Passengers soar on Chiltern - what can we in FGW land expect from Oxford?

[whole diary]

[Btline]

Passengers have deserted Virgin in their droves to travel from Warwick Parkway, Solihil and Birmingham Moor Street on Chiltern's new "Mainline" service which is nice and fast. Passenger numbers are up 200,000 - which is a jaw dropping increase. Revenue is up 65% despite Chiltern slashing peak fares.

One can easily see why:
*The delightful Moor Street station vs the congested New Street (which will remain congested after the upgrade)
*Spacious Mark 3 carriages vs Pendolinos with small windows.
*Trains no longer have to stop at smaller stations, as Chiltern have introduced extra shuttles.
*Fares are reasonable and an upgrade to the business zone is free/^10/^20.

I've posted this because of the imminent Oxford service. How will Chiltern transform this route?
*Journey times will probably be shorter, as driving to Water Eaton will be quicker than driving to OXF^» (Oxford - next trains) for most commuters.
*Clubmans vs non guaranteed Turbos/180s/HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train)
*Lower fares, less restrictions
*Better reliability and punctuality
*Same frequency (not counting slow services)
*New/improved links to Bicester, HW Wembley Stadium.
*East West rail coming soon

I think exciting times lie ahead for Oxford commuters. I wonder how OXF will deal with several rail and coach companies competing for commuters - it can only be good.

[inspector_blakey]

Passenger numbers are up 200,000 - which is a jaw dropping increase.

That may be true, but without an indication of over what time period the 200,000 increase was observed, and what the number was beforehand (in effect allowing us to work that out as a percentage increase) the absolute number alone is entirely meaningless.

BTW^▸ (by the way), what's your source? Sounds like a Chiltern press release but I suspect there may be a reason for that...

[Btline]

http://www.birminghammail.net/news/birmingham-news/2012/01/09/railway-revamp-leads-to-business-boom-for-moor-street-station-and-chiltern-railways-97319-30082907/?

[IndustryInsider]

Passenger numbers are up 200,000 - which is a jaw dropping increase.

That may be true, but without an indication of over what time period the 200,000 increase was observed, and what the number was beforehand (in effect allowing us to work that out as a percentage increase) the absolute number alone is entirely meaningless.

They're not up 200,000, they're up 50,000 or 25%.  Btline needs to read the articles he quotes from in a little more detail.  Still good figures, mind.

"Chiltern Railways has revealed journey totals on its Birmingham to London link, including passengers using stations at Moor Street, Dorridge, Solihull and Warwick Parkway, had soared to 200,000 for the September to December period, up by a quarter."

My emphasis in bold.

[John R]

If they are up by a quarter, then they will have increased from 160,000 to 200,000, ie a 40,000 increase.  If the increase was 50,000 to 200,000 then it would have been "up by a third".

But still not up 200,000 either way!

[Chris from Nailsea]

Btline, you have a maths detention. 

[Btline]

I originally said 50,000 but changed it when i re-read the article. (honest) I think I got too excited by the higher figure!

Detention accepted but can we discuss the Oxford services? (i.e. FGW^▸ (First Great Western))

[ChrisB]

Hmmm - 40,000 in 4 months.

That's 17 weeks. They also ran a ^10 go-anywhere offer on a lot of weekends in that period. THe B/zone is an abject failure, and the peak silver trains are still around half-full. I suspect that's TA being economical with his words. Most of those are off-peak and more than likely weekend travellers. Let's see what he says in May, for the January - April period.

[devon_metro]

Btline, where is your evidence that passengers have deserted Virgin?

Or are you simply in Daily Mail mode again...

[ChrisB]

The article does mention it....but doesn't use the 'deserted' word.

[Btline]

They are planning to extend the bursting at the seams Warwick Pway car park for the upteenth time. Passenger as far as way as Shropshire now use this station!

Car parks at Solihul are also rammed, and will be extended.

**Cough** Oxford.

[paul7575]

Perhaps we already had a discussion about EG3 and Oxford, while you were away, and can't be bothered to repeat it?

Paul

[Btline]

It's a shame that this post has (predictably) been shunted towards negativity. Chiltern opening up to Oxford has huge potential benefits for a FGW^▸ (First Great Western) region, so why the Chiltern bashing?

It's as if some people want Evergreen 3 to fail because they either live far away from Chiltern, or just so they can say "told you so". Even the teething troubles for the new timetable have been sorted, and hundreds of extra seats have been put onto peak time trains for Bucks commuters.

Chiltern have transformed a route, ignored by BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) to brink of closure. Saved by NSE^▸ (Network South East), it was axed down to a branch line. It is now a major service. Commuters services have seen trains refurbished twice, new trains and excellent punctuality despite a 2 track entrance to London and sharing with intense LU, XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) and Centro services. Frankly, when you consider that some FGW stations are only just getting decent PISs^▸ (Passenger Information System) and still have unsuitable rolling stock, you can see what can be done with drive!

I cannot wait for the developments to Oxfordshire that will be brought...

[inspector_blakey]

It's a shame that this post has (predictably) been shunted towards negativity.

I'm not sure it has, just that factual inaccuracies and hype in the initial post have been somewhat tempered with a bit of context and realism.

[ChrisB]

If you were to get away from being the 'Daily Mail' hype of the Coffeeshop, you might get some support.

 If you were to use Chiltern regularly you would realise that it's not as good in the heartlands where the majority of their customers live as you make it out to be.

Chiltern still have services in the high- & shoulder-peak that are regularly SRO^▸ (Standing Room Only). Commuters in the heartlands have lost their metro services to allow the Mainline trains more pathing space. The remaining services are regularly delayed to allow Mainline trains (running slightly late) to proceed unhindered.

You need to remember that prior to EG3, everyone had a service that Chiltern were rightly proud of & that their customer base were more than happy with. To allow Chiltern to tap the West Midlands market, commuters put up with months of disruption, late running engineering works sufficient to put the completion date back by a few months! And then got another 6-8 weeks of absolutely shocking disruption because the shoddy work was errr, shoddy.

It's only recently returned timings wise to acceptable. Note I said acceptable - they're still nowhere near the punctuality figure before they started - close to 99% peak MAA^▸ (Moving Annual Average). Not only that, but commuters have lost all those metro services and still suffer SRO on a number of services.

The few travellers from Leamington northwards to London are the only customers to have gained from this exercise - something which Chiltern knew from the outset & failed to tell the vast majorities in the heartlands until they realised for themselves after the completion. Yes, Chiltern seemed to have achieved their target of competing with Virgin - but this doesn't impress their majority in the heartlands who still see MainLine delaying their own services, almost on a daily basis.

Now, what about Oxford? What's new that we haven't talked about? Having made a raid on Virgin's customers, they're now going after FGWs^▸ (First Great Western). I'm all for competition, but as for improvements? Nahh, the regular route will lose even more services to make way for the Oxford flyers.

There will be more to talk about, once we know when any work might start - possibly at the May timetable change date, I guess.