Chiltern Mainline on a Clubman

In all the 'excitement' about the Business Zone provision and future Silver Set deployment, it is easy to forget that the bulk of the Chiltern Mainline timetable is run day-in day-out by the highly successful Class 168 Clubman DMUs. As regular readers of this blog will know, I am a fan of the Clubmans (see Thursday 18th Nov 2010 et passim...) but for various reasons I haven't actually used them for sometime. However, a trip to London on Wednesday allowed me to rectify this omission.

Thanks to the timings of my trip, I was able to buy a £25 super off-peak return from Birmingham Moor Street, and join the 11.55 Mainline service which was sitting waiting in Platform 4 having worked the 9.37 down from London Marylebone. This walk-on fare is a veritable bargain when you consider the timings now available (97 mins) along with the availability of tables, power points, and FREE WiFi. Just a pity that Chiltern can't make the timetable work to allow the service to start at Birmingham Snow Hill and tap the business market more effectively.

The loading of the train was only reasonable on departure from Moor Street but of course this meant that obtaining a table to myself and laptop proved no problem. In fact, I wasn't joined at my table until the final stop at Banbury, though the train had filled nicely at the previous stops.

As I have said many times, Chiltern simply deliver... the catering trolley came round, tickets were checked after Leamington, WiFi and power points worked, the toilets were clean and worked, and I had an hour-and-a-half of uninterrupted working time. What more could Chiltern offer me???

Well, an better return evening service would be a start. The first train back from London Marylebone for Super Off-Peak ticket holders is the 19.15 which for some reason has a stop at Bicester North with a consequent 109 minute scheduled journey time. Further, as has been detailed on Chiltern's Twitter feed ad nauseum it is a very busy train. On Wednesday, it left Marylebone full and standing to Bicester.

The problems above are compounded by the fact that the Mainline timetable NORTH doesn't work. As I had experienced before, a late running High Wycombe train brought the 19.15 to a dead halt at Gerrard's Cross and then slow running ensued until the train in front cleared at High Wycombe. The consequence: at Aynho Junction we lost our path to a FREIGHT train (Network Rail come on...), and then at Dorridge were looped to allow a CrossCountry to overtake. 'Mainline' - I don't think so as we limped into Moor Street 16 minutes late (would Virgin put up with such behaviour by Network Rail signallers?). AND, of course, Chiltern don't offer catering on Clubman evening services back to Birmingham...

So although the fare is amazing value and Clubman's are great trains on which to travel - WiFi etc all fine on the 19.15 - Chiltern clearly have a long way to go before they can convince the powers that be that they do actually offer a MAINLINE service to Birmingham. Pity...