New Met Line Timetable

Has to be worth a try!

1977:
Amersham - Baker Street (Fast^*) - 39 minutes.
Amersham - Marylebone with a stop at Moor Park - 38 minutes.
Amersham - Baker Street (local^†) - 52 minutes.

These were journey times for regular services not just 'headline times'.

2013:
Amersham - Baker Street (Fast^*) - 48 minutes
Amersham - Marylebone without stop at Moor Park - 39 minutes
Amersham - Baker Street (local^†) - 55 minutes

^*All stations to Moor Park, then Harrow on the Hill, Finchley Road, and Baker Street.
^†All stations to Baker Street.

Dealing with LU on this is like talking to a brick wall, the result being the worst kind of 'get what you're given, tough if you don't like it' service. LU reps are quite prepared to sound like village idiots in terms of justifying the service rather than admit it's unfit for purpose.

I may be wrong, but I feel this is the personal baby of one or two individuals in senior positions who take the view that a simple metro service is all LU should be offering, regardless of how long the journey. To me, this is lazy, dull-headed thinking and is precisely the sort of thing most organisations, public and private, are trying to move away from in order to meet customer needs.

I'm not convinced that the Met line management team is anything like united on the current timetable; however, it's very easy for someone who holds the 'metro only' view to use budget issues and the upgrade to justify bringing in changes which wouldn't otherwise have made it past the first mention.

But crusty54, the upgrade is not the reason for the end of fast off peak trains on the Met. It has been stated in the past on here, that no upgrade work can be done on the main lines whilst the main lines are operational (for Chiltern services). Last year, David Gauke MP wrote a couple of letters to Mike Brown, and at no point did Mike Brown cite the upgrade in his replies.

In August Mike Brown replied,

"... I understand that passengers using stations between Amersham/Chesham and Moor Park would benefit from a return of fast services on the Metropolitan line. However this would be to the detriment of a much greater number of passengers using those intermediate stations, where the frequency of the services would be reduced."

In October Mike Brown replied, 

"... 2) Reinstating a fast service outside of the peak periods would reduce journey times by a small amount for a small number of passengers (by around 6.5 minutes, we estimate) while increasing it for a much larger number of others...
 ... 4) The frequency of the Metropolitan line at particular times reflects passenger demand. Trains run less frequently over sections where there is less demand, and in turn run more frequently over those sections where demand is higher. This has no reflection on the location of a station in relation to the GLA boundary."

So clearly the public excuse from LU for the removal of fast services is not due to the upgrade, it is due to demand at intermediate stations.

Surely the way to see whether this comment is true is to see whether this new signalling system is implemented on the Met beyond Rickmansworth to Amersham and Chesham. If LU are looking at withdrawing Met line services from beyond Rickmansworth in the future, then I am sure they will not spend money on implementing a new signalling system over this part of the line. In addition to this a lot of work has been and continues to be carried out over the Chesham branch and beyond Chorleywood to Amersham on maintaining and cutting down a lot of the foliage at side of the track. Surely LU would not spend this money on such tasks if they were planning to withdraw there services, especially over the Chesham branch where overall services would cease if LU stopped going there. Also if you look at the S8s, the seating arrangement took the Amersham and Chesham passengers into account with the long journey distances. If LU were planning on stopping services, then the seating arrangements would not be provided or needed at the furthest the Met would run would be to Watford, and that is less than the distance to Epping on the Central line. I believe that if LU were trying to withdraw the Met from Amersham and Chesham, this new timetable currently in operation would have been implemented long before the withdrawal on the A Stock as the number of needed S8s would not have been as high if the Met terminated only at Watford/Watford Junction. I see the Met running to Amersham and Chesham long into the future, especially as London is only going to get bigger

It's happened before, for example on Tyneside in the 1960s.

And has happened on long distance routes where Voyagers have replaced AC electric hauled on routes that are electrified!

If Chiltern were to 'take over' this route, then surely it would have to be with 8 car electric trains running every 15 minutes. The business case to electrify would be much bigger then.

Some people here suggest that the delay for some users would be greater than the marginal benefits of faster trains for others. I've done some very crude calculations, and have some interesting results.

Looking at Semi-Fast trains, let's assume (for simplicity) that all Amersham/Chesham/Watford trains are semi-fast off-peak (again, for simplicity, I'm not considering the peak here). Second, let's assume Semi-fast means omitting Preston Road and Northwick Park, I'm going to discuss Wembley Park later on.

So, the losers in the new timetable are Preston Road and Northwick Park. Based on 2011 figures, this equates to a total of approximately 6.54 million users. They are delayed by ~4 minutes, still having 8 tph Uxbridge all-stations services, but missing out on all the semi-fast trains. So the total delay as a result of the new timetable is 6.54 * 4 = 26.15 million person-delay minutes.

The winners, are all users north of Harrow-on-the-Hill, and for simplicity, let's assume 1/2 of the users from Harrow also win, since half may arrive on the met line when an all-stations service is operating, and waiting for a semi-fast service wouldn't save them any time overall. This is a total of 21.42 million users. Their saving due to the semi-fast services is ~2 minutes. This gives a total saving of 42.84 million person minutes.

So, ignoring journey from Northwick Park/Preston Road to the North of the met line, a semi-fast service off-peak would bring more benefits than costs, broadly speaking, assuming all journeys are to/from central London.

Moving on to Fast trains (and here I'm going to only consider users north of harrow for simplicity), let's assume all Amersham/Chesham trains are Fasts and all Watford trains call at all stations from Harrow onwards. The losers being those from Northwood, Northwood Hills, Pinner and North Harrow. This is a total of 6.99 million users annually. The delay for these users would be ~7.5 minutes, since their service would be reduced from 8tph to 4tph. This gives a total delay of 52.44 million person-delay minutes.

The winners would be all Chesham/Amersham branch users north of Moor Park, and 1/2 of the users from Moor Park, assuming 1/2 the users arrive at the wrong time for a fast service. This is approximately 7.25 million users. Based on the current timetable, the time saved for these users having a fast service would be 4.5 minutes. This means that the total saved minutes is 32.64 million person-saved minutes.

This is very crude, and does not prove conclusively whether fasts or semi-fasts are justified, however I hope it is food for thought.

I personally believe that TfL are not specifically targeting any users, they are simply trying to best serve all users for the lowest possible cost. In the peaks there is sufficient demand for additional services which may happen to use the fast lines so more trains can be provided within the current infrastructure, but I don't see that the demand is there for the off-peak (although the crude analysis suggests semi-fasts may be a viable option). With regard to Wembley Park, the current arrangements make a lot of sense - in the morning there is no point fast/semi-fast trains calling at Wembley because the trains are already overcrowded enough as it is. In the evening, by calling at Wembley Park the fast/semi-fast trains relieve pressure on all-stations services and allow fast/semi-fast trains to empty out more quickly. In terms of off-peak though, due to the huge number of annual entries/exits (9.66 million) I don't think the numbers would stack up in favour of semi-fasts if Wembley Park was missed out too.

Cheers,

TSM

If the original signalling contract for the upgrade had worked out additional trains could have been running now.

Less time waiting for a train will give a faster journey for many,

Worse for the minority, better for the majority of passengers, I.e. those south of Moor Park and south of Harrow especially.

I'm sure that's how LUL view it. Amersham/Chesham/Ricky enjoy a good service compared with other outer London towns. When the 2002 timetable came out - only 2tp between Amersham-Baker St (fast) a 15 min service was claimed by using the Chiltern service to/front Aylesbury!

However, the spare capacity is poorly used in my view. I don't think ATO will produce massive time savings on the outer stretches anyway although it will be handing in the City.

On the contrary, that's exactly what happened - the Pendelinos are not allowed to travel at their design speed thanks to NR's infrastructure...

GH

Indeed, but his business plan assumed 140 mph running (and having done MK-Euston in the last Pendelino of the day in a tad over 20 mins, they could certainly do that if the signallers turned a blind eye...).

Graham H

The journey may have increased, but the service frequency has not been changed with the exception of Amersham. The extra demand for Chiltern is a good thing, people are proving that there is a demand for fast trains. If necessary Chiltern will increase the frequency/length of their services to meet this demand. TfL have not seen a large demand for these services, because it simply does not exist. Chiltern's service is generally a much shorter train and less frequent, of course this will be busier than a frequent and much longer service. In addition, a lot of this demand from the outer-London stations is peak-only, whereas stations further in have a greater number of journeys being made off-peak. This makes sense, someone in Preston Road might travel on the met to go to the shops, there's a large ASDA near Wembley for example. Someone who lives in Rickmansworth probably wouldn't need to, it would be better making a journey to a local store. Also, a much larger number of people travel for leisure or other purposes from inner stations since they're simply closer and the trip is relatively cheap. Higher fares on the outer London stations arguably reduce demand for such trips and restrict demand from those stations. Perhaps fares should be changed to encourage more off-peak trips.

All of this is rather pointless though. The numbers simply do not add up. Yes, we could go back to the old way, because it's "cool" and "more efficient use of infrastructure" "I'd like it cos it saves me 10 minutes". I'm sure Metman's plan would be fair on all users, but it would also cost more. More trains per hour = more s-stock required = more drivers required = more cost to everyone. Let's be realistic. TfL are not trying to screw anyone here. They are simply trying to be balanced, based on demand. If you also consider that Amersham and stations north of Chesham also have Moor Park also have Chiltern services, the provision is relatively generous. Times have changed I'm afraid, as others have said, and an all-stations service is simply the most efficient way of servicing all of the demand.

I'm not going to reply to this topic again because I don't have anything to add. I'm sorry some of you feel "screwed over", but I'm sure that is not the case. If I was in charge of the Met, I'd loved to bring fast trains back, but we've got to be realistic.

Regards,

TSM