Are Chiltern missing out on Boxing Day?

This question is probably more suited for the "Football" thread in the General Discussion section, but as somebody has made reference to Tottenham Hotspur playing at Wembley, here goes.

When the decision to rebuild White Hart Lane was made, did the FA and THFC ever think about groundsharing Ashburton Grove (even though it is the home of their fierce rivals Arsenal)? Thinking about it, both Milan teams share the San Siro, and if Spurs temporarily played their "home" matches at Ashburton Grove, the fans would not have to go from one side of London to another, thus not putting too much pressure on the public transport system.

Another thought - I remember plans for Spurs to temporarily play or even relocate their "home" matches at the Olympic Stadium in Stratford. Although it would simply be southbound to Stratford from Tottenham Hale, I believe that plan would have had grave effects on Leyton Orient FC, as their ground Brisbane Road is 700 yards away.

There are no london overground services from Euston on boxing day so that would make the platforms on the wembley chiltern lines very crowded.

If you park at west rusilip you can walk to Ickenham and take the metropolitan line there and back to wembley park.

Dont really need to be a brain dead uni graduate to work that one out

Wilts Wanderer said:

Interesting that the OP misunderstands the nature of the modern railway - it actually ISNT a public service, particularly on Boxing Day when no operator is obliged to run anything at all. Not saying this is right or wrong, but it is the reality of a franchised passenger operation.

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I think the modern railway ceased to be a 'public service' on the first day after privatisation. As soon as you make a monolith like BR or even Royal Mail a private operation, with profits going to shareholders, not taxpayers, it's hard to see how it can still be described in that old-fashioned way.

Even better you can park at ickenham station more cheaply than you can park at west ruislip station and hop on the tube to wembley park

adrock1976 said:

When the decision to rebuild White Hart Lane was made, did the FA and THFC ever think about groundsharing Ashburton Grove (even though it is the home of their fierce rivals Arsenal)?

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I seem to recall a mention of this, but assume the fans would have been very much against it.

As a Spurs fan I wouldn't have had a problem. The Emirates is a fantastic stadium (even if it has fewer seats than our new one, even after the expansion!).

I used to work for BA as customer facing and they run at heathrow 18/24 365/365 ,so dont patronise me on being a Uni of Life grad.

In fact the working rota was a bugger, but we accepted it 6 days on three off. No extras for working BH at all.l in fact my first weeks roata was Mon 23.00-07.00 (tues) Tues 15.00-23-00,Wed 15.00 23.00 Thurs 11.00.9.00 Fri 05.00-13.00 Sat 05.00-13-00. then Sat-Mon off starting again Tue with a 15.00-23.00. and so on. Three lates i mid day and two earlys. How many of you would willingly take that on..for 17k a year?
And abuse..you dont know the half of it.. the most common phrase was 'Dont you know who i am?' but give our then CEO credit, even he said if he turned up 5 secs after closing, .tell him to take the next service, and he would back us to the hilt on that.
The Monday all nights were once in a blue moon, BUT you still had to be in at 05.00 the same day ....yes an 8 hour break between shifts and my first Years rota meant i worked all over Easter, Xmas and New Year. Believe me Midnight at LHR on 31/12 is a real barrel of laughs .....NOT So dont tell me about sitting at home with you familys at Xmas you lot dont know you are born.
AND the free flights are a myth as well. It is 10% of the full fare, not what the public pay in discounts etc, plus we are last in the queue for seat allocation and it is our responsibility to get back for work on time, following a break.
As Regards Chiltern despite what some of the keyboard warriors on her say and think ,the crowd control at Wembley is second to none and i take my hat off to them However I might have thought that even doing a South Ruislip-Wembley- Marylebone shuttle to connect with the Central to take some load off Wembley Park with the obligatory 60+ minute shuffle, and i bet would get more revenue in from 11.00- 15.30 than all the passengers going to Bicester from Marylebone.( including the backhander/incentive/subsidy or whatever from the village) and the total working hours would be shorter..First service out say 10.30, last back from S Ruislip say 16.30 instead of the whole system being open from 08.00- 21.30 ( according to real time trains) And lets face it, you are going shopping, what is the best method of getting all you buy back home, carrying stacks of bags on/off train waiting up to 30 mins to get on a train,and lugging across car park, putting them in car and driving home..or just cutting out the train.and going on your timings and not a 30 min service? Even more insane if you go all the way into London and face the rest of the sheep spending all their money!!!
That is what i was trying to put across. uses 6 services at 10 min intervals ,less if you just cut back during the game, and 7 are needed for the Bicester run.

Still a Merry Xmas and happy New Year to all of you and thanks for some very interesting threads on here during the year. Well worth the reads

silverfoxcc said:

As Regards Chiltern despite what some of the keyboard warriors on her say and think ,the crowd control at Wembley is second to none and i take my hat off to them However I might have thought that even doing a South Ruislip-Wembley- Marylebone shuttle to connect with the Central to take some load off Wembley Park with the obligatory 60+ minute shuffle, and i bet would get more revenue in from 11.00- 15.30 than all the passengers going to Bicester from Marylebone.( including the backhander/incentive/subsidy or whatever from the village) and the total working hours would be shorter..First service out say 10.30, last back from S Ruislip say 16.30 instead of the whole system being open from 08.00- 21.30 ( according to real time trains) And lets face it, you are going shopping, what is the best method of getting all you buy back home, carrying stacks of bags on/off train waiting up to 30 mins to get on a train,and lugging across car park, putting them in car and driving home..or just cutting out the train.and going on your timings and not a 30 min service? Even more insane if you go all the way into London and face the rest of the sheep spending all their money!!!
That is what i was trying to put across. uses 6 services at 10 min intervals ,less if you just cut back during the game, and 7 are needed for the Bicester run.

Still a Merry Xmas and happy New Year to all of you and thanks for some very interesting threads on here during the year. Well worth the reads

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Two points:

1. My (limited) experience of people travelling between Marylebone and Bicester is that a significant proportion would not have access to a car, being visitors to this country.
2. Assuming that manning Boxing Day services is voluntary could Chiltern Trains find the volunteer drivers for these extra services?

6Gman said:

2. Assuming that manning Boxing Day services is voluntary could Chiltern Trains find the volunteer drivers for these extra services?

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Yes boxing day manning is purely voluntary and yes it can be difficult to find volunteers....

silverfoxcc said:

As Regards Chiltern despite what some of the keyboard warriors on her say and think ,the crowd control at Wembley is second to none and i take my hat off to them However I might have thought that even doing a South Ruislip-Wembley- Marylebone shuttle to connect with the Central to take some load off Wembley Park with the obligatory 60+ minute shuffle, and i bet would get more revenue in from 11.00- 15.30 than all the passengers going to Bicester from Marylebone.( including the backhander/incentive/subsidy or whatever from the village) and the total working hours would be shorter..First service out say 10.30, last back from S Ruislip say 16.30 instead of the whole system being open from 08.00- 21.30 ( according to real time trains) And lets face it, you are going shopping, what is the best method of getting all you buy back home, carrying stacks of bags on/off train waiting up to 30 mins to get on a train,and lugging across car park, putting them in car and driving home..or just cutting out the train.and going on your timings and not a 30 min service? Even more insane if you go all the way into London and face the rest of the sheep spending all their money!!!

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To run extra 'shuttle' services requires resourcing more crew. That isn't an easy call on Boxing Day, for the reasons already given. It's very expensive persuading people to spend their Christmas driving other people around whilst they enjoy theirs. The more trains you run, the more you increase the risk of somebody going sick and having cancellations. You require an expanded depot operation, to supply and service the trains. There is greater pressure on station staff. More trains to dispatch. More punters coming through gatelines and needing tickets. You may need an extra ticket office window or two to be staffed. Then you have to pay Network Rail the track access charges for those extra trains. Then you need to staff Wembley station. If you are dealing with football fans, there is a need to ensure safety. There is also a good chance there will be some idiots. The BTP may be less active than on a normal day if you need them. You may have to provide security. That is, all in all, a very sizeaeble expense.

The current trains run because an outside organisation pays for them. I'm sure if the relevant businesses within the football industry also wished to pay, a similar arrangement would be entirely possible.

On a different note, I know numerous ex-BA staff and all of them concur that nowadays they are an appalling company to work for, and by all accounts getting worse.

silverfoxcc said:

From a lay persons point of view, i wonder just how many brain cells people have.
Chiltern are running services Boxing Day

Yet someone has decided that no services will stop at Wembley Stadium.

Can anybody give me a logical reason why. After all it is a PUBLIC service. not a giant trainset for some brain dead uni graduate to play with.

I do speak from a personal viewpoint It will take me at least an hour to get from the ground to the platforma at Wembley Park or Wembley Central

I use the service , park at West Ruislip, and can be home in Bracknell within 75mins of leaving my seat in the Stadium.

I just cannot understand why? or is there some underlying reason why guys dont want a days o/t nowadays?

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In summary, "I'm not working over Christmas, but I want/expect others to work to provide for me."

A limited service provided for, and presumably funded by, Bicester Village simply can't take crowds to and from Wembley.

It's all very well suggesting paying overtime, but that assumes people want to do it. With railway salaries generally being high, a lot of people simply don't need or want the extra money to transport a load of ungratefuls (*) around.

(* Experience on LU suggests there can be quite a lot of trouble on Boxing Day, often either due to alcohol, or people getting the arse when they find a service they were expecting to use isn't running).

silverfoxcc said:

In fact the working rota was a bugger, but we accepted it 6 days on three off.

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3 days off in a row ? Your lucky. That's a rarity for me. Split rest days are a pain. We still have many single rest days in our roster.

No extras for working BH at all.

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Neither do I, nor Sundays, lates or any other time bonus.

l in fact my first weeks roata was Mon 23.00-07.00 (tues) Tues 15.00-23-00,Wed 15.00 23.00 Thurs 11.00.9.00 Fri 05.00-13.00 Sat 05.00-13-00. then Sat-Mon off starting again Tue with a 15.00-23.00. and so on. Three lates i mid day and two earlys. How many of you would willingly take that on..for 17k a year?

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I was working 70hrs a week for 15k and then switched to working 0630-1830 5 days a week for 17k

And abuse..you dont know the half of it.. the most common phrase was 'Dont you know who i am?'

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Overpaid C**t, W**K*R, I pay your wages, etc etc. been spat on and numerous hand gestures. Get the same abuse on this forum too.

BUT you still had to be in at 05.00 the same day ....yes an 8 hour break between shifts and my first Years rota meant i worked all over Easter, Xmas and New Year. Believe me Midnight at LHR on 31/12 is a real barrel of laughs .....NOT So dont tell me about sitting at home with you familys at Xmas you lot dont know you are born.

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I start at anywhere between 0330 and 0500 pretty much every alternate week and with a late week finishing between 01 and 02 in the morning. A single 30 minute break on a 9hr diagram and that's it.

Bank holiday ? HAHAHA I've worked every single bank holiday except Christmas and Boxing day. New years I'm either in on new years day or in on new years eve (sometimes both) taking drunks home on a crowded train really isn't fun either. Doing drunk taxi pretty much every Thursday/Friday/Saturday evening on a late shift and hoping to jebus there isn't another assault on your train just isn't the happy happy joy joy Thomas likes to sing about.

As long as Boxing Day is voluntary, you couldn't pay me enough to work.

silverfoxcc said:

However I might have thought that even doing a South Ruislip-Wembley- Marylebone shuttle to connect with the Central to take some load off Wembley Park with the obligatory 60+ minute shuffle, and i bet would get more revenue in from 11.00- 15.30 than all the passengers going to Bicester from Marylebone.

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You might very well have more passengers traveling Marylebone <-> Wembley Stadium than ? <-> Bicester Village, but the football fans will only be paying £9 return (or an Oyster fare), whereas the Oxfordshire shoppers are paying £25 return.
The Wembley services will be very 'tidal' (i.e. empty from Wembley before the match and empty to Wembley after the match), so each train + traincrew can really only 'earn' money for the company on about three trips before kick-off and three trips afterwards.
Contrast this with the Bicester services which will be taking both Londoners northwards to Bicester and Oxfordshire/Buckinghamshire passengers southwards - i.e. earning in both directions.

silverfoxcc said:

Uses 6 services at 10 min intervals ,less if you just cut back during the game, and 7 are needed for the Bicester run.

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But you still need to pay the traincrew, station and security staff to wait around while the match is on...

Since you've worked for BA, you'll know that one of the reasons why long-haul is more profitable than short-haul, is that larger planes tend to be in the air for longer each day and the turn-around times (non-earning) are generally short relative to the amount of time flying. (Shuttling back to and from Europe, a typical 737 or A320 might only spend 8-10 hours per day actually flying.) Again the same principle applies here, for reasonable reliability the Wembley services will need more-or-less the same amount of turn around time at each end as the Bicesters, but since the journeys are so short, the non-earning time as a percentage of traincrew shift is much larger.
Add this on to the fact that the Wembley services presumably need also to pay for the station and security operations at Marylebone and Wembley Stadium, and the fact that Bicester Village subsidises the longer runs, and you can very easily see why it doesn't make financial sense for Chiltern to run a dedicated Wembley shuttle on Boxing Day.

However if Spurs were to help ease the financial burden...

Skimpot flyer said:

I think the modern railway ceased to be a 'public service' on the first day after privatisation. As soon as you make a monolith like BR or even Royal Mail a private operation, with profits going to shareholders, not taxpayers, it's hard to see how it can still be described in that old-fashioned way.

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And British Rail were a public Service?? They were the ones who started not running on Boxing Day. I am not getting into the rights and wrongs of Privatisation, or Boxing Day services, but Boxing Day trains ceased running under British Rails tenure, it has nothing to do with privatisation, other than they have started running some again.

ComUtoR said:

3 days off in a row ? Your lucky. That's a rarity for me. Split rest days are a pain. We still have many single rest days in our roster.



Neither do I, nor Sundays, lates or any other time bonus.



I was working 70hrs a week for 15k and then switched to working 0630-1830 5 days a week for 17k



Overpaid C**t, W**K*R, I pay your wages, etc etc. been spat on and numerous hand gestures. Get the same abuse on this forum too.




I start at anywhere between 0330 and 0500 pretty much every alternate week and with a late week finishing between 01 and 02 in the morning. A single 30 minute break on a 9hr diagram and that's it.

Bank holiday ? HAHAHA I've worked every single bank holiday except Christmas and Boxing day. New years I'm either in on new years day or in on new years eve (sometimes both) taking drunks home on a crowded train really isn't fun either. Doing drunk taxi pretty much every Thursday/Friday/Saturday evening on a late shift and hoping to jebus there isn't another assault on your train just isn't the happy happy joy joy Thomas likes to sing about.

As long as Boxing Day is voluntary, you couldn't pay me enough to work.

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since when did this thread turn into a "I have the worst job" competition?

Searle said:

since when did this thread turn into a "I have the worst job" competition?

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Probably because someone posted a sob story about how hard done by they are because their argument about bank holiday services was being slowly destroyed.

For clarity. I love my job.

Deafdoggie said:

And British Rail were a public Service?? They were the ones who started not running on Boxing Day. I am not getting into the rights and wrongs of Privatisation, or Boxing Day services, but Boxing Day trains ceased running under British Rails tenure, it has nothing to do with privatisation, other than they have started running some again.

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BR must have made that decision due to union pressure, surely running a limited service must be profitable? An infrequent service of long trains with no non essential staff must be profitable on some lines.

Grand Central and Hull Trains could make good money by running their absolute maximum capacity on boxing day and heavily advertising their own tickets. Whether their staff would be prepared to work boxing day is a different matter!

Deafdoggie said:

And British Rail were a public Service?? They were the ones who started not running on Boxing Day. I am not getting into the rights and wrongs of Privatisation, or Boxing Day services, but Boxing Day trains ceased running under British Rails tenure, it has nothing to do with privatisation, other than they have started running some again.

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It probably started with the need for extended closures for maintenance. I believe London underground still runs boxing day even over sections of NR Track.

Chester1 said:

BR must have made that decision due to union pressure, surely running a limited service must be profitable? An infrequent service of long trains with no non essential staff must be profitable on some lines.

Grand Central and Hull Trains could make good money by running their absolute maximum capacity on boxing day and heavily advertising their own tickets. Whether their staff would be prepared to work boxing day is a different matter!

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Boxing Day is anything but profitable running as a train service. As Chiltern found out.

One other reason for Chiltern not calling at Wembley on Boxing Day is the need to have a dozen or so staff there, no doubt at a significant premium, to manage the crowds.

With London area fares being set centrally, and Oyster/Contactless being valid, I can guarantee they wouldn't cover their costs even if every train stopping at Wembley was a wedged eight car.

silverfoxcc said:

From a lay persons point of view, i wonder just how many brain cells people have.
Chiltern are running services Boxing Day

Yet someone has decided that no services will stop at Wembley Stadium.

Can anybody give me a logical reason why. After all it is a PUBLIC service. not a giant trainset for some brain dead uni graduate to play with.

I do speak from a personal viewpoint It will take me at least an hour to get from the ground to the platforma at Wembley Park or Wembley Central

I use the service , park at West Ruislip, and can be home in Bracknell within 75mins of leaving my seat in the Stadium.

I just cannot understand why? or is there some underlying reason why guys dont want a days o/t nowadays?

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Well I am a brain dead Uni Graduate and I'll be working Chrimbo Day and Boxing Day, thanks for the compliment. The railways aren't a public service, they are a business these days. If you don't like it speak to your MP and make sure you vote.

fowler9 said:

you don't like it speak to your MP and make sure you vote.

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Totteringham are owned by one of the UK's richest men, with a net worth of more than US$5bn. I'm sure he could find some money to pay to shuttle a few Spuds around if he wanted to. Obviously he doesn't want to. He doesn't want to pay tax in the UK either, come to mention it.

Compare and contrast with the north east, where Newcastle United paid to keep the Metro running later on Boxing Day when their home game was scheduled to kick off at 5.30pm.

If Chiltern are given enough cash they'll run a train. Bicester Village show them the money. Tottenham Hotspur just whine about how unfair it is.

ComUtoR said:

Probably because someone posted a sob story about how hard done by they are because their argument about bank holiday services was being slowly destroyed.

For clarity. I love my job.

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Glad to hear it. I love my job too

Bald Rick said:

Boxing Day is anything but profitable running as a train service. As Chiltern found out.

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But profitable enough that they are running trains?

Starmill said:

But profitable enough that they are running trains?

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No, as many of us have posted, they are being paid to run them by Bicester Village.

Arctic Troll said:

If Chiltern are given enough cash they'll run a train. Bicester Village show them the money.

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Exactly!! I wonder if c2c have ever tried to persuade Lakeside Shopping Centre to sponsor a Boxing Day service from Liverpool Street via Stratford (for Westfield) and Chafford Hundred to Grays and Tilbury...? I suspect that making this work financially would be even harder for c2c than it is for Chiltern, given that the stations west of Upminster are covered by the Underground (which would be fully operational on 26th Dec) and are within the Oyster zone (meaning they have less control over the fare box). I would also imagine that rail travellers make up a much smaller proportion of Lakeside's customers than at Bicester Village. (If c2c had made an approach, one suspects that Lakeside might have told them to get lost...)

The Planner said:

No, as many of us have posted, they are being paid to run them by Bicester Village.

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I know. So Bicester Village are keeping all of their fares revenue for the day and paying the costs of operating the service? Chiltern are still stopping at places that aren't Bicester Village so there is still clearly significant revenue in that which forms part of the deal. I can't imagine a shopping centre would want to be on the hook for their entire costs, even for one day.

Starmill said:

I can't imagine a shopping centre would want to be on the hook for their entire costs, even for one day.

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It's unlikely they are. But Bicester Village will be paying the difference between revenue and cost. Without their money Chiltern wouldn't run a service. Which pretty much implies that the service isn't profitable without the subsidy.

Starmill said:

I know. So Bicester Village are keeping all of their fares revenue for the day and paying the costs of operating the service? Chiltern are still stopping at places that aren't Bicester Village so there is still clearly significant revenue in that which forms part of the deal. I can't imagine a shopping centre would want to be on the hook for their entire costs, even for one day.

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To be fair, The first year Chiltern did it, they did it at their own risk. Lost a stack of cash.

Hence why Bicester Village chip in. I don't know the details of the deal, but would be very surprised if they are paying the full cost of running the service, they will just be making a contribution.

Running anything in Oyster territory - without an agreement on cost recovery - is a receipe for disaster ..

To be fair - first Franchise Thameslink for a couple of years ran a half hourly St Pancras to Bedford , which was actually quite well patronised - but Luton Airport paid zero - but it's passengers appreciated it. Very tricky.

Starmill said:

I know. So Bicester Village are keeping all of their fares revenue for the day and paying the costs of operating the service? Chiltern are still stopping at places that aren't Bicester Village so there is still clearly significant revenue in that which forms part of the deal. I can't imagine a shopping centre would want to be on the hook for their entire costs, even for one day.

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If you had taken as much heat as Bicester Village did from the residents of Bicester about being trapped in their homes due to roads in all directions being clogged with traffic all day and cars left parked anywhere and everywhere - and from the emergency services about not being able to get through traffic jams - for several years on Boxing Days when there weren't any trains running, Bicester Village's management is happy to foot the bill for a day if it helps to persuade a lot of people to leave their cars at their local station miles away from Bicester, or at Oxford Parkway.

Most of the traffic will be, as per usual, out from London to Bicester Village and then back again - or park-and-ride from Oxford Parkway. The intermediate stops, and any revenue generated at them, aren't that important in the overall scheme of things.