New Met Timetable Commencing 11th Dec 2011

Roughly 1410. The Announcer said the 1427 to Watford and another one were cancelled.

Fair enough, these things happen. It does highlight though with the reduced service how one cancellation to Watford leads to up to 30 mins of waiting.

There was a delay due to a small track fire - caused by a discarded "newspaper" (I use the term loosely as it was neither broadsheet nor respected).

Whilst current never actually went off, there were delays whilst the LFB travelled the area to check everything was out. This meant a handful of trains had to reverse via depot.

All trains that did not appear at Finchley Road, did re-enter service at Wembley Park and it is a shame this was not conveyed to you (i.e. take the first train and change).

EDIT: Sorry colleague, I didn't mean to repeat everything you said, I meant only to fill in the gaps of things that happened before your arrival ;D

I usually only post here on historical matters, and have very rarely given opinions, but now that this timetable has been in operation for over a week I feel compelled to comment.

I've given up on travelling on the Met line. I've used it all my life, and I'm sad to be giving up. I've switched to Chiltern, which might be the intention of the LU management who imposed the new timetable. I catch the 06.25 from Chorleywood in the morning, which has now become all-stations. I know that it only takes about 8 minutes longer to get to Baker Street. But psychologically it feels much longer. The train is much colder, because all the doors are opened at all stations; previously some heat built up on the non-stop sections.
On the way home, I find it iniquitous that LU only start running the fast services from 1655 (ex-Baker Street), and yet charge a peak fare from 16.00. If I tried something like that in my business it would be called fraud, and punished appropriately.
I've also had a situation where my SB morning train has arrived at Harrow, waited whilst another SB train has arrived alongside, and then been held whilst the latter train departs (with doors open, chilling the passengers further). Now, I know that we might have been late, and were perhaps held to avoid delaying the other service which was on time, but from a passenger perspective this isn't a good situation. There's an empty track in front of us - why can't we use it.
The new timetable seems to be pushing far more service via less infrastructure (the local lines) which is a waste of a capital asset (the fast lines) and is wasting a significant amount of passenger time.
I do appreciate the information provided by LU staff on this forum, and I'm not in any way intending this as a dig at them. For example, the explanation that the new timetable is more robust has not been clearly made to the public, and I recognize that this has to be a good thing. But the 'spin' put out by LU (e.g., "more trains from Amersham" - no, you've put the service back to where it was before the introduction of all-day through Chesham trains) is just wrong.
Given that a consultation was held for the through Chesham services, which were asked for by locals, how come no consultation was held with all users north of Harrow for these changes? Of course, the fact that the MP for Amersham and Chesham is fixated on trains that don't exist (HS2) might have something to do with it...

Anyhow, I've said my piece now, and my spleen is feeling better. Merry Christmas everyone!

Yes, but is the intention to restore the off peak fasts in the future?

Yet again there was a slow crawling journey into the city last night from Baker Street. Is this to do with the new Met timetable or not?

It's not temporary, which is why people have to voice their opinions on the subject. If you say nothing, those who think they know better will hail it as a great success and it will be with you for ever more!

but fewer trains will result in more overcrowding surely?

Sorry, with TfL on this one. The inconvenience of 8 minutes added to journey times is significantly outweighed by the operational benefits. More passengers are seeing a better, more robust and recoverable service.

Yes, the railway is operated for the public, and the views of the public are listened to I'm sure, but it has to function. It has to be manageable.

If the residents of South Buckingshire would really like to all cram onto a 2 car DMU to a backwater London terminus with poor public transport links, and spend the journey tutting loudly over their copy of the Telegraph and licking each other's armpits then fine. That's more seats for me on my direct train to the City.

I've had a seat on Chiltern for every journey I've taken since swapping across. In fact, the Met trains I was taking in the morning l ast weekwere more crowded with "armpit lickers" (a lovely phrase - I must remember that!) because they're collecting people at every station, so I'm actually rather happy with the situation. The journey only takes 31 minutes, compared to limping along for 48 on the Met; I consider a 17-minute saving (35%) and a less-crowded train to be a double-win.

If you want to complain, you can't as:
"The Help and Contact facility is currently unavailable due to essential maintenance work"!!
Another upgrade gone wrong?? ;D ;D

And this is precisely the kind of attitude that has led us to where we are.

8 minutes in the grand scheme of things is nothing. An extra 8 minutes on an already very slow journey compared to other local services to London is significant. It is an almost 20% increase - it is slow, tedious and very frustrating. The effect for me is that when I have a choice of going into London at the weekend for leisure/shopping or going somewhere else, I will go somewhere else. Not sure that really chimes with the aims of businesses in central London who are suffering in the current economic climate.

If you think it's all so fine, why not come and try it? Many supporters of this change seem to have very leisured lives - lucky you!

[edit]Sorry, just re-read that and the last bit sounds much ruder than it was meant to and not terribly festive.

This has been a significant change though and the 'it's only 8 minutes and they're all whingeing Bucks residents anyway' point of view really does betray a lack of understanding. I live in Chesham, I am not rich and I am a big supporter of LU and all pubilc transport. I have no choice of service, so it can hardly be a surprise that I do not view this positively. If nothing else, the communication around this has been truly abysmal and does not reflect well on TfL or LUL.

To have achieved a situation where Bucks residents (of all people) start questioning whether Bob Crow has a point about LUL management is pretty amazing...
[/edit]

I agree with superteacher etc. . It reminds me of Orwellian 'newspeak'

This is exactly the same as when they said "Fares are not going up, but the distance you can travel for that amount of money has been reduced".

One reason Southern have given for not building the "Arundel chord" is "The government don't want to lose the fuel duty that would be lost to them from removing traffic from the A27 if it were ever built". . The government have denied saying that and are following it up. It is the same old "tell them anything, they'll have to put up with it" attitude.. Well, that worked in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, but it is time to make people in such public service positions more accountable for talking down to the public as they have done up until now.

How true, and I can, at this moment, hear the collective moaning of all those waiting on the platform!

I've heard a few pre-recorded announcements on the Met saying that in the new timetable, some Amersham and Chesham trains will now call at all stations. Some?

I got a reply from my FOI request. 1 complaint regarding wtt 330, 36 regarding 331 in the space of 2 weeks