Chiltern plans Mainline growth but warns fares will rise

CHILTERN Railways’ Mainline services to London have continued to prove popular with Birmingham’s business community with the company seeing a 41% year-on-year growth in passenger numbers in the six months since launch.

Such is the growth, that the rail company has announced it will introduce extra capacity on the service from later this year.

However, it has said ticket prices will have to rise in order to fund a programme of improvements.

Figures released by the company show passengers using the Mainline service from Solihull and Warwick Parkway have also grown during the first six months, up by a respective 53% and 32% year-on-year.

Improvements planned for the remainder of this year include:
•    A new, completely refurbished additional ‘Silver’ train will be operational from December.
•    Chiltern’s current intercity-style silver trains will be refurbished and fitted with automatic doors.  The first of these updated trains will arrive later this month.
•    Silver trains will be lengthened by a carriage by the end of the year providing 70 more seats per train.
•    Free Wi-Fi on the silver trains will be upgraded to ensure faster connections.
•    Onboard catering will be overhauled.
•    Birmingham Moor Street will gain a bar/restaurant.
•    Car parks will be expanded accommodate the growth in passenger numbers.  
o    A new parking deck at Solihull will open this month, creating 163 additional spaces.
o    A new parking deck will also open at Warwick Parkway, delivering 222 additional spaces.  To provide sufficient capacity during the build, Chiltern has already opened a temporary car park at the station.
•    All West Midlands to London services available via the company’s smartphone app, allowing passengers to move away from paper tickets altogether.

Thomas Ableman, Chiltern’s commercial director, said: “We’re absolutely delighted to announce our 2012 improvements at the same time as publishing record results.  

“Mainline was created in Birmingham by the business community and our figures prove this type of service is what the market wants.  Our 2012 improvements are in response to customer feedback and we’ll continue to listen and innovate as Mainline grows.”

As with the £250m investment in Mainline, the 2012 improvements will be funded without taxpayer support.

However, the company said that as it received no Government subsidy, it would have to put up peak fares in order to support the new investment.

This means the Anytime ticket for passengers arriving in London before 10am will increase by £10 to £95 (£90 from Leamington Spa) from May 20.  The firm said it still believed the new ticket offered value for money.

Off-peak and super off-peak fares are not affected by the changes and remain at £50 (£45 from Leamington Spa) and £25 respectively.