Virgin plans London rail link
Monday 23rd February 2009, 5:00PM GMT.
Shropshire travellers could be set for a boost after proposals for another direct rail link to London were revealed.
Virgin Trains has put in a bid to Network Rail to run two services daily each way between Shrewsbury and London Euston.
The proposed service – which would call at Wellington and Telford before going via Walsall, Wolverhampton and Nuneaton – would take just over two hours 45 minutes.
Shropshire travellers could be set for a boost after proposals for another direct rail link to London were revealed.
Virgin Trains has put in a bid to Network Rail to run two services daily each way between Shrewsbury and London Euston.
The proposed service – which would call at Wellington and Telford before going via Walsall, Wolverhampton and Nuneaton – would take just over two hours 45 minutes.
The county’s direct rail link to London was restored in April last year when train operator Wrexham & Shropshire began its service to London Marylebone. It runs five trains each way per day, from Wrexham to London. In December, Arriva Trains Wales revealed it was looking at restoring an old route to provide three trains a day between Aberystwyth and London Marylebone, via Shrewsbury, Wellington and Telford.
Ken Gibbs, Virgin Trains spokesman, said the firm was preparing a business case for the service which could be up and running by December if all goes to plan.
It wants to run trains leaving Shrewsbury at 6.42am, which would arrive at 9.30am, and 1.42pm, and two leaving Euston at 10.33am and 5.46pm. Mr Gibbs said Network Rail would decide on the proposal “within the next couple of months”.
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What’s the betting they wouldn’t have bothered with this had Wrexham & Shropshire not taken the risk and demonstrated there’s a market for it?
My prediction: they’ll gain a couple of slots for peak time travel but won’t be interested in running services at any other times. They’ll use their strong market position and cut throat ticket pricing tactics to oust W&S, who will then be forced to withdraw altogether, taking the other times with them, leaving Shropshire rail users with, effectively, zero choice when it comes to direct travel to London. Oh, and when they’ve seen off the competition they’ll bump their prices up to astronomical levels.
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Hope you can afford the fares !
It’s probably cheaper to go to London by taxi than a Virgin Train.
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That’s priceless – W&S must be quaking (not) – anyone who has tried the W&S service knows that Virgin couldn’t run a bath in comparison. Their new service may be a few minutes quicker but the service will not be as good, the tickets will probably be more expensive and Euston is a filthy overcrowded dump. Unlike Marylebone which is an altogether more enjoyable way to arrive in London.
Where have you been for the last how many years Virgin?? I hope the passengers of Shropshire treat this new service the contempt it deserves!
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Amazing how Virgin can suddenly come up with proposals like these just because they want to try and spike the growth of Wrexham and Shropshire – which is a FAR superior service.
Previously, Virgin haven’t wanted to know or have been lukewarm at best. The best option for increased services to London would be an increase in the number of Wrexham and Shropshire trains, not Virgin’s second-rate service!
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First Arriva Trains Wales & now Virgin want to introduce a Direct London Service. London Midland Railways will want to introduce one next!! Funny that before WSMR actually did something about operating a direct Shropshire – London service neither ATW or Virgin could be bothered to do so. Maybe ATW & Virgin (who by the way said there was no justification for a direct service from Shropshire & no one would use WSMR) have been taken by surprise at how well WSMR are doing. It’ll be interesting to see what rolling stock they will use, probably ‘Voyager’ units as I can’t see them dragging ‘Pendo’s’ with Diesel Locos between Nuneaton & Shrewsbury as it’ll present the same issues that INTERCITY & Virgin had in the 1990′s with run-rounds at Shrewsbury & attaching & detaching at Nuneaton etc.
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why not extend the service to aberystwyth and bring back the cambrian coast express. it is 150 years when cambrian railways began at llanidloes
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It wont happen, Virgin Trains use overhead electric cables aswell as being diesel, why do they run at wolverhampton and then go to stafford, because they cant run on the line to Telford and Shrewsbury, and there is to many trains on the Telford line, theres just going to be delays, why have 2 direct services to London when another service offers 5 per day and are quicker, who wants to go to nuneaton and walsall, why dont just change at wolverhampton or birmingham, it would work out quicker, and with the Donnington terminal, trains will be using the same line to change at wellington, all delays, prices will go up because of the delays, stick with WSMR, they are the better option and quicker one aswell.
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why do they all want to do the same routes?
give us some flexibility e.g. one that stops at Birmingham international instead of all trying to do the same thing!
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London Marylebone is not on the same route as London Euston. Marylebone uses the Chiltern Line(the old GWR northen main line) & Euston uses the West Coast Main line.
There is plenty of capacity between Shrewsbury bury & Wolverhampton – enough in fact for an extra 1 or 2 passenger trains an hour so long as they only call at Telford & Wellington.
As the Junction for the Donnington freight line faces west freight trains (4 a day proposed) will only utilise the section to & from Wellington to Shrewsbury which only amounts to a 10-15 minute section timing.
The route from Wolverhampton to Walsall & then onto Nuneaton via the ‘freight only’ (at the moment) Sutton Park line also has plenty of capacity. The Capacity issues are on the Wolverhampton – Birmingham New St – International – Coventry route (otherwise know as the ‘Stour Valley route’)& this is the route that this new service will avoid. (As does WSMR for most of it aswell.)
Virgin Trains cannot practiclly operate to Aberystwyth (or anywhere on the Cambrian west of Shrewsbury) because none of their trains are equipped with the current RETB signalling equipment or the forthcoming new ERTMS equipment – only ATW have regular passenger units that are so equipped.
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NO WAY – Got to be the telford lot who have done this !
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This is typical bully boy tactics …
For years both Arriva and Virgin have been petitioned for direct services from North Wales and Shrewsbury to London with absolutely NO interest.
They fought hard to prevent the new service by WSMR stating that there was no requirement and no business case for such services …
Now that WSMR are up and running with onboard service that Arriva and Virgin can only hope to immitate they suddenly think the people of the marches deserve not one but three services …
Words fail me … well they don’t, but they’re unprintable …
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great news
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Wrexham and Shropshire for me every time. Decent service, helpful staff and Marylebone is so much nicer than the overcrowded hell hole that is Euston.
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you can thank your conservative MP for championing this
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Write to the Rail Regulator and object to Virgin’s proposals. (Office of Rail Regulation, One Kemble Street, London WC2B 4AN)
Tell the Regulator that he must not grant Virgin the rights to run this service, and instead instruct other operators and Network Rail to work effectively with Wrexham and Shropshire to improve the journey times for the W&S services, and to improve connections into W&S services. That way, W&S will gain enough extra traffic to justify additional services (every two hours?) to London. Which is what Shropshire really needs.
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from my experience with Virgin trains, there rubbish, yes they may have fast trains, and are nearly on time, but there are never any seats, people will proberly use the new service for getting to walsall or nuneaton, but who goes there anyway, and the times of these trains dont really seem that suitable, who is going to get up at 5am to catch a train for 6am, I would rather get up at 7am to catch a 8am WSMR train that gets there for near enough the same time, and not worry about getting a train home late in the evening. Virgin, stop where you are, next you will want to buy telford central train station of london midland and shrewsbury off arriva.
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BJONES: I might be wrong because I am usually half asleep at the time, but I have used WSMR a few times now and I think it goes through New Steet, International and Coventry (without stopping) and does not avoid that part of the route at all..
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gerg, what on earth are you talking about? “Got to be the telford lot who have done this.” What makes you think that? The WSMR service benefits people in Telford as well, it’s not just for people from Wrexham and Shrewsbury, despite what the name of the operator says. I suppose it was we “Telford lot” who somehow had the name of your town kept off signs on the M54 too, was it? Keep your anti-Telford snobbery where it belongs.
It’ll be commercial interests that have pushed Virgin to do this, and they are only proposals at the moment, nothing more. One thing you’ll learn about Mr Branson’s modus operandi is that what he says he is going to do frequently fails to match up to what he actually does. Just a few months ago he was telling everyone how he would run hospitals and sort out MRSA & c.diff rates, but I’d suggest he needs to resolve issues in his existing businesses before taking on any more. He has also created a stir with the suggestion that he might enter the world of Formula 1 and buy the Honda outfit, but another comment I read said only that he had said “he’d like to do it one day” and that it was “as likely not to happen as it was to happen”. It doesn’t matter now if this doesn’t happen, the publicity it has generated ensures the Virgin name has been placed in the public consciousness once more.
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Make sure you all write to your MP with your views, its the only way to make sure Virgin don’t get away with this!
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just what the towns economy needs
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I find it amusing that Virgin now think we’re worthwhile. ^_^
I don’t think it should be prevented. If we reject it, we cut off our nose and may spite our face. If they only want to run a couple of services, it won’t affect W&S and since W&S are threatening to cut Wellington it might wake them up to have some competition.
It’s nice to see Shropshire being fought over territory ^_^. At last maybe they recognise we’re ‘worthwhile’ and not second class citizens.
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MARCO: That is exactly what I said regarding the routing of WSMR through the West Midlands. However there are no WSMR services that are routed via New Street & then on to International & Coventry (or vice-versa) within the same Journey.
Just to Clarify however, WSMR has to avoid the ‘Wolverhampton to Soho South Junction’ (just outside New Street) part of the ‘Stour Valley Line’ in order to call at Tame Bridge Parkway (which is on the old ‘Grand Junction Line’). Even then most of WSMR services in the current timtable will avoid New Street altogeather & run Via Aston & Stechford Junction (about halfway between New Street & International.) There are a couple of weekday Northbound runs during the non-peak period that are booked to run from Leamington Spa to Tame Bridge via Warwick & Tyesley, thus passing through New Street & thus only operating over the ‘Stour’ the short distance from Grand/Proof House Junction via New Street to Soho South Junction – about 3 miles.
In times of late running these Northbound services will often revert back to the Leamington Spa – Coventry – International – Stechford – Aston – Tame Bridge Parkway route in order to attempt to make up time.
To sum up then, there are no Regular weekday WSMR services that operate over the ‘Stour Valley route’ between Wolverhampton & Soho Junction or Birmingham Grand/Proof House Junction to Stechford Junction.
Virgin Trains are in a good position as they will avoid this congested route altogeather & will use the more lightly loaded routes as far as Nuneaton.
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I travelled back on the WSMR at the weekend and it did stop at New Street – I definitely wasn’t dreaming! Excellent service though, if a little slow!
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That would be a ‘pathing stop’ then. No passengers would be allowed to get on or off. Yes there are some nothbound weekend services routed via New street
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A number of people got on actually. Not sure why though! Perhaps there was a problem elsewhere.
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The reason that no one else bothered, is that it was not specified in any of the franchise agreements.
All ATW and VT are doing is trying to get back the revenue WSMR took from them, using the same process.
The MD of WSMR said that more operators should try open access so they are.
This is what competion is all about. The strong will survive. The weak will not.
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I reckon most people will still take the W&S line, as I believe the 5.46pm Virgin return train from Euston is still considered a peak-time train so will cost a fortune compared to W&S’s fares. Who does Virgin think they are kidding with this?
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Looking into my crystal ball for the residents of Shrewsbury i see:
5 direct trains to London currently,
7 direct trains to London IF Virgin start,
2 direct trains when WSMR goes under,
0 direct trains when Virgin get bored after a year.
Don’t say you were not told.
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Sorry but I have travelled using Virgin to London and the fare was £180+ return… I know I will continue to use W&S whenever I can simply on cost grounds
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If you book a few days in advance with WSMR you can get a 1st class return plus meal on each journey from Wrexham to Marylebone for £110 on any service.
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Also as pointed out be ‘Bellevue’ VT’s 1746 HRS return will be restricted to ‘peak only’ tickets to avoid overcrowding (as do most services departing london between 1600 & 1800 HRS). WSMR however, allow the use of ‘off peak’ tickets on their 1633 HRS express (3 hrs to Shrewsbury) from Marylebone as overcrowding is not such an issue on that service.
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so negative, this is such good news, stop moaning
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Sally, you will see the effects of Virgin operating in the next few days ….
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