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union and Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA).

At this stage in the proceedings I suspect that there is more than a 50% probability that the industrial action will not happen. This is based on observation of many many disputes involving London Underground over the last two decades.

It has proven incredibly difficult to find any quality information about the dispute, so that I could present an informed view. Anyhow, here is what I have found:

• It seems to be about safety issues. Here are the blunt facts as presented by the RMT. It seems that 1,673 RMT union members voted for the action. This seems like a really low number of people across the whole of London Underground. This implies that either many people really couldn't be bothered to vote, or that this dispute doesn't involve all types of staff working on the underground.
• The TSSA have 3,000 members working on the underground. They had an 81.2% vote in favour of industrial action, but their media release does not say how many members actually voted.
• London Underground have responded to the strike announcement by saying "There is simply no reason for a strike, or even the threat of one, as all of the issues being raised can be resolved".

My personal views are:

1. Every station on the London Underground ought to have a physical ticket office that is open between, say, 6 am & 9 am and between 3 pm and 7pm every working weekday. The hours can be worked on, the concept is not negotiable. Bricking up a ticket office, such as happened at Regents Park during last year's refurbishment is a big no-no.
2. Health & Safety legislation in the country is very strong. If LUL decide they want to vary an aspect (S 4.2) of THEIR Congestion Control and Emergency Plan, then that is down to them. If the unions believe that a proposal is unsafe, they should challenge the matter through the courts, using injunctions if necessary. I suspect this is about job protection, not safety.
3. I agree with the unions that only directly employed LUL staff should be used for stations and ticketing operations, however I disagree with them about security staff being directly employed by London Underground.

Please note: I dislike Ken Livingstone, I am against the monolithic nature of 'Transport for London' and I have seen evidence that London Underground has bullied those with whom it deals.

Please also note: I view Bob Crow as a dinosaur and the way that the RMT behaves as belonging to another era.

We should not have to deal with incessant strikes or threats thereof. I really don't know what can be done about it, but I am fed up to the back teeth with a small number of people being able to hold London to ransom.

Chiltern Railways problems in Birmingham resolved

The National Rail website confirms that Chiltern Railways are today offering a normal service to/from Birmingham following removal of the derailed freight train at Birmingham Moor Street.

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.

Boring pictures

On this Easter Day, the 1/2 hour of Breakfast/ BBC News 24 that I have just watched was totally devoid of any meaningful reference to Easter. There were plenty of pictures of snow sent in by viewers but, to be honest, they were all pretty boring. A photograph of Dr John Sentamu tobogganing down the slopes of Clifford's Tower - that would be more fun and perhaps of some relevance to the day.

On Friday afternoon I went to the cinema. When I got back to the station I commented to someone what a beautiful day it was.

My train journey home was less than 15 minutes - in that time the sun disappeared, the sky darkened and white stuff started to fall out of the sky.

Not white fluffy snow, but hail stones. Tumbling as though someone above was tipping them out of bags as fast as they could go. The hail storm lasted a couple of minutes, but it was enough to whiten things over. These anonymised pictures show the immediate after effects of the hail on this green and pleasant land immediately around my home.

I suspect that the hail got into the railway cogs somewhere, because shortly afterwards Chiltern Railways suspended all services between London and High Wycombe due to a signal failure between West Ruislip & Gerrards Cross. It took around three hours to resolve, so it looks as though I just got home in time.

A little bit of suffering on Good Friday is good for the soul!

Yesterday (Easter Saturday) I was at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff for the semi-finals of a rugby competition, sponsored by an energy company that has resorted to initials because it otherwise sounds too French.

I am not going to mention the rugby - I am a Saracens season ticket holder. It had been a gloriously sunny afternoon for the first match- then briefly the weather closed in and a brief light sprinkling of snow obviously made everything so slippery that it was enough to cause Saracens significant disadvantage. Hmm. This picture is more exiting than the Saracens -v- Ospreys match. The better team won.

For information, we drove along the M4 to Newport (Gwent) and then caught the (arriva) train to Cardiff. This seemed like a sensible option, though we never did find the long-stay car park at the train station. I did wonder whether they take all the signs down for event days?

Back to today: I live in the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire, to the North West of London. We are supposed to catch every snow flake as it travels towards London to create its own national emergency.

I look out of the window and I see green. I see birds flying around. I see ramblers. In short, I see a typical day. Two main differences- It is a special day when god fearing folk are supposed to be at church and one when you will have great difficulty in shopping as, by law, all but the smallest of shops are closed.

We did have a bit of the white fluffy stuff earlier, but it has all gone. For the latest weather, visit the Met Office website.

Happy Easter!

How was my first day back?

Yesterday was my first day back at work and it was not good!

It started off well, with my train into Marylebone arriving 3 minutes early. Actually all trains are timetabled to arrive 3 minutes early, though they rarely do.

Each of the Bakerloo Line and the Central Line were absolutely heaving (big gaps in service on both).

Still, looking on the bright side, given the atrocious weather yesterday (storms lashing much of South England and Wales), at least I got to work with no cancellations or service suspensions.

Coming home in the evening, London Underground were announcing delays on the Central Line and the Bakerloo Line. The Central Line was fine, but the brown line was just that.

Chiltern Railways were clearly suffering with operational difficulties at Marylebone. I don't think it was due to the weather, just a broken down train. The train that was causing problems eventually left late and subsequently had to be taken out of service at Gerrards Cross.

Chiltern operate what I think is an unusual sort of timetable- there is no discernible stopping pattern to peak time trains. Train times and their stops are precisely managed to follow passenger flows. This is fine until you dump a couple of hundred people at Gerrards Cross who want to get to a range of places from High Wycombe to Stratford-on-Avon.

The station staff did little other than talk loudly at their customers while at least two nearly empty trains went through (each of which would have stopped at High Wycombe, where most people wanted to be).

It was certainly not an evening where the staff at the 'Integrated Control Centre' excelled. Chiltern Railways might think they did, but that particular train operating company lost a lot of Brownie Points last night.

Choices: Ski Lift or Commuting. I know which I prefer!

Excuses excuses...

Well, my PC had the Blue Screen of Death for a few weeks and I have also managed three weeks skiing in the last month.

The BSOD appears to now be fixed and it looks as though my panda eyes are going to recede rapidly, given the current weather forecast.

The usual intermittent service will now be resumed.

Chiltern Railways is to be taken over by Deutsche Bahn

According to a report on the BBC website, the sale process of the Chiltern Railways franchise by Laing Rail appears to be drawing to a close. Formal approval is required from all and sundry, but I reckon it'll happen.

In theory nothing much will change- the trouble is that Chiltern Railways are highly regarded and generally thought of as being just about the best reailway company. 'Best' costs money (or good management) and these things are often in short supply after a corporate takeover. We'll just have to see how things shape up.

By the way, the Central Line is an absolute bloody nightmare at the height of the morning peak. No problems with how it runs, there are just too many people. Roll on the Olympics.

A Happy Ending

First of all a very Happy New Year. I hope you and yours had an enjoyable Christmas.

Tonight I was at a quiet country station in Buckinghamshire waiting to catch a train home to somewhere even quieter, when a youngish man tried to engage me in conversation. The trouble was he couldn't engage in a proper conversation because he appeared to have some form of learning disability. He was carrying a small bag with some clothes but did not seem to know where he was, where he was going or how he got there.

Eventually, after a lengthy conversation he showed me a tag around his neck which had his home address and telephone number printed on it.

Using the Help Point on the platform I was able to contact the Chiltern Railways control centre who were in turn able to contact the man's parents. His Father then set off on a journey of over 80 miles down from Birmingham to collect him. S was left in the safe company of the parking attendant in a warm and cosy hut. I suspect the parking attendant will be having a late night and S & his family an even later one.

I can't even begin to imagine the worry his parents must have been going through. Hopefully S will get home all right - well done to the lady at Chiltern Railways for taking ownership of a really human problem, and to the parking attendant for doing the right thing.

The original title of this post was "A Sad Tale" but, with hindsight, it is always better for the glass to be half full, rather than half empty.

Happy Christmas

Best wishes to everyone. Thank you for reading my blog.

I must confess to just a little bit of recycling in respect of this post. The sentiments do however remain genuine.

There is apparently no chance of a White Christmas in my part of South East England, so I thought I would once again share with you my idea of how Christmas might appear in warmer climes.

I took this picture on Mt Kinabalu, Borneo, a couple of years ago. You may spot a little bit of post production. I like it, so I serve it up on a plate once again.

Do please have a very Happy Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous New Year.

Liverpool Street Main Line Station - Christmas Closure

Liverpool Street (London) main line station will be totally closed from Sunday 23rd December 2007 through to Tuesday 1st jauary 2008, to allow engineering works to take place.

The One Railway website has full details of alternative arrangements here.

There is a clickable map of the One Railway network which is quite whizzy.

The Central Line will still be calling at Liverpool Street and, apparently, off-peak services on the Central Line will be increased to 30 trains per hour.

A Change of Scenery

I had to go to Wrexham today for family stuff. It wasn't really practical to do the return journey by train, so 340 miles of driving later, and I am a tad tired!
View Larger Map

The icing on the cake was having to sit on the M40 this evening for over 1/2 an hour, with the engine off, while the emergency services dealt with a fire. I am glad I don't drive every day for a living.

I guess today must be a manic late night shopping/ party night in London as my local station car park is still half full. Usually by now there will only be one or two cars still there. I wonder how many will still be there in the morning? Edit: Answer = "Lots"

The trains were noticeably quieter than usual on Monday and Tuesday, so hopefully loads of room to spread out tomorrow!

A summary of Chiltern Railways' train services over the holiday period, including downloadable pdf files, is available here.