New Met Line Timetable

How much slower is it?

It is a recognised psychological trait for people to get so far up the structural greasy pole, that they no longer feel the need to listen, except to their hand picked minions and those at equal height (or above) on another, nearby pole. This happens in banks and politics particularly, and all areas where there are unnecessary levels of "managers" that have built up over the years. Those at the top of the pole have information "filtered out" on its way up by those on the lower strata. rubbish only cascades downwards, so those underneath don't deliver bad news, in order to keep out of the way of any consequential falling rubbish, and the messenger being shot for delivering the message. There is a saying in Latin that translates roughly as, "It is better to be on the balcony with Nero whilst he pi$$es on the crowd, than to be in the crowd"

I'm afraid TfL, no longer feel it necessary to give their public what they ask for, just as senior L.T. management did(n't) years ago. Nobody ever got fired for not spending company money, "So why spend money on designing new timetables and train diagrams etc, and upsetting the Pinner MP?" will be the order of the day. Nobody wants to be put back into the crowd after being on the balcony. The Met has a particular problem in that Pinner man (and probably his MP) lives in the GLA area, whilst Amersham and Chesham men do not, and their towns are only served by the Met because of historical circumstances. The filtering process is everywhere. Most MPs have secretaries to filter out their own constituents. Try seeing the actual manager of your local supermarket even. The Pinner MP must be awesome.

castlebar

How eloquently put sir. Hats off to Chiltern Railways in recognizing that Punters need to get to there Destinations as quick as possible. As for TFL... stick it were the sun doesn't shine. You have single handley Alienated you Customer Base.

Indeed. The problem with never having a fast service/trains with lots of seats is that you don't miss them! If you have been fortunate to have had them, there is justified complaining when the are taken away, for seemingly no valid reason!

With the new WTT, has anyone noticed that the Uxbridge line has five semi-fast trains in the morning peak, once every 32 minutes. In each 32-minute cycle, one Uxbridge – Baker Street all stations and one Watford – Aldgate semi fast service has been transposed to be Uxbridge – Aldgate semi fast and Watford – Baker Street all stations.

However, as has been the case since November 1981 a ‘semi-fast’ service does not overtake the previous all-stations service from Uxbridge, and in reality a fast train today saves very little.

There are no semi-fast trains to Uxbridge in the evening peak, with patterns remaining unchanged.

There remains a number of semi-fast services in the counterflow direction during both peaks - i.e. NB morning and SB evening.

Quite right! Large amounts of taxpayers money was spent quadding the Met post war for, arguably, little benefit upon closure of the ex-GC mainline. Its irrational that what little use it can be put to is not exploited as fully as possible. It still has to be maintained for full use aswell, and that wont be cheap considering the number of structures along its length.

Compare it to the upgrades that have occured on Chilterns patch north of Mantles Wood and you see just how poorly LUL has managed this section since the 90's.

With traffic levels the highest they've ever been on the tube supposedly, its just seems crazy that capacity is nowhere near what was once achievable and provided. Chesham getting a 3/4tph peak service, eg.

It is regrettable that because of history, buisness, politics and finance that High Barnet or Epping or Morden don't have a faster service to the city, but there have been schemes in the past for some of these. Its not a reason, though, to remove them where the facility does exist to run them.

One final point on capacity and infrastructure, When Watford South junction was remodeled it was to the optimal service pattern then run. Because this has now changed there must surely be negative implications for reliability and ultimately cost.

Of course in LNER days Barnet had a fast service with branch trains running to Moorgate and Broad Street missing a few stations out on the way!

Not really. The Met is two tracked south of Wembley and non stopping trains would just sit behind stopping services.

Was it mentioned before that track work and signalling needed to be done before re-introducing the fast service?

This is a question by the way not a wind up mission - thought I'd make this clear as I know what some of you lot are like...

That's a good question. The thing is, many have voted with their feet and just abandoned the Met altogether!

There is a poster now at Harrow on the Hill explaining that there are now long gaps in the service from there to Amersham off peak now that the northbound Chiltern trains have been retimed. So much for co-ordination.

That had been mentioned before, yes!

But LU have not mentioned this once in any of their responses to complaints and questions about the timetable and have never referred to it in any publicity surrounding the timetable. Had they done so, I doubt anyone would be running a full-on campaign against the timetable. In fact, on every occasion where there has been an opportunity to communicate and explain, LU has merely put out bland marketing-speak which says nothing. An odd thing to do when you're actually talking to people who may be advocates of your organisation.

Make no mistake, this is largely the result of a management communications failure. I find it incredible that anybody in a senior position could look at what's happened here and not recognise it's entirely self-inflicted.

I think fast services peak only is fine, with slow services through the day completely acceptable. What is the point in running half empty trains up to London from Chesham/Amersham in the day when they can stop at intermediate stations and improve service frequencies at these stations. People travelling into London on a regular basis from destinations further away than Chesham/Amersham have longer journeys with more stops so I don't see what the problem is.

People have the choice of using the Chiltern services and can plan there journey accordingly if they wish to use these services. People travelling into London from Epping, and even Ongar and North Weald up until 1994, didn't and still don't have the option of using fast services even in the peak. Looking back to the Ongar service passengers had to change at Epping to get a train into London and these trains were not fast services and also on actual tube trains.

I have a couple of ideas on how to improve the situation which I'll highlight more in the route suggestion section, but for the foreseeable future the Met has slow trains due in the day I'm afraid. Looking at it in detail I don't think its as bad as it was first thought it was going to be

kabsonline

Surely, though, when the tube went to Ongar and North Weald commuters would have chosen to use this over National Rail as it was right on their doorstep