Trains plan to help ease rail overcrowding
Saturday 18th September 2010, 11:29AM BST.
Extra train services could be introduced by Arriva Trains Wales in Shropshire to beat overcrowding after an increase in passengers. The firm currently runs 30 services and wants to add 10 more.
The application to the Office of Rail Regulation is for services on the Shrewsbury-Wolverhampton line on Sundays.
The extra trains would start from December. But for weekday passengers, when overcrowding has led to the service being dubbed the “sardine express”, there are no plans for increases.
Katrina Tzannis, Arriva Trains spokeswoman, said: “Train services are only able to increase where spare rolling stock is available. There is currently no spare capacity available to increase midweek services.”
Arriva Trains said more and more people were using the trains for leisure at the weekend.
An application to the ORR said: “The purpose of this change is to relieve overcrowding on the existing Sunday through services , of which each are two-hourly to both Aberystwyth and Chester, together creating an hourly service on the Wolverhampton-Shrewsbury corridor.
“This overcrowding is also compounded by the franchise arrangements in which Arriva Trains Wales is required to serve the local stations on Sundays using its through services, in place of London Midland’s Birmingham to Shrewsbury separate weekday and Saturday stopping service.”
The firm said some existing longer-distance services would also no longer stop at some local stations.
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Arriva, are you listening?
PUT MORE CARRIAGES ON THE TRAINS YOU ALREADY RUN, and stop treating your customer like cattle.
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So when extra carriages are needed during the week there will be none available. But when they are not needed they will become available.
That makes sense, pat on the back for creative thinking and problem solving.
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What is the point of that ? Increasing services at off peak times makes no sense at all, they won’t be used to their full capacity and will be removed next time around because they are uneconomical.
There needs to be extra services or carriages on all peak services to satisfy the needs of the passengers, this is just a publicity stunt to raise awareness of Arriva Trains Wales.
During the hot Summer months this would have been welcomed by day trippers to the Welsh Coast, what use is it now ? Autumn approaches, cold, wet and windy, “Ooh yes lets go to Barmouth this Sunday”.
I think not.
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Spot on.
There is a much greater and important need for a higher level of frequency during the hours of 0600 to 0800 and 1600 and 1900 Monday to Friday. There should be an express Service from Shrewsbury calling only at Wolverhampton and Birmingham, to get Commuters into these busy City Centre’s much quicker.
Train Operators always complain about the lack of demand when it comes to increasing Service Levels. It is blantantly obvious to any sane individual from a business sense, that the demand is there as would be the increased levels of income for Arriva.
There also needs to be some joined up thinking between Arriva and London Midland; the latter really is nt an option for alot of Commuters as the journey time is simply too long, due to calling at so many local stations. Perhaps they could change the nature of the Timetabled Services to increase frequency in certain periods and reduce journey times?
The increase in Sunday frequency is I suppose a start but not until December, so everyone enjoy the 3-4 hour replacement bus journey and engineering works in the meantime :-)
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This is a positive first move and shows that ATW is at last listening (with it’s new DB management, who are a customer focused company). Sunday trains are now very busy and are often overcrowded and this is a FIRST step towards improving rail services in Shropshire. Both Arriva and London Midland have responsibility for improving the weekday peak services, but they need the government to sanction the building of new rolling stock ,so disatisfied travellers need to get on to their MPs and secretary of state for transport for long term improvements. The short term franchise approach to rail services provides no incentive to rail companies to pay for their own rolling stock.
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What a joke. Put them on during the week day rush hourswhen its really overcrowded and we dont have any choice but to use the service.
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Typical response from someone who obviously hasn’t read the detail in the article!
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