Andy wrote:
On Oct 1, 7:55 pm, "Paul Scott"
wrote:
burkey wrote:
From eWatford Observer 11:30am Thursday 1st October 2009

Five new London Midland trains to carry 1,600 extra passengers from
Watford and Bushey to London Euston from December
By Michael Pickard »
Five new “shuttle services” will serve train passengers in Watford
and Bushey, when a new timetable is launched in December.
London Midland today announced there will be an extra 1,600 seats on
peak commuter services when the new trains begin to run into and out
of London.

These 'new train' numbers don't seem to add up, the LM track access
application only seems to mention one additional Watford Junction
'shuttle' each way, and an extra Bletchley - Euston: I think what
they should have said is three services have been added and some
others altered.

When this first came up (Neil Williams mentioned it way back IIRC)
it was anticipated to be a relatively large number (was it 7?) of
pure Watford - Euston shuttles.

"SX Southbound
New services: 0633 Bletchley – Euston, 0815 Watford Junction - Euston
Alterations to existing services: 0803 Watford Junction – Euston
retimed to depart 0754;
0832 Bletchley – Euston starts Tring 0848, other times unaltered

SX Northbound
New services: 1728 Euston – Watford Junction, 1820 Euston – Milton
Keynes Alterations to existing services: 1804 Euston – Milton Keynes
extended to Northampton


The train alterations are certainly more complex than the story
implies, there also many changes in the calling patterns of services,
for example southbound from Harrow & Wealdstone between ~08.00 and
10.00, there is an extra 'fast' service and a slightly better spread
of services between 08.30 and 09.30:

Current Service, Harrow Departures: 07.57 08.11 08.15 08.31 08.41 -
09.11 09.24 09.54
14 Dec 2009, Harrow Departures: 08:04 08:17 08:23 08:28 08:33 08:54
09:12 09:28 09:54

In the evening, the extra 17.28 to Watford doesn't appear in the
journey planner and the Harrow stop in the 17.04 is moved to 17.14
with no 17.24 service.

I'm not quite certain why more Watford - Euston services are not down
to run, as there seems to be enough empty gaps, on the slow lines,
between trains at the moment.

There is now a DfT press release out, it reckons there are 5 'new' services:

06:33 Bletchley to London Euston
07:57 ?? Watford Junction to London Euston
08:15 Watford Junction to London Euston
17:40 ?? London Euston to Watford Junction
18:20 London Euston to Milton Keynes Central

How does that fit with your understanding of what is going on? The track
access appllication's 0754 and the DfT's 0757 seem a bit close - presume
someone has hit a wrong key...

Paul S