LONDON Underground bosses brought in a controversial new Metropolitan Line timetable despite warnings from Tube drivers that they were making a huge mistake, a public meeting heard.

Met driver Paul Johnson told 70 residents in Chesham Town Hall last Thursday that managers had ignored their pleas that the controversial 315 timetable, brought in last May without consultation, would not work.

Residents are convinced the timetable has added to existing problems although Tube bosses deny it is the problem.

Mr Johnson said: "We don't get asked what we think of the service. We just get given a timetable we don't have any say in what happens. You cannot cover on the 315 timetable if there's trouble anywhere."

Mr Johnson said drivers had met their line managers and called for the new timetable which cut off peak services from Amersham in half to be scrapped in favour of a 15 minute service. They were told train times for the next two years were set in stone.

He added: "At the meeting, the line controllers and the duty operations manager agreed with all the problems on the 315 and our solutions, but said we can't change the timetable. The timetable for this year has already been written. We know it's wrong and we can't change it."

Tube bosses admitted at Thursday's meeting that the Met line services from Amersham and Chesham was "a tired railway" and they offered only a few crumbs of comfort for the immediate future.

Met line service manager Kevin Hafter said: "I could sit here for some time giving you a long list of incidents and failures since the timetable came in some you will be familiar with.

"It is the case that the Met Line is relatively unreliable - in the overall scheme of things it's not a reliable railway at the moment."

"The equipment is in broad terms clapped out but it's perfectly safe. The track is rough because of the old lower speed single track. But it doesn't have very high priority for replacement."

Passengers spent an hour and a half complaining of a poor service which had left many with no option but to boycott the Chesham shuttle service.