In all the furore about the West Coast Rail Franchise fiasco, it is easy to forget that the existing train operating companies provide an excellent service on the Birmingham to London route and at a very reasonable fare if you can book in advance. It is also too easy to blame them when their services are disrupted by circumstances outside of their (and Network Rail's) control...
Yesterday, LondonMidland transported me efficiently to London Euston on the 0953 from Birmingham New Street for the princely sum of £16 First Class. As I write, the same journey tomorrow would cost £20, then on Thursday, £18, and Friday onwards £16 so it isn't necessary to plan too far in advance to benefit from cheap fares... (the equivalent Virgin Trains arrival into Euston - the 1050 from New Street - has an advance First Class fare of £39 for tomorrow onwards).
Coming back, I travelled in a virtually empty 2103 Pendolino First Class 'Quiet' coach for £23.50. Again this fare is available from tomorrow onwards! Of course, when things go wrong as they did yesterday, having a first class ticket at least gives you the comfort of the Euston First Class lounge in which to wait.
Luckily for me, the 2103 yesterday was the first train north to depart on time after the massive disruption caused by the fatality at Apsley. Beforehand, it was fascinating to see the stream of information being 'tweeted' by the TOC and NRE accounts, and to see the efforts of the staff at Euston to keep people informed.
As the railway companies and staff prove time and again that they can deliver, one just wishes that the politicians would leave them alone to get on with the job!
Tuesday 30 October 2012
Thursday 25 October 2012
LondonMidland - travelling at 110mph
Although the December 2012 timetable has not been formally announced, I have been alerted to the impact that the 115mph running of the Desiro Class 350/1s will have on Birmingham to London timings for LondonMidland services...
From Monday December 10th, the xx.54 departure from Birmingham New Street will connect at Rugby to give an arrival in London Euston 1 hour and 55 minutes later (eg 0854 dep gives a 1049 arrival). This timing includes a 21 minute wait at Rugby for the onward connection (!) and will operate hourly from 0854 to 1854.
Coming back from London Euston, the xx.46 departure will get you into New Street an hour and 56 minutes later (eg 0846 dep gives a 1042 arrival). The change time at Rugby is only 6 minutes but only the hourly services from 0846 to 1446 will give this timing. Incidentally, if you change at Coventry too, using the overtaking Pendolino reduces the journey time to 1 hour 41 minutes!
Talking of Coventry, passengers there are clearly the winners of this change as they will now have an hourly service at certain times of the day with timings (72 minutes) not a great deal worse than the Virgin timings BUT with a significantly lower price tag!
Finally, if you don't want to change at Rugby but do want to experience a Class 350/1 unit running at 110mph, I am told that the xx.33 departures from New Street and the xx.49 departures from Euston have paths which include running at this speed. Looking forward to finding out if the units ride as well at the new top speed as they do currently.
From Monday December 10th, the xx.54 departure from Birmingham New Street will connect at Rugby to give an arrival in London Euston 1 hour and 55 minutes later (eg 0854 dep gives a 1049 arrival). This timing includes a 21 minute wait at Rugby for the onward connection (!) and will operate hourly from 0854 to 1854.
Coming back from London Euston, the xx.46 departure will get you into New Street an hour and 56 minutes later (eg 0846 dep gives a 1042 arrival). The change time at Rugby is only 6 minutes but only the hourly services from 0846 to 1446 will give this timing. Incidentally, if you change at Coventry too, using the overtaking Pendolino reduces the journey time to 1 hour 41 minutes!
Talking of Coventry, passengers there are clearly the winners of this change as they will now have an hourly service at certain times of the day with timings (72 minutes) not a great deal worse than the Virgin timings BUT with a significantly lower price tag!
Finally, if you don't want to change at Rugby but do want to experience a Class 350/1 unit running at 110mph, I am told that the xx.33 departures from New Street and the xx.49 departures from Euston have paths which include running at this speed. Looking forward to finding out if the units ride as well at the new top speed as they do currently.
In praise of the LondonMidland 0753 from Birmingham to London
Regular readers of this blog will know that I am a very satisfied user of the 'First Class' service that is the 0753 slow train from New Street to Euston. Two recent trips have confirmed my view that LondonMidland is giving travellers who don't need to be in London before 1030 a good value alternative to Virgin's ridiculous £254 'peak' fare.
Now that Virgin have bagged Platform 1 for their 0750 Pendolino service, the 0753 departs from Platform 3A - good news for those of us who use the Navigation Street entrance to New Street. The Desiro set comes in from Crewe and empties at New Street meaning that the First Class compartment is clear for passengers boarding. Clearly, the competitive pricing of the LondonMidland service is sinking in as there has been a noticeable increase in the number of passengers starting their journey at New Street and travelling through to Euston. However, as yet, I have not had a problem getting to a table and being able to use the power sockets for my laptop...
Both journeys recently have ridden smoothly and run to time, and I have had plenty of time to catch up with work on the journey. Naturally 'free' meals, 'free' newspaper and 'free' WiFi could be useful but with a walk-on First Class return fare over 5 times cheaper than that of Virgin's equivalent, these are 'luxuries' that I can work around...
Now that Virgin have bagged Platform 1 for their 0750 Pendolino service, the 0753 departs from Platform 3A - good news for those of us who use the Navigation Street entrance to New Street. The Desiro set comes in from Crewe and empties at New Street meaning that the First Class compartment is clear for passengers boarding. Clearly, the competitive pricing of the LondonMidland service is sinking in as there has been a noticeable increase in the number of passengers starting their journey at New Street and travelling through to Euston. However, as yet, I have not had a problem getting to a table and being able to use the power sockets for my laptop...
Both journeys recently have ridden smoothly and run to time, and I have had plenty of time to catch up with work on the journey. Naturally 'free' meals, 'free' newspaper and 'free' WiFi could be useful but with a walk-on First Class return fare over 5 times cheaper than that of Virgin's equivalent, these are 'luxuries' that I can work around...
Tuesday 16 October 2012
Chiltern Railways Meals on the Silver Sets
Chiltern continue to trial meals on certain Silver Set services. The latest details are:
The morning 'peak' services continue to offer the hot breakfast options of sausage or bacon baps or scrambled egg on toast.
Don't forget that the Silver Sets run Monday to Friday only. All meals are available to both Business Zone and Standard Class passengers.
Week commencing Monday 15/10/12
|
Chinese style curry with rice
|
10.55 ex BMO, 13.37 ex MYB,
15.55 ex BMO, 16.46 ex MYB, 18.07 ex MYB
|
Week commencing Monday 22/10/12
|
Sweet chilli chicken with
noodles-low fat
|
10.55 ex BMO, 13.37 ex MYB,
15.55 ex BMO, 16.46 ex MYB, 18.07 ex
|
Week commencing Monday 29/10/12
|
Meatballs in tomato sauce with
pasta
|
10.55 ex BMO, 13.37 ex MYB,
15.55 ex BMO, 16.46 ex MYB, 18.07 ex
|
Friday 5 October 2012
Tweeting for Chiltern Railways - Emma Gascoigne at the #BanburyTweetUp
Yesterday evening, the monthly Banbury TweetUp (#BanburyTweetUp) was fortunate to have Emma Gascoigne as the guest speaker - Emma, of course, being the 'E' on the @chilternrailway twitter account.
As part of Chiltern's press and marketing team, Emma has a specific role as Social Media Manager and can justifiably claim to be one of the driving forces behind Chiltern's very successful social media strategy. She took the Banbury gathering through the development of this strategy from the early days of 'lurking' (seeing what was being said about Chiltern Railways) through to the current policy of active engagement with a 'smiley face'...
Emma's (and the company's) Eureka moment came during the snow of 2010 when she was snowed up at home but Chiltern's services were continuing to run. She realised that the # tag #uksnow was being used by Tweeters so began to actively tweet information on Chiltern's services using that tag... the rest, as they say, is history!
Emma uses HootSuite at work, TweetDeck when on the move, and even, occasionally, Twitter on the Web... She monitors mentions of Chiltern, Chiltern Railways, etc but has a policy of NOT intruding on private conversations unless there are major factual errors which need correcting. Naturally, she and the rest of the Chiltern team do engage with those who use @chilternrailway in their tweets.
Emma is particularly proud of Chiltern's use of FourSquare. Being 'Mayor of Marylebone' can of course lead onto the honour of switching on the Christmas Tree Lights (we'll draw a veil over the image of Emma crouched under the table to actually plug in the lights as the 'switch' was thrown...).
Emma also looks after the Chiltern presence on Facebook and Google+ but she enjoys the immediacy of her work with Twitter.
Finally, as ever with Chiltern, it is 'watch this space (or Twitter feed)'. The new timetable starts in December but before then Emma was dropping discreet hints about improvements to on-board services...
As part of Chiltern's press and marketing team, Emma has a specific role as Social Media Manager and can justifiably claim to be one of the driving forces behind Chiltern's very successful social media strategy. She took the Banbury gathering through the development of this strategy from the early days of 'lurking' (seeing what was being said about Chiltern Railways) through to the current policy of active engagement with a 'smiley face'...
Emma's (and the company's) Eureka moment came during the snow of 2010 when she was snowed up at home but Chiltern's services were continuing to run. She realised that the # tag #uksnow was being used by Tweeters so began to actively tweet information on Chiltern's services using that tag... the rest, as they say, is history!
Emma uses HootSuite at work, TweetDeck when on the move, and even, occasionally, Twitter on the Web... She monitors mentions of Chiltern, Chiltern Railways, etc but has a policy of NOT intruding on private conversations unless there are major factual errors which need correcting. Naturally, she and the rest of the Chiltern team do engage with those who use @chilternrailway in their tweets.
Emma is particularly proud of Chiltern's use of FourSquare. Being 'Mayor of Marylebone' can of course lead onto the honour of switching on the Christmas Tree Lights (we'll draw a veil over the image of Emma crouched under the table to actually plug in the lights as the 'switch' was thrown...).
Emma also looks after the Chiltern presence on Facebook and Google+ but she enjoys the immediacy of her work with Twitter.
Finally, as ever with Chiltern, it is 'watch this space (or Twitter feed)'. The new timetable starts in December but before then Emma was dropping discreet hints about improvements to on-board services...
Monday 1 October 2012
LondonMidland 'Great Escape' promotion details
The online vouchers for the Great Escape 'off-peak' promotion are now available with tickets available from LondonMidland stations from Wednesday (the promotion itself runs from Saturday 20th October to Sunday 4th November). Also available is a list of strengthened services to cope with the demand expected to be generated by the ticket prices of £15 (£5 child) standard class and £25 (£10 child) First Class. Birmingham-London through services benefiting are:
Monday-Friday 0913 Euston-New Street; and Saturday 1513 Euston-New Street
NOTE that the promotional tickets will NOT be available on services departing Euston between 1700 and 1815 Monday-Friday.
Railcard discounts are available on both the Standard and First prices with the bonus that Network and Gold railcard holders are NOT restricted by the usual Network SE boundary rule (ie the promotional tickets will be available north of Long Buckby.
Vouchers are limited in number for each day (63,000 vouchers available overall) so don't delay if you know when you are travelling.
Monday-Friday 0913 Euston-New Street; and Saturday 1513 Euston-New Street
NOTE that the promotional tickets will NOT be available on services departing Euston between 1700 and 1815 Monday-Friday.
Railcard discounts are available on both the Standard and First prices with the bonus that Network and Gold railcard holders are NOT restricted by the usual Network SE boundary rule (ie the promotional tickets will be available north of Long Buckby.
Vouchers are limited in number for each day (63,000 vouchers available overall) so don't delay if you know when you are travelling.
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