London Midland commuters to benefit from £41m investment in new carriages
PASSENGERS using London Midland rail services are to benefit from extra capacity and faster trains as a result of a £41m Government investment.
The Department for Transport is providing funding enabling the train operator to purchase an additional 40 carriages. The company will also be upgrading some of its existing rolling stock to cater for faster journeys.
The Government will also be providing 40 new carriages for the First TransPennine Express service. The new carriages will be used on the Manchester to Scotland route following the electrification of the line between Manchester and the West Coast Main Line south of Wigan.
The new carriages will enable existing diesel rolling stock to be redeployed across the TransPennine franchise to increase capacity into Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield and Newcastle.
Combined, the new carriages will provide an additional 12,000 seats each day for commuters using services into London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Sheffield, Glasgow and Edinburgh. The carriages should enter service in 2013.
Rail Minister Theresa Villiers said: “Increasing capacity on some of the busiest routes in the country is a key part of the major programme of rail capacity expansion we have promised to deliver. It is a vital way of responding to passenger concerns about crowding and providing an important stimulus to economic growth.
“As rail travel becomes more popular operators must be able to meet growing demand and these new carriages will enable existing trains to be lengthened. These new trains will also run faster, which means extra train slots will come free, so that London Midland can fit more services into the timetable.”
Current London Midland services travel at a maximum speed of 100 mph, but the train operator will modify some of its existing fleet to run at 110 mph – the maximum speed of the new-build trains – creating faster peak and off-peak services into London Euston.
Not only will this mean quicker journey times – the extra speed will help shave up to 25 minutes off existing Crewe to London Euston off-peak services, for example – but the new timings will create space for extra train slots enabling London Midland to further boost capacity at peak times.
The new carriages, which will be built by Siemens, are being procured by London Midland on behalf of both train operators. The leasing and operation of the additional carriages is being funded by an increase in Government funding to the two operators of £41m.
The procurement for London Midland was already underway when the electrification of Manchester and the West Coast Main Line south of Wigan was announced. The Government therefore asked London Midland to extend this existing procurement to include trains needed for the Manchester to Scotland services.
The agreement with First TransPennine Express includes the electrification of the depot at Ardwick, Manchester, where these trains will be maintained.
The TransPennine Express will be configured slightly differently to those for London Midland to meet the needs of long distance and airport passengers.
Of the 40 carriages London Midland will receive, 12 will help provide additional capacity on the Cross City line in Birmingham. The frequency of peak and off-peak services between Birmingham and Redditch will be increased from two trains per hour to three trains per hour from December 2014.
The trains will also enable electric services from Birmingham New Street to be extended to Bromsgrove from May 2015, assuming that the plan to relocate Bromsgrove Station is confirmed and electrification is completed on schedule.
The other 28 London Midland carriages will provide faster peak journeys and extra capacity on services into London Euston from December 2014.
