Great Western Coffee Shop

Finally heads have been banged together and electrification of this route has been announced today in the spending review statement.  A vital part of getting electric hauled freight trains on the network in the longer term as well as making sense on an increasingly busy commuter route that is using Class 172 diesels that are full to bursting. 

TfL to get some decent length EMUs in and ship the eight 2-car 172s off to Chiltern to help with their inner suburban growth maybe?

The class 172s were a LOROL initative, as opposed to a TfL one. As Arriva are a shareholder in both LOROL and Chiltern, and both operators fleet of 172s are owned by Angel Trains, I do wonder if the 8 class 172s will be redeployed to Chiltern.

The LOROL class 172s are compatible with class 165 and class 168s, and whilst they are not fitted with toilets or ATP, they have provision for both to be installed.

Yes indeed.  Too many of Chiltern's longer distance services up to Banbury and sometimes beyond are still in the hands of 75mph Class 165s which doesn't make good use of the upgraded infrastructure.  If the 172s operated the Stratford's and Banbury/Bicester semi-fasts (and perhaps the odd Oxford post-2016) in collaboration with the Class 168s and (more) loco hauled rakes, the displaced Class 165s could (in theory) be deployed on more of the 75mph Aylesbury route trains that struggle with capacity as well as soaking up growth on the intensive stopping services out as far as High Wycombe that rarely get to stretch their legs up to linespeed.

The only problem with the 172s for Chiltern is that they can't be fitted with Tripcocks so can't run on the Aylesbury via Amersham route. That's the reason that has been given for the current 4 being fairly sparsely used, at least until recently.

Yes, hence concentrating them on the 'mainline' route.  I don't think they've been that sparsely used though have they?  I think one covers a Stratford diagram and on a few occasions I've seen three of them coupled together forming a peak departure from Marylebone to Bicester (I think).

Let's not fall in to the trap of dismissing 172s just because of the lack of tripcocks. Class 67s don't have trip cocks either, but that isn't an issue for Chiltern because they aren't diagrammed on the Amersham line.

I agree with IndustryInsider that extra 172s on Chiltern would be deployed where their 100mph top speed can be put to use, with the 165s concentrated on Amersham/local Marylebone services.

They're used more now. Originally they were only used in the peaks and not at all at weekends. The reason given was that many of the 165 diagrams interwork Aylesbury via Amersham and Mainline work. That and the services they were originally intended for, the Gerrards Cross terminators were never included in the timetable in the end.

Good news about GOB electrification. Hope they will do Carlton Road Junction to Junction Road Junction to connect MML at same time.

It should also help the case for Acton Wells to Cricklewood. then there is the Kew Triangle to Acton South presumably that would be third rail.

That would basically just leave the lines out of Marylebone without juice.