A regional public transport watchdog says it has had a disappointing response from the rail industry in an attempt to reverse cuts in services on the West Midlands busiest route.
It now seems certain that passengers will be left with fewer and more overcrowded trains on the line between Birmingham New Street, Birmingham International and Coventry from the end of this month.
Following a summit meeting called by the West Midlands Passenger Transport Authority, the rail industry had been given a week to suggest ways of plugging gaps in the critical service to the Airport and NEC. In a joint response Network Rail, the Strategic Rail Authority and train operating companies have proposed one extra relief train to be on stand-by for off-peak services on Monday to Friday, although this would not be shown in the regular timetable. They are also hoping to reschedule a few other services to create a gap for two extra passenger services on Saturday afternoon.
“These are small gains, but they do nothing to address the major problem of big gaps in the service,” comments PTA Chairman Cllr Gary Clarke. “We are still left with the situation where the turn-up-and-go service linking Birmingham with the Airport, NEC and Coventry will effectively disappear.”
“At the meeting we called, the rail industry was left in no doubt about the strength of opinion and we presented some forceful arguments on behalf of the travelling public. We will now need to keep up that pressure to work for a longer term solution if the West Coast Main Line works are to live up to the claim of delivering a better railway.”
Cllr Clarke blamed poor planning by the rail industry which has led to the current crisis. It is understood there had been an assurance from Network Rail that postponing the construction of a new crossover at Birmingham International would not hold up the introduction of the heralded new weekday timetable. The works had been rescheduled during an exercise to control costs on the £7.6 billion project.
Network Rail then decided it would be too risky to introduce the new timetable after all, forcing train operators into a hasty re-write. Centro, the regional body which coordinates public transport and represents local interests then raised serious concerns about reductions in service and alerted councillors on its policy-setting body, the PTA.
Centro points to gaps in the now-proposed timetable with the axing of one airport train per hour on Monday to Friday and the loss of thousands of seats on Saturdays.
The changes mean that on weekdays there will be three departures from New Street in six minutes, followed by a 24 minute gap. On Saturdays there are two big gaps every hour, along with a 40 per cent reduction in the number of seats. In reality the capacity reduction will be even more severe for much of the day, as one of the two Virgin services per hour starts back in Manchester – so it will already be carrying London-bound passengers and could be crowded by the time it reaches Birmingham, where more people would want to get on.
Centro fears the overcrowding could lead to platform closures at New Street and staff trying to persuade angry passengers to get off overloaded trains before services can run – causing even more delays.
Installing new points at Birmingham International is not now expected to start until next summer, meaning the promised improved service on weekdays will not be able to operate before the December 2005 timetable change. Following the PTA/Centro ‘summit’ the industry has taken another look at the plans but Network Rail says an earlier start date is “not achievable given the current state of progress”.
On Saturdays, the line between Birmingham and Coventry is busy with diverted long-distance services which have been diverted because of long-term engineering works elsewhere on the network. This has taken away “paths” that could have been allocated to trains serving the Airport/NEC and could remain a problem until 2008 when the Rugby to Stafford main line upgrade work is completed.
“In the meantime, we fear the timetable is just not going to work,” says Cllr Clarke. “The West Coast upgrade was supposed to be leading to more trains between Birmingham and the NEC/Airport, not fewer. After building up a high-frequency service which is a valuable asset to the regional economy, all that progress could be lost – and the railway will lose passengers with it.”
“It seems that our pressure has at least created a more active dialogue between the various rail industry bodies – we just have to persuade them to turn talks into action,” he adds.
He said Centro and the PTA would be keeping a very close eye on the situation, with constant monitoring of performance once the new timetable takes effect. There is constant dialogue with the rail industry, but he would call another special meeting if that became necessary.
"We do appreciate the hard work that has been put in by Central Trains to help try and solve these problems on our behalf and are disappointed that their proposed solutions have, to date, not been accepted by Network Rail," he adds.
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