Chiltern Railways replaced a legally required 'parly' train with a once-a-week ghost bus

Parliamentary trains, or 'parly' trains, stem from the Railway Regulation Act 1844, which obliged private companies to offer a cheap minimum service for working people. Operators often ran a single train to keep complying, because formally closing a rail route takes months or even years, according to a bus-industry blogger quoted by the BBC.

On a route between West Ealing and West Ruislip, Chiltern Railways ended the train in December 2022 and replaced it with a bus that runs once a week at 11:17. It is one-way, takes 25 minutes, is six minutes slower than the train, and has no advertised timetable. Metroline operates it for Chiltern.

The BBC visited in January 2024 with five passengers aboard. Chiltern says the bus costs significantly less than the train and the driver training, and frees train crew for its main London-Birmingham-Aylesbury-Oxford services.

Meet the legal minimum with a cheap bus run in spare capacity, not a train, and keep the route technically open.

The legal duty was to provide a service, not necessarily a train.

Closing the route would take months or years.

Metroline runs the bus between peak work, so it uses spare vehicle and driver time.

A similar service that ended in 2009 reportedly cost about 500 pounds a day by train.

When a rule demands a token service, deliver the cheapest form that complies instead of fighting the rule or paying full cost.

As of January 2024 the bus was still running a year later. Chiltern would not give an exact cost. The blogger said it is run 'at the margin', with a driver who also works in an office, and expects it to stay. Some weeks nobody rides, and the BBC called it perhaps Britain's most bizarre route.