Bid to save Wrexham & Shropshire rail link
Thursday 27th January 2011, 2:45PM GMT.
Telford MP David Wright today raised the loss of Shropshire’s direct rail link to London in Parliament as county politicians united to try to save it.
Mr Wright urged Minister of State for Transport Theresa Villiers to meet with MPs over the issue as he told her how valued the service was to people living in the county.
His comments to the Minister in the Commons came as Shrewsbury MP Daniel Kawczynski said he would be appealing to the Department for Transport to secure a future for the service.
It is set to finish tomorrow after a shock announcement from train company Wrexham & Shropshire.
The only way of saving it is by getting another operator to take on the franchise.
Mr Wright said: “The transport questions were being asked in the House today and I went into the chamber and raised the issue of the sad demise of the service.
“I told her people value the service because it is a direct link with London and the staff working for Wrexham & Shropshire are excellent.
“I asked the minister if she would meet with MPs from Shropshire and she said she would be happy to. I am hoping we can set that up as soon as possible and I am keen to sit down with her to find a direct route from Shropshire to London.”
Mr Kawczynski said MPs and council chiefs were battling to get the direct route included in the West Coast Mainline franchise, due to be re-tendered soon.
The Wrekin MP Mark Pritchard added: “It’s now important that other train operators seriously consider a direct rail service to London to fill the gap.”
Because Arriva Trains Wales is run by the same company as Wrexham & Shropshire — German state railway company DB Schenker – it is unlikely to step in to replace the service.
Virgin Trains said they did not have the rolling stock to get involved.
By John Kirk and Jason Lavan
UK News
Most Commented
- Clampdown on Shrewsbury chuggers
- Bishop's gay marriage views do nothing to support bible teachings
- Planners ordered to stay on Newport visit bus
- Letter: Angered by close encounter of the furred kind
- Letter: Alcohol price plans annoy me
- Shrewsbury’s broadband speed one of slowest in UK
- Letter: No sense in overseas job adverts
Shropshire Star on Twitter
Keep updated with the latest breaking news and content on our Twitter feed.
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Shropshire Star and Express & Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
Entertainment
All the film reviews
Before you plan a trip to the pictures, get our critics' verdicts on all the latest movie releases.
OUR NEW APP
Get the new Shropshire Star app
Download the Shropshire Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
shropshirestar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
There are doubtless many reasons why W&S failed to make a profit: the general downturn is one, excessively cheap tickets in some cases can’t have helped, and maybe more promotion of the service at the London end of the line might have boosted trade.
But surely the biggest single cause was the terms of W&S’s Open Access licence: preventing them from stopping at W’ton and Brum. Without their two potentially biggest sources of clientele, W&S were competing with Virgin with one hand tied behind their back.
So, Daniel and your fellow MPs: by all means try to gain a reprieve for W&S, but if you fail to address that core issue, you’re wasting your time.
Meantime, to W&S staff: thank you for many happy journeys on your service – you’re still the best.
Report abuse
All seems a bit late from our MP’s again!
Report abuse
It’s a crying shame that the W & S service will cease, I’ve used it many times to travel to London on business. I travel all over the country on business & W & S was by far the best service around. The biggest disappointment for me is that I will now have to use the truly awful Arriva Train service more often.
Report abuse
Unfortunately the Shrewsbury MP has shown his ignorance of the service by asking for another operator to take on the ‘franchise’. He clearly doesnt understand that the service was ‘open access’ i.e there was no ‘franchise’. It was a speculative venture that would always survive or fail on commercial grounds. It is ironical however that WSMR’s parent company Deutsch Bahn pulled the plug just as the service was to have been speeded up by the completion of the ‘Evergreen Project’ of line speed improvements between Birmingham and London Marylebone.
Report abuse
Seems a lot of the media have made this mistake on it being a ‘franchise’.
As an aside, I note that a statement on the Shropshire Council website also suggests efforts are being made to ensure retaining “a” link to London.
Ironically, if we are successfully written into the next WCML franchise, Shropshire may get a BETTER direct link.
Report abuse
Sign a petition for government action on the closure of Wrexham & Shropshire rail: http://bit.ly/guOlB8
Report abuse
As a frequent user of this service I am deeply saddened by it’s termination. Rather that focussing on the “easy” reasons that the service has failed, I suggest the MP reviews the enormous impact of weekend engineering works. This has seen the service diverted from Shrewsbury via Stafford for every weekend since last summer. The prospect of paying for a train journey and getting a bus for thoses people travelling from Telford and Wellington must have added to this.
So my feeling is if anyone is to blame for the service being affected it must firmly lie with Network Rail.
Report abuse
Sad news about the closure. The service was a beacon of individuality in the desert of mediocrity that rail travel in the UK has become, thanks to the likes of Richard Branson and his hideous, and hideously expensive, Virgin brand.
Report abuse
Clearly when the train service has been so busy in both 1st and std class over the last few months, you do have to ask for the reasons it failed.
Sure it has had one hand tied behind it’s back because of timing and not stopping at Wolv & Birmingham. However, I do wonder about the cheap pricing of tickets and the lack of promotion in London. I’d like to see the detail of how it has collapsed so quickly.
Finally, I don’t recall seeing our local MP on the train much – apart from when it started. And I’m a regular too.
Report abuse
Yes, very sad. But the company was competing against subsidised services. Wrexham Shropshire said they covered around 66% of their costs from revenue. That’s better than some franchises, and that despite facing some unique obstacles: the poor pathway through the backstreets of Birmingham which added 30 minutes to their journeys, their services weren’t shown on trainline.com unless you specified a journey without changes, Virgin starting their own service from Wrexham to Euston as soon as Wrexham Shropshire began. It was an uneven playing field that, sadly, no amount of good service and customer loyalty could redress.
Report abuse
I’m dissapointed, I was just about to start a new job in London and was looking forward to the quality and pricing of the W&S.
Now I’m facing cattle class Virgin and a doubling or trebling of my fares!
They cancelled the Wolves -> Walsall route just as I started my job in Walsall too. I must be jinxed!
What does this say about train travel also? You’re better off in the car, at least it’s cheaper and doesn’t get cancelled!
The route being absorbed by Virgin won’t help. They love their monopolies, and gaining the other commuters will just fill their bags with cash – they won’t be concerned about providing the same quality.
Car 1 – Train 0
Report abuse
DB owned WSMR, DB recently took over Arriva, one services provides cheap tickets to London with good service and plenty of leg room one packs in passengers like cattle on scruffy trains and provides frequent services to Wolves, New Street and Birmingham International. Which one was always going to be cut?
It is a great shame though and unless Arriva decide to provide us with a service to London which they wanted to a few months ago I fear we will be unlikely to get any further service unless the line is electrified.
Report abuse
Iam very sorry to here about the wsr finishing its service. I have travelled on this service twice, both times first class and the level of service was fantastic,may i wish everybody at wsr the very best and good look in the future..
Report abuse
I am very angry with train firm that Wrexham and Shropshire will be axed by tomorrow night, so unfair because my children and I find it very comfort and relax. It’s really useful for me and my children because we don’t need change at Birmingham cos’ it’s straightforward from Shropshire to London better than hassled! Please to bid save Wrexham & Shropshire because it just open by 2008. Many people and children find it a beautiful view as countryside to city on the window. Also I am angry with Virgin Trains that they can’t afford to another stock investment so how come Virgin got plane, train, mobile, Virgin cable and etc, huh! I was expect Virgin should be support not rejected.
Report abuse
So the mighty Virgin (sic), the railway co which operates diesel trains on electrified lines, will not use its surplus electric stock (Locos sold to Bulgaria) to reallocate its nice diesels to the very appropriate Marylebone-Shrewsbury route.
And they will reapply for the franchise?
Report abuse
Why pull the plug with 4 days notice and with seemingly little or no pre-publicity ? If they said ‘we finish at the end of Feb unless a solution can be found’ then at least it would have given our ‘army’ of MPs etc a chance to do something ! Also, why spend xx million(?) refurbishing coaching stock only to ditch the service ?
As for virgin, they have the loco’s and the coaching stock to run to shrewsbury but its too much hassle – and weren’t they thinking about launching there own shrewsbury service only last year before (under duress) deciding not too ?
Report abuse
So close yet so far… Virgin’s Moderation of Competition franchise clause finishes in 2012 thus allowing WSMR to call at large population centres such at Wolverhampton, Birmingham New Street, Coventry &c.
Report abuse
I’m frankly disgusted with Virgin Trains who have done everything they can to make rail travel overpriced, incredibly uncomfortable, and will do anything to protect their own monopoly position. W&S trains have always been a pleasure to travel on, and the quality of service very close to that experienced on the Caledonian Sleeper which I travel regularly on, another service which I fear for the long term future of. My position is simple, Virgin, and its constituent companies will never see a penny of my money ever again. Unfortunately this leaves me travelling to London via Doncaster and the East Coast route from now on, although at least booking tickets via EastCoast, or any of the First Group telesales services prevents the Evil Red Empire having any business from me. Meanwhile the prices will continue to rocket, maybe we all need to blacklist the company, and vociferously complain to parliament, or even arrange a demonstration.
Report abuse
Well, we have enjoyed for a short time a quality train service which gave the impression that customers are important. Certainly part of the problem has been the inability to route trains through Wolverhampton and Birmingham New St. For many its now back to the horrors of Virgin Trains plus the need for a secong mortgage!!
Report abuse
It’s important that Shropshire create a campaign to get a direct service to London back. The company has closed down due to £2.8 million loss which is tiny compared to the £158 million subsidy received by Arriva Trains Wales and £184 million subsidy received by London Midland!! Shropshire will lose far more than £2.8 million through fewer tourists and less business investment. Write to Philip Hammond the secretary of state for transport asking for a small public investment to save the excellent W and S railway.
Report abuse
Don’t forget the mega public subsidy that Virgin Trains get. Funny that Virgin walked away from the London Wrexham route in 2000 only to reappear when Wrexham & Shropshire looked like it could be making a go of it, without a penny of public subsidy.
Report abuse
It is clear that the owners of the most excellent railway operator in the UK (Deutsche Bahn), had no real long-term business plan. It takes years to bring a service like this into profitability – and a £2.8 million pound loss is nothing at all over this short period. The company invested in the best quality engines and rolling stock – their owners have shown they haven’t the faintest idea of how to run a business – this type of investment is not for the short-term faint hearted – it needs to be run for at least 10 years before a major review – not a 2+ year exercise as we have seen. This area is desperately in need of this company’s return to service – and I’ll honestly eat my hat if any MP is clearly influential in returning them to full operation.
Report abuse
You really have hit the nail on the head David and I’m sure that Adrian Shooter has said several times in the past, that given the level of investment this had to be a long-term exercise. Not 2 years 8 months! I guess that he has had to bow the knee to his new overall bosses in Deutsche Bahn. I am not usually a cynical person , but it cannot be a coincidence that the demise of W&S comes just as Chiltern/Deutsche Bahn launches its new loco hauled service from B’ham Moor Street to Marylebone. I wonder where its new stock will come from?!!
Report abuse
The strange thing is, DB didn’t own W&S originally, it was a joint venture between Rennaisance Trains, a group of railway entrepreneurs who also had a hand in Hull Trains, and Laing Rail who owned Chiltern, I think it was in January 2009 that DB took over Laing Rail and so, also, W&S.
It makes one wonder if closure was the real intention and they only wanted to keep the paths and rolling stock,
I wonder where that is going to turn up next?
Report abuse
In some newspapers the Wrexham & Shropshire story has now dropped off the front page. There must be a concerted local effort to actively keep the story ‘alive in the media’ before it just becomes a memory. Maintain pressure on all elected members to rectify two major points, firstly the way Open Access Rail Operators are prevented from actually operating a service whilst operators gorged on massive public subsidies do all they can to derail the project. Maintain pressure on all elected members to lobby and facilitate Chiltern Trains and DB to reinstate the service. Thirdly actively boycott those who had a hand in the W&S downfall and if you must use their service actively complain to make sure that they never, never reach the customer satisfaction rating that Wrexham & Shropshire achieved. Fight Back
Report abuse