London Marylebone - 14/03/07

QUESTION: Can the June timetable re-address the issue that the 0717 from Aylesbury does not call at Chorleywood as this leaves a big gap?
ANSWER: No, the service is designed to have fast and slow alternate trains from Aylesbury to minimise journey times from stations further out yet still provide the required level of service from each station.

QUESTION: There are too many on train Passenger Information Screens which are defective. What is being done about this? 
ANSWER: The screens are going through an upgrading process from May until October. This opportunity will be used to ensure they are all working correctly.

QUESTION: Why can’t the 1900 from Marylebone stop at Bicester?
ANSWER: The evening peak is designed to have fast trains to Banbury on the hour. A service is provided at 1903 for Bicester passengers.

QUESTION: There does not appear to be enough on train ticket checks and people are taking advantage of this.
ANSWER: We are currently recruiting more staff members by the end of March in order to overcome this problem.

QUESTION: When are you introducing a no smoking policy?
ANSWER: We are currently finalising our arrangements for adherence with the smoking legislation. We will be ensuring that this is in place in time for the changes in legislation on 1st July 2007, and we will be keeping our customers fully informed of these changes including the impact at stations over the next few months.

QUESTION: Could you do anything to improve the liaison between yourselves and London Underground with connections?
ANSWER: We are constantly striving to improve the liaison we have with London Underground and to find ways of strengthening the responsiveness to our customers on their network. We review each significant London Underground incident that impacts on our services to draw out potential improvements and London Underground's reaction to customer needs is one of the key themes being highlighted.

QUESTION: The other week, on a Monday morning I think, your staff opened the gates at Marylebone and just
told people to go through and not worry about paying, is this good business practice? I wanted to pay!
ANSWER: The safety of our passengers is always paramount and this action was taken as a method of crowd control.

QUESTION: Why do you have two trains to Aylesbury in quick succession at up to 1656 but then nothing to
Gerrards Cross in the interim until 1709?
ANSWER: We are introducing an extra train to Gerrards Cross at 1648 in the May 07 timetable.

QUESTION: The 0704 Beaconsfield to Birmingham used to be great but now we have to change at High Wycombe which takes 10 minutes, so negating all the line work you did to speed the service up, why? And why no tables on this train to allow us to work on the way?
ANSWER: To speed up the Birmingham service we had to drop some of the Gerrards Cross and Beaconsfield stops. The connection at High Wycombe should still be a Clubman, though the following Birmingham service (0720 from Marylebone) will be formed of Turbo stock until mid September due to a programme of improvements taking place on our Clubman stock.

QUESTION: Why with a longer train do you lock doors out at Banbury and not after Warwick Parkway, which is long enough to take the length?
ANSWER: Door locking out on services stopping at Warwick Parkway are only locked out on over length trains that call at Hatton & Lapworth, or to Stratford. We have agreed with HRMI & Network Rail to do so between Banbury & Leamington Spa to save time. We also need to have coaches locked out as they do not fit safely to all our platforms.

QUESTION: Why do we still get late notification of platforms in the evening at Marylebone, especially with a potentially long trek to the new platforms, this is ongoing and should be easy to solve by now.
ANSWER: The planned service does now give plenty of boarding time for trains departing from platforms 4, 5 & 6. However, during disruption boarding time is still an issue. We are working on plans to improve boarding times during future disruption.

QUESTION: Why the short formed services to Aylesbury over the last few months?
ANSWER: A number of services have been shortened as a limited amount of Class 165 stock has been transferred to longer distance services. This, in turn, is due to the start of a rolling reliability programme on the Clubman trains. We only short form trains when there is no viable alternative.

QUESTION: Why have we only 9 services at Sudbury & Harrow Road yet Sudbury Hill has 23? You could improve the demand at Sudbury & Harrow Road with more promotion and should do a count again, as the demand is there.
ANSWER: Stops were moved from Sudbury and Harrow Road to Sudbury Hill Harrow in December 2004 following consultation. We could only reintroduce stops at Sudbury and Harrow Road by removing them from Sudbury Hill Harrow.
QUESTION: I missed the 1812 just now to Beaconsfield and the 1815 and now there is a huge gap to 1837, why? Why not stop the 1833?
ANSWER: We intend to do this from December 2007. We need to seek DfT approval before we will be allowed to make this change, as we are contracted to provide a certain number of limited stop services and we would have to seek a derogation to stop this train there.