Thank goodness for Chiltern

Every so often, to quote Tom Cruise in 'Top Gun', I feel the need for speed - especially when I am returning to Birmingham after an evening meeting and I can book ahead... Of course, Tom Cruise had the infrastructure of the US Navy behind his craving; I, alas, have to rely Virgin Trains and Network Rail for my fix...

So let us start with the good things. Virgin's First Class Lounge at Birmingham New Street is not as palatial as that at Euston but for a mid-morning's hour's office space for £3.50 (the cost of a First Class Virgin Only single to Birmingham International) it can't really be bettered. Tables at which to work, free hi-speed wi-fi, coffee and snacks on tap, the FT and Independent to take away, and, of course, a free toilet!

I had booked onto the 12.10 Pendolino yesterday for the princely single fare of £10.50 to London. (Regular readers of my blog will know that I like to travel First Class when booking in advance but Virgin have upped the minimum price to £37.50 - shame). The 12.10 starts in Wolverhampton so there was the usual scrum down to get on board, not helped by Network Rail running it into Platform 4 which was already crowded with passengers waiting for a late running CrossCountry train. Can't the Platform staff get messages to the signallers?

Of course, a large part of the problem is the local flows to Birmingham International and Coventry - once past Coventry the train was relatively quiet. Ironic that Chiltern should have crowding problems in London whilst Virgin suffer them in Birmingham. Doubly ironic that due to lack of ticket checks at New Street / Birmingham International / Coventry many of this flow could well be travelling for free... (at least Chiltern have gates at Marylebone).

Yesterday, Virgin had reserved a table seat for me in the quiet zone as I has requested so I was able to settle down to work on my laptop. Power point and WiFi working too. Usual guff on departure about the type of tickets not valid on the service. As yet again no ticket check took place why does the train manager bother? Presumably, lost revenue from people travelling free or on invaild tickets is built into Virgin's business plan to the end of the franchise - what a joke!

Having had my rant, I'll grant that the Pendolinos do do a great job in getting people from Birmingham to London in round 84 minutes - most of the time.

Arriving back at Euston in good time for the 20.23 return Pendolino, I discovered the news about the disruption so dashed over to Marylebone (thank you Tfl!) and arrived in time for the 20.10 Mainline to Kidderminster. Fortunately, Chiltern were accepting Virgin tickets so had no problem getting on the train (thank you Chiltern). The 20.10 is a four-carriage Clubman but wasn't full as I had expected so I was able to settle at a table, plug in my laptop, and use the FREE wifi. Aren't Clubmans spacious compared to Pendolinos Standard Class!!!

Running to time got me back by 10pm.Now if Chiltern would only delete the Bicester stops on their evening Mainline services and re-introduce the trolley service, I would never be tempted by speed alone again (well hardly ever)

Magazine miscellany

Regular readers of my blog will already know that November's issue of Modern Railways carries the text of the speech by Adrian Shooter to September's 4th Friday Club. Also in the issue is:

• news of LondonMidland's test runs of the Class 350 Desiros at 110mph and the planned changes that the company will seek in its WCML timetables starting in December 2012...
• Roger Ford's despair at the 'procurement follies' of LondonMidland in relation to the Class 350/3 Desiro order
• news on the December 2011 timetable changes which sees only tweaks in the three companies timings... Chiltern's here; LondonMidland and Virgin not yet formally published...
• trackwatch details the work commissioned for Chiltern's Evergreen 3 project

Issue 682 of Rail (November 2-15) has The Fare Dealer (Barry Doe) still insisting that Chiltern's Business Zone is 'First Class' in all but name. Also noted is the impressive reliability of LondonMidland's Class 350/2 Desiros which work the Birmingham New Street - London Euston services intensively.

Finally, readers of my blog on Adrian Shooter's valedictory speech in September may have noted his admiration of the (LMS) Derby engineers. In fact, he lauded diesels 10000 and 10001 in particular. Thus I was intrigued today to come across this article by O S Nock in June 1961's issue of The Railway Magazine which shows that Adrian's praise was well-founded. Pity we lost the plot as an engineering country so badly subsequently...

Chiltern Railways / Virgin Trains / LondonMidland iPhone Apps comparison

Comparison chart loaded http://bit.ly/snXAy2

LondonMidland's App would be the best for information if the decision hadn't been taken to impose a LondonMidland restriction on the Journey Planner and on the Live Departures and Arrivals - apparently this was a deliberate decision.

As it is, Chiltern's is the must download as it has many good information features AND allows tickets to be booked.

As for Virgin... let's hope that the Olympics extension to their franchise will sput them on to improve their App!

Best action, as all 3 are free, download them all to take advantage of their various strengths

iPhone Apps: Virgin Trains

Virgin's App is very similar to that of Chiltern's (not surprisingly as they have developers in common) but for some reason has failed to develop beyond its basic functionality.

The App page on the Virgin web site states:
Buy tickets on your iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Nokia or Sony Ericsson anytime, anywhere, with just a few taps. Thanks to our free app. Search times and fares or buy tickets for any UK route up to 10 minutes before departure - without card charges or booking fees. Then collect them from a FastTicket machine at the station. That's what we call handy.

So the good things....

1. Very clear train times finder with the ability to buy tickets easily 

The not so good...

1. Support is via a 0844 number
2. External links are all web based
3. Times for Birmingham to London show only Virgin and Chiltern services (though some LondonMidland services are shown by searching for Birmingham New Street to London Euston)
4. Cannot add Virgin Flying Club number to purchase account

And the missing...

Just look at what LondonMidland and Chiltern have managed to offer on their Apps!

iPhone Apps: Chiltern Railways

The iPhone App from Chiltern Railways has been available for a year now, and has developed into an online ticket buying and real-time information application. Indeed, the App won Most Effective ticketing solution at the Mobile Marketing Awards held on 3 November.

The Chiltern information page on the App states:

• Quick tickets sent to your phone
• No account login required
• No booking or card fees
• Save favourite journeys
• View train times
• Buy tickets to anywhere in the UK

What it doesn't mention (tut tut Chiltern - how about keeping your web site bang up-to-date?) is that the latest iteration, V1.07.62, also offers live train arrival / departure times for any station in the UK.

So, the good things...

1. Very clear train times finder with the ability to buy tickets easily
2. mTickets available for certain Chiltern journeys making it easy to travel without hassle
3. Live departure and arrivals

The not so good...

1. Support is via a 0845 number
2. External links are all web based
3. mTickets availability very limited a present

And the missing..

1. Just look at what LondonMidland have managed to offer on their App!

iPhone Apps: LondonMidland

So now we have a full set of iPhone Apps from the Birmingham to London route operators. How do they compare.

LondonMidland

This is the new kid on the block, having been launched on Tuesday (1 November). Naturally it is free and its description page claims it offers:

• Plan your London Midland journey with the journey planner
• Add multiple station favourites, making it easier to plan frequent journeys
• Email, SMS or print your journey plan details
• Disruption information giving you alternative journey options if required
• One touch access to live departures and arrival at all London Midland stations, with platform information (where available) and live train progress
• ‘Next Train Home’ feature automatically finds the nearest train station and searches trains times to get you home
• View timetables even without an Internet connection, specifically designed to fit your mobile screen
• View our @LondonMidland Twitter feed without leaving the app, whether you follow us or not
• Purchase car parking directly from the app via SMS or phone (where available)
• Submit your ‘Delay Repay’ form directly from the app
• Contact Customer Services directly from the app

As with most iPhone Apps, it works best with either 3G or WiFi enabled. It's opening screen displays a top banner, a Live Departures and arrivals panel, the Journey Planner, an Info panel, a Contact us panel, and a Settings panel.This last panel allows a 'home station' to be set, features in the Journey Planner to be changed, the Interface to be set at 'Start at home screen', distance to be set in either miles or kilometres, and Help and Support to be contacted.

All the panels seem to work fine. 

• The Live Departures and arrivals, and the journey planner are not LondonMidland specific though the 'Nearest' / Favourite / Recent buttons will presumably have that effect for regular LM travellers. 
• The Info panel as a 'Disruption information' live feed as well as live feeds from London Underground (actually TfL) and the @londonmidland Twitter feed. Alas, the TfL feed takes you out of the App and into Safari. Timetables can be downloaded. Car parking can be purchased through a web link (a nice feature is to show which stations offer FREE parking), and a Delay Repay form can be completed and sent to LM via email (again, a nice touch is the ability to add a photo of the ticket).
• Contact us gives an email option BUT more usefully the landline number (0121 634 2040) for LM's Customer Relations Team (definite brownie point for NOT hiding behind a 0845 number).

So, all good stuff, but you can't book tickets! V2 beckons I reckon

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...