Using the train as a travelling office: Chiltern Railways

A trip to the Golden Whistles Awards, sponsored by Modern Railways, on the 27th saw me back on Chiltern's Mainline trains. A peculiarity of the current timetable is the running of a Mainline service as a multi-station stopper in front of a fast Mainline service; examples being the 0659, 0744, and 0825 services from Moor Street all of which have published arrival times into Marylebone 1 minute ahead of the 0733, 0815, and 0855 respectively.

From a 'working on board' point of view, the best of these slow trains is the 0825 from Moor Street which actually starts from Snow Hill at 0822 and benefits from the £50 return fare. So it was that I joined the virtually empty Clubman set at Snow Hill and settled myself at a table ready to work on my laptop. Departure was on time and the power points were working but disaster, no external WiFi connection... Fortunately, Chiltern train managers have a 'can-do' attitude... Steve reset the box whilst waiting in the Dorridge loop and the full (free) WiFi service sprang into life.

Although the train got busier, at no time was it uncomfortably so. With an at-seat trolley service (pity they still don't take credit / debit cards), what more can the working traveller want?

Alas, coming back wasn't quite so pleasant. The 1915 is notorious amongst Chiltern's vocal Twitter following for being overcrowded and this Friday's was no exception. I got a seat by dint of boarding at 1905 but on departure it was full and standing, and it wasn't until Leamington Spa that the last of the standing passengers got a seat. The primary cause of this overcrowding would seem to be the fact that the 1915 is the first super-off peak service out of Marylebone in the evening, along with the stop that it makes at Bicester North. Perhaps Chiltern could adopt a variable ticket restriction which sees Bicester North super off-peak tickets valid from the following 1937 rather than the 1915...

Of course, that would require ticket checking, something which all the TOCs that I use seem to find very difficult especially in the evening. On the Friday in question, the barriers were not in place at Marylebone (they're being upgraded), there was no on-board checking, and of course, there is no 'exit' checking at any Chiltern station en-route... Just as with Virgin and LondonMidland, one suspects a business plan which focuses on travel into London and works on the assumption that travellers out of London will be on return tickets...

Finally, a quick word about the Golden Whistles. Alas, the only whistle that the three TOCs won was Virgin's award for 'managing disruption'. By all accounts, something for which the TOC had plenty of opportunity to display in yesterday's WCML disruption at Bletchley.