Chiltern Railways - Services

Services

Chiltern operates services on five routes:

• Chiltern Main Line
• London to Aylesbury Line
• Princes Risborough to Aylesbury Line
• Leamington to Stratford Line
• Oxford to Bicester Line

The "core" off-peak Chiltern Railways timetable is currently as follows:

• Half-hourly London Marylebone - Aylesbury via Amersham stopping service
• Hourly London Marylebone - High Wycombe stopping service
• Hourly London Marylebone - Princes Risborough stopping service
• Half-hourly London Marylebone - Birmingham Moor Street via High Wycombe fast and semi-fast service, extended to Birmingham Snow Hill hourly
• Hourly London Marylebone - Bicester North via High Wycombe semi-fast service (extended to Stratford-upon-Avon in even hours)
• Selected times between Oxford and Bicester Town via Islip

Chiltern Railways runs once a day service to London Paddington to maintain traincrew route knowledge (as the route is regularly used for diversions during periods of engineering work), from Oxford to Banbury and from Stratford-upon-Avon to Oxford.

The London Marylebone to Birmingham Snow Hill route used by Chiltern Railways goes via High Wycombe, Bicester, Banbury, Leamington Spa, Warwick Parkway, Dorridge and Solihull.

Off-peak trains between London and Birmingham operate every half-hour. The fastest timetabled journey from Birmingham to London via this route is 90 minutes (compared with 82 minutes using Virgin Trains' services between Birmingham New Street and London Euston).

Some peak-hour Chiltern services continue beyond Birmingham Snow Hill to Stourbridge Junction or Kidderminster.

The line to Aylesbury Vale Parkway via Amersham runs alongside London Underground's Metropolitan Line between Finchley Road) and Harrow-on-the-Hill, with each operator running on separate tracks, then shares the tracks with Metropolitan Line services. This is the only situation where National Rail services use non Network Rail tracks and it uses a unique unregulated track access agreement with London Underground.

On certain Bank Holiday Mondays, services are extended from Aylesbury to the Buckinghamshire Railway Heritage Centre facilities at Quainton Road, a short way south of Verney Junction. These services are often run by one of Chiltern's two Class 121s.

A shuttle service operates on the branch line between Aylesbury and Princes Risborough on the line to Birmingham via High Wycombe. Certain services from Marylebone via High Wycombe also provide a limited through service to Aylesbury.

In December 2004 Chiltern Railways took over operation of passenger services on the Leamington Spa to Stratford-upon-Avon branch line from First Great Western Link.

In May 2011 Chiltern took over operating services on the Oxford to Bicester Line from First Great Western.