Gerrards Cross: line reopening this weekend

[Mojo]

From the Chiltern Website: -

We’re delighted to inform you that it has now been declared safe to run trains through the tunnel at Gerrards Cross.
Network Rail are currently replacing the track and signalling that was damaged when the tunnel collapsed.
Once this work has been completed and all equipment has been tested, we’ll be able to operate our normal timetabled service again.

We’re hoping that the first trains will run through Gerrards Cross on Saturday 20 August.

Please keep a lookout for further updates later this week to find out how work is progressing. We'll be producing separate information about exactly what caused the tunnel to collapse, what has been done to make it safe again, and what is planned for the future.

Oh well, guess the people of Aylesbury have to put up with a shoddy service again.

 

[Nick]

Last time I went to Aylesbury it was an every 20 minute service ex. Marylebone. Not bad at all!

 

[jonb]

I'll believe it when I see it trust me the whole site is a dump!

 

[Mojo]

Last time I went to Aylesbury it was an every 20 minute service ex. Marylebone. Not bad at all!

Service levels are good enough Mon-Sat, but crowding & timekeeping were never like that.
Chiltern don't seem to care about running a service on the Aylesbury line, probably because they are trying to milk as much money off the High Wycombe line as possible.
We* have asked for many years for faster services to London, missing out LU stops, or even better, some stations like Stoke Mandeville, and been fobbed off with excuses that they can't. This just proves they can do it.
Chiltern believe that they are the bees-knees, and that they are not. They are expensive (true, not as costly as Virgin & some other TOCs in some occasions), they have probably the rudest staff I have came across, their trains are crowded and often delayed on the Aylesbury line.
Plus, at a recent 'Meet the Manager' session at Marylebone, the managers were spurting out such rubbish propaganda, my mum even said to them: "It sounds like you're just talking a crock of (bad word)." Greeted by an applause from other commuters, and my mum NEVER gets angry at anyone.
They announce the platforms at Marylebone for the Aylesbury services about 3 minutes before the train leaves, met by a rush down the platform, there is no reason for this, especially as if you go into the announcers office you can see the platform anyways, which is what I do whenever I have the misfortune to travel with them. If Silverlink can manage to announce it quickly at Euston, why can't Chiltern? That's why, whenever I can, I always get the train to Tring from London, whenever I can when I go to see my parents.

* I say "we" because my mum still travels on the line almost daily to London, and when I lived in Aylesbury, I used to travel with them quite frequently.

Right, sorry about that, rant over.