The usually excellent Chiltern Railways services that we benefit from at Met Line stations are disrupted for the next two weeks, due to engineering work for their "Mainline" project.

Unfortunately the Mainline project doesn't deliver any benefits for the Chiltern service to Aylesbury via Amersham, but it will decrease journey times for customers on the Marylebone - Wycombe - Banbury - Birmingham line. All the pain, and no gain on the Met Line (as usual).

Anyway, the Chiltern service over the Met Line is (in summary):

• Weekend 13th and 14th August
  Hourly shuttle between Aylesbury and Amersham and connecting service onto Met Line at Amersham.
• Week Monday 15th to Friday 19th August
  Peak Hour trains between Aylesbury and Harrow on the Hill, connecting service onto Met Line at Harrow.
  Off Peak half-hourly shuttle between Aylesbury and Amersham and connecting service on the Met Line at Amersham.
• Weekend 20th and 21st August
  Hourly shuttle between Aylesbury and Amersham and connecting service onto Met Line at Amersham or bus to Beaconsfield for connecting service to London Paddington
• Week Monday 22nd to Friday 26th August
  Services are restored to Aylesbury via Amersham to London Marylebone but run to an ammended timetable.
  Met line Chiltern services may be busier than usual as Chiltern are running bus services to stations Aylesbury to Amersham from blockaded Mainline stations.
  
• Saturday 27th August
  Services are running Aylesbury via Amersham to London Marylebone but run to an ammended timetable
  Met line Chiltern services may be busier than usual as Chiltern are running bus services to stations Aylesbury to Amersham from blockaded Mainline stations.
  
• Sunday 28th August and Monday 29th August
  Chiltern engineering works complete but now no services between Amersham and London Marylebone due to TfL engineering work at Harrow on the Hill. Met Line also closed.

The best place to get more information on these works is the Chiltern Railways Changes to Train times page, as well as TfL for the Bank Holiday weekend works.

Note that not all online timetabling systems may be able to cope with the changes to the train times, and you're advised to use the PDF timetables on the Chiltern Railways website to check the exact details of train times.

Shire Lane in Chorleywood will be closed between Hillside Road and Lower Road during the daytime on Thursday 14th July to enable Buzby (BT) to replace telegraph poles in the road. The closure will start from 9.30am and will hopefully be complete by 4.30pm.

Hertfordshire Highways have advised that they're finally going to try and do something to sort out the potholed excuse of a road that is known as Station Approach, Chorleywood.

The road is due to be resurfaced on Sunday 10th July, Sunday 17th July and Sunday 24th July 2011, during which time the road will be closed. Due to the importance of Station approach the works are being undertaken on a Sunday to minimise inconvenience to the village, hence why the work is staggered over 3 weekends.

Every person in Britain is currently being consulted on the Government's proposals for the extension of a High Speed Rail network (HS2). With less than 2 months left to respond to the consultation (the closing date is 29 July 2011) a new website has been launched to help people find information and get involved in the HS2 rail consultation before it is too late to have their say.

The new website www.51m.co.uk has been set up by the 51m group who are the thirteen councils that have come together to challenge the evidence base about the HS2 project. They are known as “51m” because that represents how much HS2 will cost each and every Parliamentary Constituency…£51million. The 51m group want to emphasise the impact this proposed scheme will have on every taxpayer in the country for years to come.

The 51m website clearly sets out the position of councils and other organisations across the country on HS2. It also includes the detailed and comprehensive submissions about High Speed Rail made to the Transport Select Committee this month. Now published, these can be used by any individual, group or council to inform their own consultation responses to HS2.

The website also has a simple facility for people across the whole country to use so they can write to their local MP and tell them how they feel about the proposed HS2 project which will cost the nation £33billion. All they have to do is type in their postcode and follow the instructions on screen.

The website also has links to debates about HS2 on Facebook - find us at 51m_HS2project and tweets on Twitter @51m_HS2project.

Hertfordshire Highways have advised that Heronsgate Road will be closed between Stag Lane and Shire Lane from the 4th to 8th April during the daytime to facilitate road resurfacing. To see the letter issues by the Highways office to local residents, please click here

This is one of the last items from a wish list of proactive road works the Residents' Assocation submitted to the Joint Highways panel in early 2010 to try to bring some focus on some of the worst roads in our local area. We've seen improvements to a number of other local roads such as Whitelands Ave and New Parade, Long Lane, Green Street, Stag Lane, Shepherds Lane and Lower Road, among others.

We would encourage residents to continue to proactively report highways faults, either by using the Online Highway Fault reporting tool, or by calling 0300 123 4047.

Network Rail is currently rolling out a new digital Railway Communications System (RCS) across Britain’s rail network. This will allow direct, continuous and secure communication between train driver and signaller, which will considerably improve safety, reliability and punctuality for all passengers. RCS is replacing the existing legacy system, Cab Secure Radio (CSR), which is outdated, does not provide the required coverage and is becoming increasingly more expensive to maintain. This new network is solely for the delivery of the Railway Communications System and will not be used by commercial mobile telecoms operators.

In order to implement the new system, around 2,200 railway communications masts are required, one of which is needed near Croxley Green and one near Chorleywood station to provide 100% coverage on this section of the Chilterns line. The siting of any communications mast is sensitive. Before a site is selected they consider a number of factors:

• maintaining the required coverage to enable direct, continuous and secure communication between train driver and signaller;
• visual impact on the surrounding area – making use of existing tree cover;
• minimising vegetation removal;
• proximity to residential properties and sensitive land uses;
• available Transport for London (TfL) land;
• access to a secure power supply; and
• safely accessible during both the construction phase and when the site is operational to enable maintenance of the site.

The sites

Over recent months Network Rail has been investigating a number of possible locations for the railway communications masts and equipment cabins in the area.  During this time they have held a meeting with planning officers at Three Rivers Council about these proposals.  Following this and after a number of site investigations they have identified two sites that fit their criteria.  These are:

Croxley Green: just west of the intersection of the Chilterns line and Grand Union canal a 20m lattice mast is proposed.  Please click here to see a PDF document detailing a map with the proposed location indicated by an “X.”

Chorleywood: approximately 230 metres east of Chorleywood station platform a 20m monopole mast is proposed.  Please click here see a PDF document detailing a map with the proposed location indicated by an “X.”

Each location was chosen for the following reasons:

• the required level of radio coverage is provided;
• the visual impact of the site on nearby properties has been minimised;
• it is an acceptable site for TfL – Network Rail needs to acquire land from TfL, and;
• there is safe access for both construction and maintenance.

Network Rail are planning “drop-in” sessions, attended by members of the project team, to be held towards the end of March and they will invite local residents through a leaflet drop over the next couple of weeks. If you have any queries or would like be briefed on these proposals please do not hesitate to contact Simon Hopkins/Communications Executive directly on 020 3356 8727 or email: Simonhopkins2@networkrail.co.uk

Whilst the snowfall comes as an early Christmas present for those of us who can enjoy the local environment and walk around or sledge, residents are encouraged to look our for our local neighbours during bad weather. Please think to check on those who are less able to look after themselves, or who may be stuck in their homes. If you feel able to, consider clearing the path to your front door, and possibly the path outside your home.

Read the advice on the Hertsdirect website on Salt Bins and Snow clearing advice - contrary to recent concern over liability for clearing a public path it has been stated by the Department for Transport

"There is no law stopping you from clearing snow and ice on the pavement outside your property, pathways to your property or public spaces."

"If an accident did happen, it's highly unlikely that you would be sued as long as you are careful and use common sense to make sure that you don't make the pavement or pathway clearly more dangerous than before. People using areas affected by snow and ice also have responsibility to be careful themselves."

You can also find what Hertfordshire Highways are doing for local roads. You can see their news feed of Salting Decisions and more general information about Salting in Hertfordsire and the routes that are targetted first. The A404 Rickmansworth and Chorleywood road will be the one local road that gets priority, most other local roads will be untreated until the Highways authority can cascade the resources from the primary routes to secondary routes in our community.

Local trains are running, albeit to an emmended and emergency timetable - see TFL or Chiltern Railways for more information. Local bus services are also distrupted, see Intalink and contact the operator of the bus service for further advice.

If you really need to drive, take a look at advice on how to prepare for your journey - the BBC News website has articles from January and December on how to drive in snow. And make sure you prepare your car with essential tools and basic rations - snacks and drinks in case you get stuck.

The campaign against HS2 (High Speed 2 - the proposed high-speed rail line that will cut through the Chilterns) is growing apace.

As we wrote back in March in our Transport News, the government's announced preferred route is following the Misbourne Valley, and although the impact to part of the Chilterns that we're closest to in Chorleywood is being minimised by the rail line being tunnelled  - at some considerable depth in most circumstances - if this proposed route is accepted as the actual route there will be considerable impact on the local area immediately around Chorleywood will be during the construction phase - suggested to be from 2017 to 2025. But the beautiful Chiltern countryside north of Amersham will be blighted, and places like Wendover will have HS2 passing above the village on a viaduct.

Remembering that HS2 offers nothing to our area - the high speed trains won't be stopping anywhere to pick up or set down passengers, the Residents' Association encourages its members to update themselves on the implications of the HS2 to our local area. Although there's no direct impact to Chorleywood there's likely to be local disruption during construction.

For more information

• Consult our original article back in March on HS2 wich has links to the Government HS2 scheme information
  
• Read the views of the Stop HS2 group on their website
• Also read more about the scheme on the HS2 Action Alliance website

We would encourage everyone to sign the Stop HS2 Petition
Is this the kind of development we need right now when the country can least afford it?