Extra rush hour trains for Buckinghamshire commuters

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Extra rush hour trains for Buckinghamshire commuters

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Picture of Mark Wilson

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Train at London Marylebone - Chiltern Railways
Train at London Marylebone // Credit: Chiltern Railways

Most timetables across the UK are set to change on Sunday 2 June.

Chiltern Railways have asked customers to check their services before they travel as some trains may depart earlier or later than normal, while some trains will have their stopping patterns amended, meaning that some stations will be missed in order to create faster commutes into and out of London.

Besides this, since the increase in passenger numbers, extra rush hour trains have been added to the timetable on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

This will make existing trains less congested and offer more seats and space to commuters that travel into and out of the capital.

At present, most passengers on this section of line board a service that is already very crowded as it starts in , the extra train will also benefit those commuters too, as their train won’t be quite so congested for its final stages into London.

The extra trains will benefit the people of Buckinghamshire, the morning train will depart from Princes Risborough, and with a capacity of 380 seats, the train will also call at and before travelling onto .

The additional evening service will perform the same duty heading out of London, stopping at Beaconsfield, High Wycombe and Princes Risborough.

Chiltern Railways
Chiltern Railways train arriving at Birmingham Moor Street // Credit: Edward Haynes

As the new evening service from London Marylebone to Princes Risborough is being introduced on Tuesdays to Thursdays, some existing trains have been amended, so the new service can run:

  • The 17:37 from London Marylebone to Birmingham will now leave 4 minutes earlier at 17:33
  • The 17:45 from London Marylebone to Oxford will stop at Beaconsfield but will now not stop at High Wycombe

Passengers are reminded that theses changes only apply to trains running on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Adding additional services can sometimes present problems, in the case of Chiltern, trains are currently using diesel units which have an average age of 30-years-old.

Although they are still reliable and have had refurbishments over those three decades, they are restricted by the number of passengers they can carry compared to modern trains on other railways.

165039 at London Marylebone
165039 at London Marylebone // Credit: Chiltern Railways

Chiltern is already in talks with the and partners and train manufactures so it can achieve its Right Route 2030 vision by introducing new trains with greater capacity.

“I know that this extra service for customers in Buckinghamshire will be well used, and will hopefully relieve some of the crowding issues that we have seen on the network during peak times in the middle of the week. It is a step in the right direction as we work hard with industry partners to increase capacity by renewing our fleet, which is now the oldest in the country.  

“On other parts of the route, there may be slight changes to train times, so please do check ahead on the Chiltern Railways website or app before travelling.”  

Andy Camp, Commercial & Customer Strategy Director at Chiltern Railways

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  1. Although they are still reliable and have had refurbishments over those three decades
    How so – many of the trains havre had zero refurbishment – the seats are threadbare and as for reliability you are incorrect

  2. No mention of services to Aylesbury – what a surprise. The unloved child of Chiltern’s lines.

    * No decent connection to Birmingham (quicker to go to Marylebone and back up, which is ludicrous)

    *No decent connection to Oxford. Might as well get the quicker, cheaper bus.

    *No future connection to the new Oxford- Cambridge line – even though the spurs and goods line to Aylesbury are in place.

  3. It feels like it would be less confusing for passengers if they ran the same timetable 5 days a week but ran longer trains on TuWTh – looking over the last couple of weeks, it seems that the only departure between 1700 and 1800 that is booked as 6 carriages is the 1707 to Stourbridge, which is a loco set, so there are plenty of options to extend formations of existing services to 6 cars.

  4. But no extras at rush hours or any other time for users (and would-be users) of Sudbury & Harrow Road – just four trains to London in the morning and four back in the evening, Mon-Fri only, with no trains at any other time and none at all at weekends.

    1. But you have also the tube line. Customers living outside of London have only chiltern railways to use.

  5. The illustrations may be misleading as they show locomotive-hauled trains which have better capacity and greater comfort than the diesel units which cover most of these services.

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