Great Western Coffee Shop

Tjats what was being displayed at WOS this morning - as of 1st October LM are operating a Fallen Leaves timetable?

que? 

Did not know we could schedule when leaves fell!

Those clever boffins have worked it out and called it 'Autumn'. Just a excuse for certain TOC's to add a couple of minutes to the arrival time at the destination station of each train so that a higher percentage make the performance target.

Not sure that LM need it. Most TOCs just add on extra minutes at the end.

Chiltern on the other hand:

(a) Need a proper leaf fall timetable - due to a wood near Amersham.

(b) Have a "proper" leaf fall ttable. What do I mean by proper? I mean one where the train is retimed properly throughout, giving accurate departure and arrival times for ALL stations, not just an excuse for adding slack at the end to prevent delay money.

LM's Leaf Fall ttable on the Cross City line (Redditch to Lichfield) includes axing the basic service from 6 tph to 4 tph! (perhaps not durign the peaks) >:( Luckily they are reinstating the lost services from December...

How customer friendly. Re-timing all their services throughout for a few weeks, forcing everyone to adjust their arrangements and remember a new timetable. And I don't buy the garbage about it being due to a wood near Amersham ("we apologize for the delay to this service, this was caused by the presence of trees in the Amersham area").

I don't think you can try claiming that Chiltern is the only UK rail operator that runs near trees.

No, I'm not. Put I know that NR spend A LOT of money and time, as the CHiltern route (Aylesbury branch) has a lot of leaf fall problems.


I'm not talking about a major re-write! All it means is that trains are scheduled to arrive and depart London at the normal times, with more accurate arrival/departure times throughout - changes to the working timetable as well. This is opposed to most TOCs who just slap an extra 5 mins at the end of every journey willy nilly without due consideration (i.e. the working timetable does not change, only the passenger one - meaning less payments).

Have you got shares in Chiltern or somethin?

I used to travel to and from Alvechurch (population between 5000 and 6000) quite frequently.   It's on the Redditch line, single track, and in those days had 4 trains an hour (two each way), healthily used ones too.   Bearing in mind issues that question shave been raised on the TransWilts (where we currently have 4 trains a day calling, not 4 an hour) concerning robustness and single track occupancy, perhaps the LM timetables are so tight that the service does need to be pruned in the autumn to keep it robust.

Of course, I would love six trains an hour on the TransWilts, reduced to 4 per hour in the autumn.  Come to think of it, I would settle for 1 per hour

Whilst it may be sly for the big bad TOCs to only add time to the final destination for the leaf-fall season, there is some pratical sense in not re-casting the entire timetable. People get used to their departure times and plan their journeys accordingly. A full timetable recast for affected routes in Sept/Oct and it's associated costs is not practical or very customer friendly.

In LM's case, I can only assume that the extra time needed on the cross-city route (and regardless of how timetables are changed - extra time is needed during leaf-fall for safe operation) means they encounter pathing issues and have to reduce the 6tph on the central part of the route to 4tph. My reading of the timetable is that it is only Blake Street and Butlers Lane who lose out significantly, everywhere else sees a 10 minute frequency reduced to 15 minutes; not really a big upheaval. The extremities of the route; Lichfield and Redditch keep their 2tph.

Hmmm, Btline - I'm a little confused. Chiltern do add extra minutes willy nilly on the end of terminating trains, just like the other TOC's that have been mentioned. That applies on their principal route from Marylebone via High Wycombe to Aylesbury and Birmingham/Kidderminster. It's true that the Marylebone to Aylesbury (via Amersham) route - which accounts for about 20% of their trains - has an altered timetable whereby trains are given an extra 3 minutes, but I think you'll find that has more to do with sharing the line with LUL and the fact that they also have an altered timetable. If there was no LUL sharing then they would probably just add the minutes on the end like they do on their other route.

This revised timetable also has the effect of making up services leave up to 3 minutes earlier than the normal timetable which must cause some people to miss their train if they aren't regular travellers. It'll also mean trains sitting around in stations waiting time on those days during the leaf fall season where conditions are not too bad; i.e. dry, calm days.

Surely not... my illusion has been shattered  :o ;D

Yes Chiltern do on other routes.

Right. So did you know that when you wrote your other two posts in this thread? If so, then you're peddling the same sort of spin that you're likely to get in a FGW fares email...  ::)

Yes I did, but I was talking about the Aylesbury route. I agree I did not make it clear.

Northern add extra time on to their journeys for leaf fall.  Although for trains on Chester-Altrincham-Manchester line which goes through Delamere Forest, the trains won't take any extra time in the Delamere area, but will need extra time just before Manchester.  Punctuality targets coming before passenger convenience?