CharlesPottins wrote:
There were no Metropolitan Lines running south of Harrow on the Hill again this
weekend, due to pre-planned engineering work. Ok, fair enough. The Chiltern
Line into Marylebone offers a nice fast one-stop service.
But once again, there seemed to be no extra carriage to take the extra
passengers on this. Last time this happened was just at the start of the sales,
Wednesday 29 December, the platform was packed, and hearing the announcement
that the Chiltern train was already too crowded before it reached Harrow, I
made a quick change of plans and hopped on the empty Amersham train (leaving
from the same platform) just as its doors closed. I'm OK, I've got my Freedom
Pass, but obviously one can't always be so flexible , and for elderly or
disabled people and those travelling with youngsters, standing in a packed
carriage all the way is quite a hardship, even if they manage to get on, and
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From: (CharlesPottins)
Newsgroups: uk.transport.london
Date: 16 Jan 2005 19:21:56 GMT
Organization: AOL, http://www.aol.co.uk
Subject: Thabks to Chiltern - but how about extra carriages?
Message-ID:
Xref: uni-berlin.de uk.transport.london:137759

There were no Metropolitan Lines running south of Harrow on the Hill again this
weekend, due to pre-planned engineering work. Ok, fair enough. The Chiltern
Line into Marylebone offers a nice fast one-stop service.
But once again, there seemed to be no extra carriage to take the extra
passengers on this. Last time this happened was just at the start of the sales,
Wednesday 29 December, the platform was packed, and hearing the announcement
that the Chiltern train was already too crowded before it reached Harrow, I
made a quick change of plans and hopped on the empty Amersham train (leaving
from the same platform) just as its doors closed. I'm OK, I've got my Freedom
Pass, but obviously one can't always be so flexible , and for elderly or
disabled people and those travelling with youngsters, standing in a packed
carriage all the way is quite a hardship, even if they manage to get on, and
even though it is a mercifully short journey, being one-stop.
Would it be beyond the resources of TfL and Chiltern between them to arrange to
have a longer train on these days when the extra capacity is needed? There is
plenty of platform length to spare.

I guess it also partly depends on demand on the Birmingham services
(much higher when there are WCML engineering works) and on platform
space at Marylebone rather than Harrow, as at the former they tend to
occupy platforms with more than one train - although that may just be a
weekday practice.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London