Chiltern during LU strike - why leave Network Rail stations unserved?

[Starmill]

Knowing many of the team in Chiltern Railways train planning, I would say this is most unlikely. It may have been that there were no spare units available, having been used to strengthen services / run additional trains on other routes, who knows. I'm sure there was a much better explanation than 'nobody thought of it'.

The simplest explanation is, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, the most likely. And here clearly the simplest explanation is that the results for customers could have been better if there were more planning resources, or the resources were under less pressure. This is what I was saying, and you note that I was careful in my post to point out that nobody was deserving of a criticism for their work on the matter.

I also note Chiltern didn't even attempt to run a bus, even though only one bus and driver would have been required. That strongly implies simply not having the planning capacity to deal with it, rather than that there was a plan to run the service but no unit was available, or some other technical constraint.

 

[800002]

Interestingly tomorrow morning there are a couple of the via HW trains extended back to AVP in the early morning.

Yes. With additional Great Missenden trains I believe as the box is open.

Are the right answers.

It’s difficult to explain just how much strain planning teams have been under in the last few weeks. Strikes on / strikes off / but some strikes still on / planning diagrams for Christmas engineering works / final resourcing for Dec 22 timetable / scheduling work for May 23 timetable / early planning deadlines for Dec 23 (next week) / Annual Business Plan for DfT to reduce costs by big% / andthelistgoeson. I have repetitive strain injury from doffing my cap to these guys for the work these guys have done recently - unsung heroes all of them.

Of course not everyone is involved in all of this, but some people are. And in a small TOC like Chiltern, who I think have only about 6/7 people in their entire planning / resourcing team, something has to give, especially if it has coincided with someone being off on holiday / sick etc.

Yes. To all of the above, across the industry.

 

[sammyg901]

A few threads on Twitter confirming it was because the box at Amersham was closed

They've definitely run some trains turning at Great Missenden in the past on TFL strike days, not sure if that's because the box was open or they made alternative arrangements which weren't possible this time (which would make sense as they'd been expecting no service at all due to the strike, perhaps couldn't be arranged in time)

Re: buses, no TOC that I'm aware of arranges RRB on a strike day and that would be quite difficult at that time of day during school term. Aylesbury Vale Parkway is well served by service buses to Aylesbury and anyone with a season ticket could get a refund of that day to pay for it

 

[Starmill]

Re: buses, no TOC that I'm aware of arranges RRB on a strike day and that would be quite difficult at that time of day during school term. Aylesbury Vale Parkway is well served by service buses to Aylesbury and anyone with a season ticket could get a refund of that day to pay for it

It's actually very common for buses or other replacement transport to be provided when the strike is third-party. For example during Aslef strikes, Transport for Wales were told they couldn't serve Birmingham New Street, so they arranged ticket acceptance from Wolverhampton with West Midlands Metro. Metrolink use a bus to Altrincham whenever RMT signallers are on strike.