Does the met make sense?

Which map are you looking at-a 1980s one?

The Met terminates in the City and at Baker Street. The Uxbridge serivce runs into the City to provide extra capacity to the Northern part of the Circle. The Amersham and Watford services terminate at Baker Street becuase there is not enough capacity for them to run to Aldgate. Previously all 3 destinations ran to Aldgate but in a mish mash of times which did nothing for reliability. The current off peak service pattern works very well.

In the peak period however things are different. Most Met main passengers travel through to the City/Kings Cross so many of the trains are projected to Aldgate. As many trains as possible are pumped into Aldgate in fact. I don't think Baker Street could cope if all Met trains terminated at Baker Street and I'm glad they don't!

The Chiltern line runs a very different service to the Met and uses a different terminus of course.

I do love the Met I was on the Amersham 'express' the other day and was in awe of the lavish track layouts between Wembley Park and Harrow. It really is impressive in comparison to other railways in London.

Of course I do think Chiltern's Aylesbury service and the fast Amershams could be just as effectively done by one service. One big thing I'll never fully understand is WHY the Crossrail proposal was rejected. This would have provided a solid service for Aylesbury - Moor Park not just to the west end and the city but also to the Docklands. Isn't this is better than what is currently offered by both the Met and Chiltern?

This might then also have allowed improvements such as serving Uxbridge and Watford from Aldgate off-peak, giving everyone on the Met more destinations with one train.

At the outer end, there are historical reasons.

From 1891, the Met ran steam trains from Baker Street as far as Verney Junction, some distance beyond Aylesbury. In 1906, the tracks from Harrow outwards were leased by the Met to a Met/Great Central Joint Committee, and the GC ran trains from Marylebone.

By 1930, the Met had extended electrification as far as Rickmansworth, where traction changed from Met electric locos to Met steam locos.

When LT was formed, it rapidly decided it did not want to serve distant parts of Bucks or to have steam engines (except for works trains). It sold the steam engines and contracted the LNER to provide engines between Rickmansworth and Aylesbury/Chesham. The LNER continued to run trains from Marylebone to Aylesbury and beyond.

When the electrification was extended to Chesham and Amersham in 1961, LT decided not to run trains beyond Amersham. Service beyond there was then provided entirely by BR from Marylebone.

I understand that in the "good ole days" of British Rail[ways], the Eastern Region controlled this line upon nationalisation in 1948. Then it was transferred to the London Midland Region in 1958. When was the date, if any, that the line passed to Western Region control. IIRC, the Marylebone line through Ruislip to High Wycombe and beyond was always in Western Region territory.

Also recall that all-day running to Aldgate was introduced in 1990s(Uxbridge and Amersham services). I remember reading about the "mish mash". There were 4tph Uxbridge-Aldgate and 2tph Uxbridge-Baker St; all Uxbridge services were-and still are-slow. The Watford line had 2tph to Aldgate(semifast) and 2tph to Baker Street(slow). Amersham had 2tph to Aldgate (fast) and 2tph to Baker St(semi). I guess that if you isolated the 2 Uxbridge-Baker St and 2 Watford-Baker St trains, they ran at 15 min intervals. Another group that probably ran at 15 min intervals was the semis on Watford-Aldgate and Amersham-Baker St if you isolated those.

Wishful thinking would be for the London Mayor to have the Chiltern contract in his sights. ;-)

Now thats a thought,

At the LT Museum open weekend the notice placed on No12: Sarah Siddons, told us not to ask if it was a diesel

Didn't LT also try an AEC railcar (almost like a Pacer ) on the Chesham branch? or was it Ongar.

I think LT.

Quick question, how an earth do you upload photos? I've got a couple to put up and can't!

I've got flickr thats the problem!!

Yeah, I think the tender idea was laughed off-along with buffet car!

The LNER didn't like the Met's steam locos! The G/H/K locos were shipped off to other parts of the LNER and all scrapped by 1948, leaving the Dreadnoughts to be pulled by a mixture of A5s, L1s and 2MTs-and the occasional E class!

you're quite right Oracle, it was ACV:

[from the LTM]



Platform view of Epping Underground station, showing an ACV diesel railcar operating the shuttle service to Ongar. It was on loan from British Railways (Eastern Region) to LT.

I once drove (1977) a Wagonen und Maschinenbau or whatever it was called railcar on the North Norfolk Railway, and it was with the Wickham cars effectively one of those ACV cars with double-ends. Great fun!

If you've got flickr, the easiest way is to 'copy' the link (url) for the image then to 'paste' that url into your post. Should work. If not ask one of us.

err, no - every Crossrail to Aylesbury/Amersham plan I've seen has Crossrail subsuming all the fast tracks. You'd be able to get Watford semi-fasts but that's it - maybe a few more trains due to released capacity between Wembley Park and Baker Street. It would have added journey time from the stations on it to the south of the West End, and probably Bond Street as well (though would have made it direct, rather than the nice easy change at Finchley Road). Journey Times to the City wouldn't be that reduced.

And given the £5 billion or so price tag it would have got, it would be extremely poor value for money.

The current situation is probably actually the best we'll get (other than the massively reduced peak service to Amersham - bring on an Amersham peak shuttle to Chalfont). It will get more difficult to extend the Met out to Aylesbury, as the line gets longer and longer (phase 1 is to a Parkway station to the North of Aylesbury, phase 2 would be to the Oxford-Bedford railway and then along that)

I guess you could make the Amersham/Chesham trains peak only, electrify into Marylebone and out to Aylesbury Parkway and then run 4tph Marylebone - Aylesbury Parkway all day (during peaks, 2tph would be fast from Great Missenden, so as not to flood the Chilterns with Met pax, as is the case now), while running peak trains from Amersham/Chesham (2tph each?, ie current service levels) to Aldgate or Barbican (use the old Thameslink tracks to create a 4 platform station, where trains could reverse without conflicting) in order to supplement the service. This, however, reduces the frequency off-peak (not really needed) for the 'met' stations. It does give increased frequency to those north of Amersham off peak.