Compare and contrast... LondonMidland and Chiltern Railways

One of the stranger side-effects of the December 2012 timetable changes has been the speeding up of one of the thrice hourly southbound +London Midland Desiro services between Birmingham New Street and London Euston. Regular readers will know that, by changing at Rugby, passengers on the xx.54 services from 0854 through to 1854 can now arrive around 20 minutes earlier into Euston.

So, on Tuesday, I forsook my favourite train (the 1055 +Chiltern Railways Silver Set) to try out the 1054 from New Street. The Desiro unit was waiting at the Platform as I arrived a few minutes early. First Class was empty apart from a LondonMidland senior manager who was busy reading Rail - now that's something you don't see in Chiltern's Business Zone... - so no problem settling down at a table with my trusty laptop. Power point working ok.

Of course, one problem with changing at Rugby for those of us not yet in the tablet age is the loss of working time. Given the time my laptop takes to close down, I had to finish upon leaving Coventry so although the journey time might be shorter working time is considerably lessened too. Otherwise, changing at Rugby is fairly painless (same platform), especially with the reassurance from an App that the connecting Desiro was running on time. A distinct advantage of the change is that Rugby has a Travellers Fare (hadn't realised they were still going) so the lack of refreshments on LM services is overcome.

From Rugby, the First Class was almost busy (10 passengers) but a table still available. Alas, from a timing point of view, although the Class 350/1 from Rugby did the 110mph run to Milton Keynes, post Watford  a signal failure at Bushey meant we were 18 mins late into Euston. At least, LondonMidland couldn't be blamed for that and the Twitter team were most apologetic!

Coming back, I joined the 1913 two-set Desiro service which, although it goes via and divides at Northampton, is timed at only 9 mins longer than the journey time up to London. First Class in the Birmingham portion was relatively quiet (and empty after Birmingham International) so again no problem setting down to work. The only downside - apart from the usual ones of no refreshments and no WiFi - was the 10 minute late arrival into New Street after a delay at Coventry caused by late arriving crew.

So, overall impressions? Well, I love travelling on the Desiros and sometimes it is useful to arrive at Euston rather than Marylebone. BUT to get a fare near to the £27.50 walk-on Chiltern Super Off-peak return I had to book in advance and use the LM Rail Sale 25% discount. Even then, I got a slower service with no refreshments (admittedly only available on Chiltern on the way to London)  and no WiFi. One day, LM, one day...