End of the Chesham shuttle

What are the passenger numbers travelling to and from Chesham? Feel free to list peak and off-peak totals.

Tonights experience - thankfully nowhere near as hellish as last night but still showed up Another flaw I'd not thought of and probably another reason that will regularly cause A late diversion th Amersham: train gets to Chalfont, still a train on the branch, wait of at least 5 mins (with the doors wide open - thanks! Whynot close them and reopen if anyone appears wanting to board) have to wait for s/b Chiltern to come through before train on the branch can leave and clear the route for us. Luckily no trains (ESP Chilterns, seems they seem to take priority - why? All trains are equally providing a service to the public) close behind so our train blocking the n/b wasn't a problem, unlike last night.

Hopefully things will improve if/when the line controllers learn all the tricks like slowing a n/b Chesham if it looks like it's going to get to Chalfont before the one before has left the branch, ie, send it all stations Wembly - Harrow and/or Harrow Moor Park.

If things don't improve, as I understand it, we could revert to a 4 car A stock for another 2 years. Then I can't see it would be too difficult to use 3 car D78s for, maybe, another three years. That would give 5 years to find a solution, as I see it, either another crossing from the branch to s/b main further north or extend the bay in a similar pre fab manner to Baker st p1 & 4 - platform wouldn't need to be very wide, as it's not on p4 Baker st.

Chesham is one of the least used stations on the Underground network; it doesn't warrant anything that requires vast amounts of money to create a new, bespoke and permanent solution. No passing loops, no S4s (no matter how useful in the future such an option may be), no conversions of third rail stock, no PPMs....

It must have been obvious to the S stock planners that such a position might have been reached eventually; talk of closure by stealth etc. The comeback of 'its just got a through service' doesnt cut the mustard as this has made it an opperational bain, and as such will always be undesirable to run. Increasingly so in the long term. Nobody suffers an irritation ad infinitum.

Contracting out a shuttle to Chiltern would use just as many staff as before when TfL ran a shuttle, the branch would just need to be cleared for turbos and drivers trained. Either Chiltern drivers on the route, or Met drivers on the 16x stock. The former would be cheaper presumably. It wouldnt require modification to the stock or platforms.

The other option is altering the track cant to alow faster running. Civils is never cheap though to stump up. However the far more tangeble benefit of faster running times presents itself. And with some luck would make it easier to mesh into mainline services.

The third option is do nothing, put it down to an unfortunate set of circumstances, and start to curse and question the branches existance next time (if) it happens in the future. Thats not a pop at any individual, just to stress.

Which costs nearest to nothing to impliment though?

How has the service been this past coule of days up there? Baptism by fire, in the snow. Can only be messy...

many of the above comments have to be taken on board.the line was never intended to be what is today,single track have been in the main shuttle services because of its limitations.its a valid point why this stock was chosen when it did not clearly fit the ideals for the metroplitan line to the full as a whole,a compromise between old and new may not have been given consideration that it should have been in design.

I suggested a PPM earlier in the year and was shot down in flames. However, I still think a PPM is a viable option for the Chesham shuttle, possibly more so than a Turbostar. It would then allow Amersham to get it's frequency back.

TfL's website contains a very useful station-by-station breakdown of the totals by day and time. For Chesham in 2009, the figures quoted are as follows:

Chesham
Annual entry and exit frequencies
Entry weekday total: 826 Exit weekday total: 638
Entry weekday early: 109 Exit weekday early: 8
Entry weekday A.M. peak: 413 Exit weekday A.M. peak: 86
Entry weekday inter peak: 161 Exit weekday inter peak: 120
Entry weekday P.M. peak: 110 Exit weekday P.M. peak: 234
Entry weekday evening: 33 Exit weekday evening: 190
Entry Saturday total: 354 Exit Saturday total: 347
Entry Sunday total: 170 Exit Sunday total: 179

Total annual entry + exit (in millions) = 0.427

www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/corporate/modesoftransport/tube/performance/default.asp?onload=entryexit

Hope this helps.

THC

No matter what LU's arrogant stance may be the problems in the last week have been serious. They were foretold/expected by commuter groups and possibly staff members too, and yet the powers that be sit behind a nice cosy desk without any consideration to railway operations and approve a new timetable purely because the numbers add up. For the most part TfL is in a very enviable situation, whereby because of the high frequency of services they can run a reasonable timetable based on the numbers adding up. In this instance though a half hourly chesham mainline service is asking too much of the infrastructure. Don't forget that even with stepping back the effective 'headway' of the Chesham branch is 17 minutes. Add in a proper end change for an S8 or A and junction allowances... we're talking 22/23 minutes.

As a result of that a train can only be delayed by 7 or 8 minutes coming up from the Aldgate/Baker Street - there's no option to run faster to make up time as Cheshams are always Fast. Now those 7/8 minutes can be eaten into waiting for a path across Baker St Jn, waiting to leave Baker Street itself (conflicting move to/from another platform), at Harrow or Ricky for a late relief and waiting for the Junction at Chalfont. And they're all common causes of delay in off peak, amazingly brilliant service times, we're not on about when it goes up the creek here.

Now I'm not gonna drum up a 4-car A Stock revival and suggest bringng back the shuttle with a cacophony of half-train units, but at least reign in the mainline service to something manageable, without so much potential for delay. Perhaps a Watford/Croxley - Chesham Shuttle, or even Ricky if Watford is overstretched. You still have a shuttle, so it can be fairly isolated from mainline issues and delays - but you can use S8s without any bay length considerations or infrastructure modifications, and what's more you can bring the Amersham service back up to the 4tph it's had since time immortal.

The timetable planners/operations people need to drop their pride for 5 minutes and tear up this new timetable which clearly isn't working. Revert to the old Chesham shuttle in the interim months while they recast something that's workable - hell get me a copy of all the necessary running times etc etc and I'll do it for you, for free.

Cheshams are not always fast. In the early mornings and late evenings they run all stations. This can lead to even later running.

Please stick around MetControl - you always add value and are one of the few who genuinely knows what they're talking about. That's why I look out for your posts.

To those who seem to revel in complaining - if you think you can do better, why not drop a line to Human Resources at TfL? I'm sure they'd be only too pleased to hear from you...

THC

I can see your arguments MC I really can - and please don't strike me up as one of the anti- chesham mainline bunch. I'm glad that LU are making progress (which this is, as it's a result of S Stock introduction) and listening to customers. But they need to acknowledge, and this is where I percieve them as arrogant, that be it because of extreme weather or whatever else They've tried to change things too drastically to suddenly; gone wrong and now apply a blanket "it'll settle down eventually" - I greatly appreciate the work Service Control staff do, they effectively have to cover for the cock ups that timetablers make.

LU staff on here, possibly yourself included, have mentioned the issues of Harrow Crew changes, the problems with having to give Chiltern priority etc etc - LU have introduced a new service, and it is that, which needs everything to be running at peak efficiency for it to work. Could you (as a company) not have held off introducing some of the other new bits which are taking time to bed in until the new service was on it's feet and rolling? Or perhaps looked at the monthly weather forecast and postponed the new TT introduction by a month so you didn't start it off in the middle of blizzard, when it's doubly bound to go wrong.

My argument is not about what they've gone - long may the Chesham shuttle burn in hell for all I care - it's about how it was gone about and the new "it'll sort itself out" attitude. 5 years time, when the S Stock is fully introduced and they can run a bit quicker and so on, yes it will probably work a treat. But after a week of pretty horrendous conditions for the majority of chesham commuters LU need to take a step back and recognise that it is currently causing more problems than it fixed

Thank you for your support. I will stick around provided that moaning eases off a bit. Apart from it being annoying, it also presents itself as a little bit of a conflict of interest.

You're right though, there hasn't been a suggestion of a realistic workable solution from anyone, and if there had, then I too would direct them to our management.



What is the world coming to. For once I actually agree with deadmans



First off, I don't think it can all be classed as a timetable "cock-up." Timetables were given the criteria for the timetable, and wrote it the best that they could. The 2-track section north of Moor Park to Amersham is one of those deceptively busy areas, with the Amersham, Cheshams and Chilterns all vying for space.

Secondly, as for having everything happen at once, that wasn't planned to happen.

The timetable was in production probably as early as this time last year. The through service was seen to be a fairly easy to run thing, and indeed in theory it should be. The movement of staff (some new) was a subsequent action that came about due to higher management deciding to re-structure the Duty Manager grades. It is unfortunate that maybe some of the newer members need a little help to bed in to their new positions.

As for the weather, I normally keep an eye on the forecasts when I have night shift on the horizon - that being the shift probably most affected by the weather. For the week of my nights at the start of this month, snow and freezing temperatures were forecast right up until the week in question. Apart from a couple of chilly nights at the beginning of the week, the rest of my nights had balmy temperatures of +3 degress ;D

We can't go around not introducing a timetable because of the weather, or we'd get even more criticism than we do when things go wrong because of it.



I have to confess that I've been mostly away from the job this week, so not 100% in the loop. But I think I can confidently say that re-introducing the shuttle is not currently on the cards.

Much appreciated for your balananced , candid and practical approach. Thanks

Good luck and I look forward to seeing the Chesham branch overcoming it's current problems in a positive way. Having met Angela Back last week at Chesham station I was impressed with her positive attitude; she appears to be a person that really does care and takes the time to engage with her customers.

Xerces Fobe

people who use the service have a right to complain,chesham is a long way out and can be a fatiguing journey and they deserve as much right to be heard as the central london user and if the service is not up to expectations then yes something is going wrong.snow,leaf fall are common in this area being the chilterns and subject to adverse conditions not normally found closer to london.because it is a branch line then the above problems may well be worse as only one train is on the line at one time.

to call people toffs' (fare payers) is totally uncalled for.