Parliamentary trains

I believe they are kept running in order for the line and it's stations not to be closed.

As you mentioned there is the one a day Chiltern Service which runs: South Ruislip - Paddington - South Ruislip - West Ruislip.

I believe Southern run parliamentary trains between certain stops too to prevent closures of otherwise unused sections of track.

And of course there is the once a day London Overground service to Battersea Park in order to keep the section of track between Wandsworth Road and Battersea Park open.

Can I recommend the excellent PSUL (passenger services over unusual lines) site which lists all rare pieces of track throughout the UK.

www.psul4all.free-online.co.uk/2017.htm

The Liverpool Street via South Tottenham to Enfield Town (0531 Liv St) is currently going via he usual routing via Stoke Newington because of the wiring (or lack of) on the GOBLIN and as such there is no wires over he junction leading to the Seven Sisters curve

Incidentally I've been over the Seven Sisters curve, but not the above train!

I was on the Stratford to Tottenham Hale train in the evening and we were on our way as far as Coppermill Junction and the driver announced that here was an incident at Tottenham Hale and we would divert to Seven Sisters! after a very slow crawl we progressed via South Tottenham upto Seven Sisters!

No Chiltern trains go to or from Baker Street.

Technically it's twice a day - once in the morning from Battersea Park and once in the evening in the other direction. It serves additionally for route knowledge as trains can be diverted there if there is a problem Clapham Junction or one of the many junctions between there and Wandsworth Road. The first and third times I travelled westbound on that bit of the Overground we were diverted!

Amersham - arrive 23:42, depart 23:47.

Chiltern Railways train 2C82 from Aylesbury arrives at Amersham platform 3 at 23:40, terminates, and then shunts into 34 siding.

This is followed by Met train 412, all stations to Baker Street, which arrives in platform 3 from the north sidings at 23:46½, departing at 23:47½.

The Chiltern Railways train then forms 5B75 and heads empty back to Aylesbury, presumably to stable in the sidings there, or perhaps to go into the DMU depot.

Strictly, a Parliamentary train was one running pursuant to an Act of 1844 (I believe that's the date - a piece of Gladstonian legislation) which required all train companies to provide at least a once a day all stations 3rd class service. That requirement disappeared with the 1948 nationalisation and (without having the 1844 Act to hand) it must have been a fairly loosely defined obligation as services came and went quite frequently (eg the various MR services to Kew). The services discussed earlier in this thread are often called "Parliamentary" but they owe their existence to the wish to avoid a closure case for a particular piece of track. Services that run for this reason don't have to run daily - there's the famous case in Lancashire which runs Sats only and in only one direction. The legal advice on what might trigger a closure was the removal of a service "on which people had come to rely" - hence a weekly service was one such. There are other complications: for example, when the last Willesden LL to Broad Street was withdrawn, the DTp lawyers had an agonised debate as to whether a closure case was required even tho' there was a continuing Willesden HL-Broad Street service. (in the end, it was regarded as "not a closure" - a pity - I had always liked that 0802 Willesden departure, as I had the train to myself...)

The Fridays only Stockport to Staylybridge service, which used to change direction with the summer/winter timetable. In December 2015 HWMBO and I took a charter train from Manchester to Bath which called at both Denton and Reddish South where passengers borded and alighted; we commented that we had doubled the number of trains calling there that week!

Or you may be referring to the Halton Curve between Frodsham and Runcorn, which has a one-way service only on summer Saturdays. However, neither of these routes are in Lancashire - they are both in the historic county of Cheshire. The only such services in Lancashire are the two daily Lancaster to Leeds services (in that direction only) which run via Morecambe and use the Hest Bank curve (incidentally, if you want misnomers, Hest Bank is the only point on the West Coast Main Line where you can actually see the West Coast!)

I don't think LU are subject to the same rules, but one might consider the remaining Olympia services, and those over the Watford North Curve, in this category. The infamous Croxley Green taxi, covering what may become an LU service in the future, was definitely another.

As a word is defined by its usage, the modern usage of "parliamentary" is well-understood, and the services are sanctioned by parliament in the sense that parliament passed the law which requires them to be run (the Transport Act 1962). However, the term could equally be applied to lines opened or re-opened under the Transport Act 1962 (Amendment) Act 1981 (the "Speller Act") which allows trial services to be withdrawn within five years without going through the formal closure process. Nearly all services opened under this act have survived, but Kettering Corby branch was re-opened in 1987 and closed again in 1990, before being reopened again in 2009. Other examples which have closed are the Sheepcote Lane curve in Battersea, used by through Waterloo-South Wales services and the Night Riviera to connect with Eurostar at Waterloo, and the temporary facilities at Heathrow Junction used before the Heathrow Express tunnels were completed.

As for riding on the buffers, as mandated by the Mikado - I'm not convinced that riding that way on a train which stops and starts frequently (probably with a severe jolt each time) and takes all day would be a much less of a punishment than doing so on a high speed but possibly smoother running express - the ordeal would certainly be over more quickly!

Out of interest, what legal processes did the closures to regular service of the Ongar and Aldwych branches go through in 1994, or Charing Cross (Jubilee) more recently?

Thank you