The Commuter Diaries

As trailed back in November, the Metropolitan Line introduced a contraversial timetable in December, which has now been with us for around six weeks. While offering some benefits, there are also no shortage of people critical of the changes. Here’s my take on it, based on my daily commutes and the views shared by others on Twitter.

The good

Let’s start with the positive. The addition of semi-fast peak trains to Amersham is undoubtedly welcome, providing additional services on what has been the most poorly served of the Met Line branches. Semi-fasts are typically operated by the new S Stock trains, which have fewer seats than the old trains being phased out, however seats can often be had. Typically, the morning semi-fasts run just before the much quicker Chiltern services, which many prefer, while in the evening semi-fasts start at Baker Street, guaranteeing a seat. It means there’s finally an option that offers a good chance of reasonable comfort, so long as you don’t mind the longer journey time, which is around 5 mins longer than the fast services. Certainly, for Rickmansworth commuters, whose station is overlooked by many peak Chiltern trains, there’s a good chance that commuters from stations further north will prefer for the fast services, leaving us some capacity. It’s a slightly second-best option, but I’d prefer a slower seat than none at all, which had been the case. More >

This evening I popped along to Chiltern Railway’s ‘Meet the managers’ event before catching the train home. It allows commuters and other passengers to get answers to the questions about the services they use and depending on how things having been running, get some frustrations off their chest.

Chiltern had an impressive selection of managers on hand, and I spent a while chatting to a few of them, as well as Nicola from their PR & Twitter team. Although I’d raised some of the issues before in rather shorter form on Twitter, I found it both useful and rather reassuring to be able to discuss their service and plans for my line in a bit of detail.

While I had a few questions about the current service, which is generally very good, I was also keen to find out more about longer term plans, given that all of the figures I’d found online pointed to the Aylesbury line being overcrowded and set to get more so. The overwhelming feeling I had from the managers was these were people really committed to improving the aspects of the service they oversee. They were looking to break with long standing status quos towards looking for new ways to push things forward.

There’s clearly challenges faced in sharing the Aylesbury Line with TfL’s Metropolitan Line, especially compared the relative free hand they have on the Banbury Line, however I came away reassured that Chiltern are pushing for improvements and are looking for options to improve the service both in the short and longer terms. The managers also share common grievances of passengers in that the Aylesbury Line is particularly slow, due largely to TfL line speed restrictions.

We also enjoyed a good discussion about the use of new technologies in their communications and engagement with passengers with plans to build on an initial successful ‘tweet the managers’ session on Twitter. It was striking that if anything the Twitter-based event drew a rather larger crowd, although we agreed that a mix of communication approaches is necessary in order to reach the full range of users, not all of whom are tech-savvy.

My main concern was with overcrowding, and the managers spoke about the challenges both at the recent spate of short-formed trains as well as how to bolster standard train length towards the line maximum to tackle crowding around the shoulder-peak on permanently short trains, which I often experience. On this count it seems that the new trains coming into service in May combined with a new timetable and greater use of loco-hauled trains later in the year will help cascade extra trains onto the services I commonly use.

On the whole I felt very satisfied by the managers’ approach to the challenges of future both short and long-term. Being commuters also they understand the challenges of their customers and seemed to be full of drive and dynamic ideas to push the boundaries of their work towards still better results. As but one of many thousands of customers Chiltern Railways caters for, it felt very positive that such dialogue is possible with one of my daily service providers, and it makes for a stark contrast to the likes of TfL where you do truly feel one of very many and up against a wall when trying to engage or address an issue. Good work Chiltern; you’re clearly getting a lot of things right.

It’s the end of another week of commuting and it’s seen a fairly typical selection of tube and mainline issues. The Jubilee had failed trains, the Met signalling problems, while even Chiltern has had a couple of train breakdowns on its mainline.

Fortunately I either avoided the worst of these through good fortunate or diversions, or the problems were managed well enough to limit delay. Chiltern had a difficult situation mid-week, where a failed train suspended their High Wycombe line leading to the delay and then cancellation of the train in front of my own. Remarkably the train in front was moved out of the way and we departed only a couple of minutes late; that’s certainly the way to do it.

Issues at Marylebone this week have only seen my usual train unlocked and announced at very late notice, with only a couple of minutes allowed for boarding. Typically this led to a great rush of people and rather more stress than I think was necessary. I’m trying to find out why it’s not possible to allow boarding of the rear train before the front train pulls off. Other stations split their platforms and manage multiple trains, so I’d like to know why some flexibility isn’t used here, when it would lead to a much improved experience for passengers.

Wrexham and Shropshire closure

The big story of the week for Marylebone, however, is the ending of the Wrexham and Shropshire Railway service. This service had developed a fine reputation for quality and personalised service, while offering competitive pricing. It did suffer, as an open access operator, in being prevented to call at major stations and took round-the-houses route, leading the long journey times. The company’s investors decided that it was not going to turn a profit and decided that closure was the only option.

The closure is sad, especially for the staff but also for the prospects of small, open access companies and the belief that quality services still have their place on British railways.

It will be interesting to see what becomes of the trains Wrexham and Shropshire used. Some had seen use by Chiltern in bolstering some of its Birmingham / Banbury services. Perhaps these trains may see greater use still in the new timetables from May, which could in theory free up other trains in the fleet, either to increase the capacity of busy services or to provide some amount of slack, of which there is currently none.