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Post by aldenham on Feb 24, 2023 19:20:58 GMT
This is purely a guess, but didn't the BR services only shuttle between Aylesbury and Amersham on Sundays, so the only way to get to Aylesbury would be to take the Met and chenge at Amersham.
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Post by aldenham on Jan 6, 2023 19:57:58 GMT
What a pity it didn't form 8-car trains on the Met, but these were last minute arrangements. 6-car C stock football specials did operate occasionally between New Cross Gate and Wembley Park, non-stopping the short stations on the East London Line, and I believe also from Barking. Not sure it's maximum speed would have been appreciated on an Amersham fast service!
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Post by aldenham on Jan 4, 2023 13:45:38 GMT
Colin would you be happy for me to share this to the Facebook group? I fully understand if not.
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Post by aldenham on Jan 3, 2023 20:15:25 GMT
Very strange decision indeed. How much disruption would it have caused stabling at Amersham? Are both sidings routinely used at the same time? I would have thought not, as with normally only two trains an hour now, there wouldn't be much need. There is a precedent, as a train of withdrawn D stock was stored there for a while before going off the network.
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Post by aldenham on Jan 3, 2023 9:57:55 GMT
Fortunately this hasn't affected me personally as I'm not back at work until Thursday, but over on the Chesham Commuters facebook page there is a bit of a furore over this, which is apparently being caused by a train "that went defective" at Chalfont & Latimer late last night. Apparently the decision was made to stable it at Chesham. It still being defective means there is no service until further notice. The question being asked by many, is why was the train not sent to Amersham where it could have been put in one of the reversing sidings without causing too much impact to the service. Normally I am one of the staunchest defenders of LU but the service we have had to endure to Chesham over the last few months has been consistently unreliable, and whilst I try and spread a bit of perspective amongst all the gnashing of teeth, it's becoming increasingly difficult. I'm sure there is a rational operating reason that the decision was made, but from what I hear the communication to passengers hasn't been great.
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Post by aldenham on Apr 11, 2022 18:39:33 GMT
As a long time LU enthusiast who is by and large fairly understanding of the problems of running such a monolith, it has become increasingly difficult to remain sympathetic as a regular commuter from Chesham, so much so that I have largely in the last few months given up going in by train and have returned to using my motorbike. Simply because the service had become so unreliable, with hour and not that uncommon 90 minute gaps ocurring, or advertised. However, I don't get quite so excited as some other members of the Chesham Commuters Facebook group!
But credit where it is due, not that I used it today, but from what I have seen we have had the best and most reliable service to and from Amersham and Chesham today that we have had for months, and with a clockface service and off-peak fast trains to boot.So much so that some are asking for it to become permanent!
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D Off
Nov 19, 2015 20:17:10 GMT
Post by aldenham on Nov 19, 2015 20:17:10 GMT
I believe it's where to turn the de-icing equipment, where fitted, OFF.
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Post by aldenham on Aug 16, 2015 12:31:40 GMT
I am no great fan of S stock, and even less of the off peak all stations service, but I am surprised no-one has mentioned the ride quality, when they were running side by side with A stock, I couldn't believe how much better it was, it was hard to believe they were running on the same track. If there was a little bit more padding in the seats, it could almost be described as comfortable! ;-)
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Post by aldenham on Jul 31, 2014 16:00:28 GMT
Bet the seats are more comfortable than an S stock though!
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Post by aldenham on Jul 30, 2014 7:52:49 GMT
Improving earthworks on the line, increasing rail cant, and allowing faster running would shave off a minute or so. Combine that with moving the junction roughly half a mile north to the actual point of divergance and *maybe* 3/4tph could be achieved. Some earthworks have happened recently? No doubt the rail will need relaying at some point soon, and moving the junction could be specified as part of the upgrade plan. Might be easier upon resignalling to bring Chesham bay back into use and hire a turbostar for peak demand! However first LUL would have to be made to accept seats/hour as its capacity metric. I think I'm right in saying that the track has only been replaced in the last 5-6 years, as until recently it was still short sections of jointed track, and very bumpy! I think the earth works are to maintain the stability of the cuttings/embankments. Using Turbostars with the bay at Chalfont re-instated has often been suggested, one additional consideration is with some of the tight curvature on the branch might the individual coaches be too long, both for the loading gauge, and the curvature of the platform at Chesham. Much as I would love to see 3-4tph, especially as I often miss a Chesham train by seconds, and have to wait half an hour, even I would agree a massive amount of capital expenditure on the branch and it's one station would be hard to justify.
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Post by aldenham on Jul 28, 2014 16:38:29 GMT
It sometimes used to house short engineering trains like a rail grinder. Indeed, I have a picture of a SCHWEERbau in that platform. In terms of there not being enough space I was looking at this the other day. Given the tracks all run parallel for about 1/2 a mile, with some work I'm sure you could extent the bay platform with a shield similar to Baker Street bays. Why would there be any real desire to do so, by and large the service works ok as it is now. Going back to a shuttle, coupled with the current off peak off peak slow trains would make the service worse than it has ever been. What I've always wondered is, could a crossover closer to where the branch diverges from the main to the s/b line, allowing a Chesham bound train to clear the main line and wait on the branch until the train coming off the branch crossed over in front of it be built, or is there not enough room. This would give increased flexibility, with a late running ex Chesham train not delaying the next Chesham ( and subsequent n/b Amersham)train by stopping it getting onto the branch.
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Post by aldenham on Jun 16, 2014 17:55:45 GMT
Would have thought the carriage length would be more of a problem, the coaches being 22m long on the class 165 dmu, as opposed to 17m, give or take, on the S stock,rather than width.
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Post by aldenham on May 16, 2014 19:09:44 GMT
What is an 'n/b' Chesham? It wasn't AN N/B Chesham, it was A N/B Chesham. As the next word started with a consonant and not a vowel. Fallibility is a human characteristic! Harsig, thankyou for the information.
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Post by aldenham on May 15, 2014 18:16:35 GMT
Last night I caught a n/b Chesham train from Wembley Pk at just before 11pm. To cut a long story short, we got to just north of Moor Park, where after the usual PAs about waiting for the signal to clear etc and a wait of about 20 minutes, we were told we couldn't get the Rickmansworth route. As I expected we took the Watford line, where we were to reverse and go to Ricky. Oh good I thought, I've never been around the north curve before, "you saddo" is what my wife thought! After ages waiting for the signal for the North Curve to clear, we were then told that, that signal had failed as well and we were going back to Moor Park, but that control were trying to get the next n/b Chiltern to stop, and that there was a n/b Chesham at Northwood. As we approached Moor Park, the Chiltern was heading off towards Ricky, and just as the doors opened at Moor Park, the Chesham shut up and left. My main question was why not route the remaining Chesham and Amersham trains up the fast lines, unless Harrow North junction was knackered as well. Some limited stop trains would be better than no trains at all. As it happened, I got back to Chesham in a taxi laid on by LUL at about 0135. I would like to praise both the T/Op of train 427 and the station supervisor at Moor Park, for doing what the could in the circumstances, and keeping us abreast of what was going on.
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Post by aldenham on Jan 7, 2013 20:47:19 GMT
That's almost a blind alley!
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Post by aldenham on Jan 7, 2013 17:45:02 GMT
It might be a figment of my imagination, but I vaguely recall the 59s showed Finchley Cen. as a destination.
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Post by aldenham on Sept 26, 2012 18:51:30 GMT
Unfortunately due to a poorly son, and a not very understanding wife ("you're going where? It's a just a train!") I could only do a quick HOTH to Amersham and back to Chorleywood trip this afternoon, but later in the same journey the events were captured for the last package on London Tonight at 6. A reasonable piece, though not for those of a nervous disposition as they showed As and 67s being scrapped at Booths!
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Post by aldenham on Dec 26, 2011 10:15:45 GMT
This still doesn't alter the fact that both branches exist to get people into and out of London. I wonder how keen TfL would be at providing a service that doesn't serve any stations in Greater London!
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Post by aldenham on Dec 17, 2011 22:52:31 GMT
Oh. It's all stained and grey. Looks like a typical 1960s concrete carbuncle. Still, each to his own. +1, the train is hardly a thing of beauty either!
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Post by aldenham on Dec 15, 2011 20:27:58 GMT
I for one as usually an off peak commuter are beginning to find services from Berko that take 32 minutes to Euston all the more enticing, especially as getting to Bermondsey by 0700 this week has already proved impossible twice! Though I am travelling with the masses tomorrow on one of those old fashioned Met Express services!!! (if the snow doesn't scupper the plans for the 0802 ex chm)
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Post by aldenham on Dec 15, 2011 20:07:38 GMT
I wonder how attractive a Chesham-Watford shuttle would be to more than a handful of people, mainly as it takes about 20mins to drive from the centre of one to the other, whereas the train would take getting on for double that, then another 15mins walk from the Met station to the centre of Watford. So whilst I don't think many of us in zone 9 are great fans of the new WTT, I think we would rather have it than having to go back to changing for trains to/from London.
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Post by aldenham on Nov 3, 2011 22:23:55 GMT
Wishing to remain fairly dispassionate about this and feeling there is a degree of NIMBYism going on I then remembered that I went past Amersham Audi a couple of weeks ago where the embankment works have already been done, and I thought to myself at the time "My God that looks ugly!". So on balance if I was backing on to it, I don't know how happy I would be.
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Post by aldenham on May 23, 2011 21:24:29 GMT
Maybe I'm being unusually cynical, but I find the changes in the sevice are being done to meet the demands of one user group or another a bit hard to believe. That Chesham got through trains all day instead of the shuttle was purely a happy coincidence with being what the Chesham users group wanted. Had it not been for there having been no provision with the replacement of A stock for short trains, I'm sure the shuttle would have continued. Likewise the December timetable running off peak Amersham/Chesham trains via the slow and reducing the frequency to Watford reduces the requirement by two trains per hour, which obviously benefits the operator, but to say all these changes are being precipitated by the demands of the Pinner Users group is at best, not particularly transparent. I also doubt anyone in the Pinner user group actually needs/wants more than 6tph! Have LU considered us Chesham travellers in this decision? I doubt it. I can think of a lot of things I can do in 7 minutes which I will no longer have the time to do because of this timetable. For once it's actually the Amersham commuters who have lost the most though, first they have lost 2 tph, and those two they still have will now be over 10% slower to Baker St. I can see the Chilterns being ever more popular.
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Post by aldenham on May 22, 2011 21:43:57 GMT
Maybe I'm being unusually cynical, but I find the changes in the sevice are being done to meet the demands of one user group or another a bit hard to believe. That Chesham got through trains all day instead of the shuttle was purely a happy coincidence with being what the Chesham users group wanted. Had it not been for there having been no provision with the replacement of A stock for short trains, I'm sure the shuttle would have continued. Likewise the December timetable running off peak Amersham/Chesham trains via the slow and reducing the frequency to Watford reduces the requirement by two trains per hour, which obviously benefits the operator, but to say all these changes are being precipitated by the demands of the Pinner Users group is at best, not particularly transparent.
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Post by aldenham on Mar 6, 2011 22:05:50 GMT
Proof the the evening through Cheshams used to run fast through HOTH.
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Post by aldenham on Oct 7, 2010 11:19:08 GMT
It does strike me as odd, that only a couple of years after the only other single track branch on LUL, that to Mill Hill East, changed to mainly a shuttle working to improve reliability of the service, the exact reverse seems to be being done on the Met. Or are the differences beween one line and another so great, that the Northern's experience can't be learned from. Also I can't wait to hear the whoops of joy from fellow late evening commuters at now having a direct service from such exotic places as Preston Rd! ;D
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Post by aldenham on Oct 6, 2010 10:16:30 GMT
How early is early, and how late is late? Is it just what is before the am peak and after the pm or really early and late.
I can still see many Chesham passengers getting the first Amersham train and changing at Chalfont, in the hope of overtaking a slow Chesham somewhere.
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Post by aldenham on Aug 18, 2010 21:39:32 GMT
I don't know how much demand there would be for the Met services to extend to St Albans. I can't believe that there would be many people who would want to swap a 22 minute FCC service to St Pancras from St Albans City for an hour or more to Baker St from St Albans Abbey. Whilst I appreciate there are intermediate stations, most of them only serve fairly small communities, which are not out of reach from other NR stations. So I can see the point of the Croxley Link, I can't see the line going beyond Watford Jn.
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Post by aldenham on Aug 11, 2010 22:02:26 GMT
I like most have a soft spot for A60/62s, as someone who grew up using the Northern Line I remember those stolen Saturday afternoons as a 12 year old, going to Baker St and catching a fast Amersham. Oh how exotic the high speed (sic) felt, though it was 1982 and I think they went a bit faster then, and how huge those big bouncy seats felt! Roll on 23 years or so and I was re-acquainted with them, after moving to Metroland, post refurbishment, I thought they looked quite smart still, certainly compared with Thameslink's 319s which I had previously used, and they seem to be the last link to the stock I loved as a kid, 38TS, 56/59TS, CO/CP etc. But we can't live in the past, they now feel tired and the difference in the ride on the same track with a Chiltern DMU is huge. So though A stock I will be sorry to see you go, it's time to move to a younger model!
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Post by aldenham on Jul 10, 2010 20:50:14 GMT
The line opened to Chesham before Amersham, and was originally planned to join the LNWR mainline near Berkhampstead. The planned route was still visible until it was built on in the post war period. Rather than go from Chalfont to Chesham then Amersham, if it were one line, it would have made more sense to go to Amersham first, as it is, the branch doesn't actually leave the main until the outskirts of Amersham anyway.
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