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!