West Midlands Trains – what does the £1bn investment promise?

West Midlands Trains

The newly-awarded West Midlands rail franchise promises £1bn of improvements to the region’s rail infrastructure.

The investment has been pledged by new franchise operator West Midlands Trains – a joint venture between Abellio, East Japan Railway Company and Mitsui & Co Ltd.

While for the trains running solely in the West Midlands, responsibility will rest jointly with the Department for Transport (DfT) and West Midlands Rail (WMR) – a consortium of 16 local authorities.

It is the first time that West Midlands authorities have had such a level of influence in setting out what a train company needs to deliver for local passengers.

So, what will that investment look like?

The franchise deal includes:
·         20,000 extra seats for rush hour passengers in Birmingham.
·         100 new carriages on the Cross City line
·         80 new carriages for the Snow Hill line
·         Compensation if services are delayed by more than 15 minutes
·         Free WiFi on all main line services
·         A roll out of smart ticketing and live passenger information
·         Trains and stations branded in a locally specified West Midlands Railway livery

The new longer, more spacious carriages for the Cross City line will offer metro-style services with increased space to carry more passengers, and wider doors for quicker access.

The new local service will be rebranded West Midlands Railway and it will have its own livery; a move designed to distinguish the new franchise and create a regional identity for the network.

Wider benefits of the new service will include:

– More trains between Birmingham and Shrewsbury with two services per hour from December 2018.

– A regular two trains per hour service between Birmingham and Rugeley via the Chase Line from December 2018.

– A new direct hourly service between Birmingham and Stoke-on-Trent from December 2018 providing much needed additional capacity on this busy route.

– An extension of Cross-City line services from Longbridge to Bromsgrove.

– A new hourly shuttle between Leamington Spa and Coventry serving the new station at Kenilworth.

– Two morning and two evening rush hour direct services between Walsall and London from December 2018, helping to unlock economic growth in the region.

– More Sunday services on the Cross-City line with the number of trains per hour between Longbridge and Birmingham doubling from two per hour to four in December 2018, and then increasing to six in May 2021.

– Increased Sunday services on the Snow Hill line with the number of trains per hour between Snow Hill and Stourbridge Junction increasing from two to six.

– A new Sunday service between Birmingham and Shrewsbury from December 2018, and a second train per hour introduced in May 2021.

There are also plans to limit the impact of delays caused by leaves on the line in the autumn, including through the introduction of new modern trains, while the extension of smart ticketing will see the service offered to more stations than ever before.

A new smartcard season ticket will be introduced for passengers using the Northampton to Euston line.

More than 800 new digital information screens will be installed across 150 stations in an attempt to offer real-time journey information, while an improved mobile service will give live crowding updates to help passengers plan ahead.

To offer passengers a fairer deal, they will be entitled to 25% compensation if their train is delayed by 15 minutes for the first time. They already receive 50% of their money back for delays of half an hour and full compensation if it is more than an hour.

More than £60m will be invested on station improvements, promising more than 1,000 new car park spaces, over 2,500 cycle parking spaces, a cycle hire scheme, new and refurbished waiting rooms, and more seats at stations, as well as feasibility studies for the development of new stations in the region.

A target of more than £70m has been pledged for new and existing depots to order to improve train reliability.

Passengers on London services will benefit from 225 brand new carriages, with all other carriages being completely refurbished.
People travelling between Northampton and Euston and on the Abbey Line between St Albans Abbey and Watford Junction will be able to pay for their travel with a smartcard for the first time.

In other improvements:

– More space has been pledged on the Marston Vale line with earlier and later services between Bedford and Bletchley and a new hourly Sunday service from May 2021 for the first time.

– Modern trains will be introduced for the Abbey line and improvements to Sunday services will start from May 2021, providing a similar level of service to that provided on a Saturday.

– There will be mobile phone and laptop chargepoints on all London services by May 2021.

– More Sunday trains on the line from Euston to Northampton, with up to four services an hour running between Euston and Milton Keynes by May 2021.

The new contract will start in December and last until March 2026.

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