Great Western Coffee Shop

Passengers have deserted Virgin in their droves to travel from Warwick Parkway, Solihil and Birmingham Moor Street on Chiltern's new "Mainline" service which is nice and fast. Passenger numbers are up 200,000 - which is a jaw dropping increase. Revenue is up 65% despite Chiltern slashing peak fares.

One can easily see why:
*The delightful Moor Street station vs the congested New Street (which will remain congested after the upgrade)
*Spacious Mark 3 carriages vs Pendolinos with small windows.
*Trains no longer have to stop at smaller stations, as Chiltern have introduced extra shuttles.
*Fares are reasonable and an upgrade to the business zone is free/^10/^20.

I've posted this because of the imminent Oxford service. How will Chiltern transform this route?
*Journey times will probably be shorter, as driving to Water Eaton will be quicker than driving to OXF for most commuters.
*Clubmans vs non guaranteed Turbos/180s/HSTs
*Lower fares, less restrictions
*Better reliability and punctuality
*Same frequency (not counting slow services)
*New/improved links to Bicester, HW Wembley Stadium.
*East West rail coming soon

I think exciting times lie ahead for Oxford commuters. I wonder how OXF will deal with several rail and coach companies competing for commuters - it can only be good.

That may be true, but without an indication of over what time period the 200,000 increase was observed, and what the number was beforehand (in effect allowing us to work that out as a percentage increase) the absolute number alone is entirely meaningless.

BTW, what's your source? Sounds like a Chiltern press release but I suspect there may be a reason for that... ;)

http://www.birminghammail.net/news/birmingham-news/2012/01/09/railway-revamp-leads-to-business-boom-for-moor-street-station-and-chiltern-railways-97319-30082907/?

They're not up 200,000, they're up 50,000 or 25%.  Btline needs to read the articles he quotes from in a little more detail.  Still good figures, mind.

"Chiltern Railways has revealed journey totals on its Birmingham to London link, including passengers using stations at Moor Street, Dorridge, Solihull and Warwick Parkway, had soared to 200,000 for the September to December period, up by a quarter."

My emphasis in bold.

If they are up by a quarter, then they will have increased from 160,000 to 200,000, ie a 40,000 increase.  If the increase was 50,000 to 200,000 then it would have been "up by a third".

But still not up 200,000 either way!

Btline, you have a maths detention.  :P

I originally said 50,000 but changed it when i re-read the article. (honest) I think I got too excited by the higher figure! :o

Detention accepted but can we discuss the Oxford services? (i.e. FGW)

Hmmm - 40,000 in 4 months.

That's 17 weeks. They also ran a ^10 go-anywhere offer on a lot of weekends in that period. THe B/zone is an abject failure, and the peak silver trains are still around half-full. I suspect that's TA being economical with his words. Most of those are off-peak and more than likely weekend travellers. Let's see what he says in May, for the January - April period.

Btline, where is your evidence that passengers have deserted Virgin?

Or are you simply in Daily Mail mode again... ;)

The article does mention it....but doesn't use the 'deserted' word.

They are planning to extend the bursting at the seams Warwick Pway car park for the upteenth time. Passenger as far as way as Shropshire now use this station!

Car parks at Solihul are also rammed, and will be extended.

**Cough** Oxford.

Perhaps we already had a discussion about EG3 and Oxford, while you were away, and can't be bothered to repeat it?

Paul

It's a shame that this post has (predictably) been shunted towards negativity. Chiltern opening up to Oxford has huge potential benefits for a FGW region, so why the Chiltern bashing?

It's as if some people want Evergreen 3 to fail because they either live far away from Chiltern, or just so they can say "told you so". Even the teething troubles for the new timetable have been sorted, and hundreds of extra seats have been put onto peak time trains for Bucks commuters.

Chiltern have transformed a route, ignored by BR to brink of closure. Saved by NSE, it was axed down to a branch line. It is now a major service. Commuters services have seen trains refurbished twice, new trains and excellent punctuality despite a 2 track entrance to London and sharing with intense LU, XC and Centro services. Frankly, when you consider that some FGW stations are only just getting decent PISs and still have unsuitable rolling stock, you can see what can be done with drive!

I cannot wait for the developments to Oxfordshire that will be brought...

I'm not sure it has, just that factual inaccuracies and hype in the initial post have been somewhat tempered with a bit of context and realism.

If you were to get away from being the 'Daily Mail' hype of the Coffeeshop, you might get some support.

 If you were to use Chiltern regularly you would realise that it's not as good in the heartlands where the majority of their customers live as you make it out to be.

Chiltern still have services in the high- & shoulder-peak that are regularly SRO. Commuters in the heartlands have lost their metro services to allow the Mainline trains more pathing space. The remaining services are regularly delayed to allow Mainline trains (running slightly late) to proceed unhindered.

You need to remember that prior to EG3, everyone had a service that Chiltern were rightly proud of & that their customer base were more than happy with. To allow Chiltern to tap the West Midlands market, commuters put up with months of disruption, late running engineering works sufficient to put the completion date back by a few months! And then got another 6-8 weeks of absolutely shocking disruption because the shoddy work was errr, shoddy.

It's only recently returned timings wise to acceptable. Note I said acceptable - they're still nowhere near the punctuality figure before they started - close to 99% peak MAA. Not only that, but commuters have lost all those metro services and still suffer SRO on a number of services.

The few travellers from Leamington northwards to London are the only customers to have gained from this exercise - something which Chiltern knew from the outset & failed to tell the vast majorities in the heartlands until they realised for themselves after the completion. Yes, Chiltern seemed to have achieved their target of competing with Virgin - but this doesn't impress their majority in the heartlands who still see MainLine delaying their own services, almost on a daily basis.

Now, what about Oxford? What's new that we haven't talked about? Having made a raid on Virgin's customers, they're now going after FGWs. I'm all for competition, but as for improvements? Nahh, the regular route will lose even more services to make way for the Oxford flyers.

There will be more to talk about, once we know when any work might start - possibly at the May timetable change date, I guess.

Except that as we've already discussed, the Oxford trains are not additional to the current timetable, they are almost all redirections of existing services such as Bicester terminators.

Paul

Where is the back-up for that ascertion?

THe briefing I had from Chiltern involves a major TT change in December when the Oxford trains are being introduced (yes, terminating to start with at BCS, then Bicester Town & finally Oxford), but they don't exist yet.

Well last time we discussed it here I linked to a whole set of EG3 timetables on the NR or ORR websites - and it was immediately apparent when the timetables were compared side by side.

One can only quote what is curerntly in the public domain - if it is going to change again, so be it...


http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/upload/pdf/s22-chiltern-73sa-application-form.pdf

Paul

Just to clarify, Chris.  We're talking about a major TT change this coming December?  Then a staged introduction of the Evergreen 3 route with the chord to Bicester Town being finished first so that a service from Marylebone to Bicester Town will initially operate, with the final stage being the completion of the Oxford to Bicester Town upgrade allowing the full EG3 timetable?  If so, do you have any idea of the timetable for these stages?

Seeing as the service is to stop at HW, I'd hardly call it a "Flyer". They'll probably stop HW, PR, H Thame P, Bicester T and Water E. (plus the odd Islip stop to keep them happy)

There services were to be extensions of exiting Bicester North terminators - although the original plans have changed quite a bit.

I'm surprised the cord will be the first bit to open. Surely it's the main part of the work, bar the new platforms! Even with just one platform, I'm sure you could run a train every hour or so. Will the junction be flat, or will it be a dive under/flyover?

Flat junctions at both ends of the chord.  The number of trains would never justify a diveunder IMHO.

Paul

66 minutes journey time won't allow for all those stops. H&TP is probably being missed.


As I understand our briefing, yes.


Not yet, this is still being worked on as the TWA hasn't been signed off yet. May 2014 will be the earliest opening date of the whole route though. Chiltern will be holding a public consultation on their DEc12 TT at a later date too

Thanks for that information, Chris.


According to the original timetable proposal it was Princes Risborough being omitted from that list, not Haddenham & Thame Parkway.  Which I thought was a bit of a shame as Risborough would be a useful stop for Aylesbury connections, though it would have caused pathing problems at Risborough, and not have been a very good connection, as things stood in that proposal.

Also, of course, when East-West Rail is up and running, you could always get to Aylesbury from Oxford by changing at Winslow!

Oh, it may well still be....PRR omitted, that is.

Anyone in the Bicester area, I've just been reminded that the AGM for the local User Group OBRAG (Oxford/Bicester Rail Action Group) is tomorrow evening (12th) at 1825.

Details here: http://www.obrag.org.uk/363/obrag-agm-2012/

Meeting is at the local Methodist Church Rooms in Bicester. Speaker is Richard Harper from Chiltern on their Oxford / Bicester service....

I've dug out the links page to the approved track access agreement for those who wish to look at what was agreed:

http://www.networkrail.co.uk/browseDirectory.aspx?root=&dir=%5cTrack%20Access%5c2%20Completed%20Consultations%5c2009%5c2009.10.27%20Chiltern%20Railways%2073rd%20Supplemental%20Agreement%20-%20consultation%20closed%2023%20November%202009 (http://www.networkrail.co.uk/browseDirectory.aspx?root=&dir=%5cTrack%20Access%5c2%20Completed%20Consultations%5c2009%5c2009.10.27%20Chiltern%20Railways%2073rd%20Supplemental%20Agreement%20-%20consultation%20closed%2023%20November%202009)

Clearly it is all subject to change, but it must provide a reasonable idea of their intentions, because at the end of the day an increase in tph into Marylebone would start to require additional stock, and apart from the Mk3 sets there's nothing extra planned.

Paul

Which is why they're looking to alter the Dec12 TT to release stock....

I assume more Silver trains will run, perhaps all day and not just the peaks?

Hopefully once the sliding doors are fitted, they'll reinstate the 6.30 off Kidderminster using a silver train. This service, axed last year, was popular with commuters. This cuts, which angered locals and caused sardine conditions on the 6.36 (LM), remains the only mark in Chiltern's impeccable record in the West Midlands.

Nurse! He's out of bed again.  :P ;D

They've got two more on the way which are being fitted now....then they'll swap with the two in service and once those return, the hybrid set will go back into storage - so a net addition of one set to four.

Impeccable - A last train on Saturday at 2215 and Sunday at 2115 is hardly impeccable. Good perhaps, but not impeccable.