Lord Adonis has made it clear that he would welcome dialogue with MPs about concerns over rail services. We have challenged our two local MPs - Bill Olner and David Tredinnick to stand up for Nuneaton, Bedworth and Hinckley and get a meeting with Lord Adonis as soon as possible. We have had a swift response from Tredinnick but nothing so far from Olner.
Milton Keynes Rail Users Group is attempting to pull together all of the towns where stops have been cut to put pressure on the Government and Virgin Trains to re-instate stops that were cut from December 2008 and have resulted in many off peak service running half empty or worse. The main stations affected were Watford, Milton Keynes, Rugby, Nuneaton, Stafford and Crewe. We will be showing our support to this initiative by MK Rail Users.
Centro has published it’s rail development plan, please follow the link below. It all looks great but, as usual, apart from some already funded projects it’s mostly ‘jam tomorrow’. Whether we see any of it actually implemented is anyone’s guess.
http://www.centro.org.uk/consultation/rail_development_plan.asp
Next Tuesday 3rd February, very brave representatives from Virgin, CrossCountry and London Midland are holding an ‘open forum’ on the concourse at Birmingham New Street Station between 7am and 10am and 3pm and 7pm. We urge as many of you as possible to get there and make your feelings known!
Midlands Today have done a report on the delays on the WCML as a result of the new Timetable. They said one in four Virgin Trains were late and 1 in 5 London Midlands trains.
I am shocked at the cost of an off peak return to Birmingham which is just 10p less that a peak ticket. Looking at fares from other towns in the Midlands to Birmingham shows we are getting ripped off big time.
I have started a facebook page to get something done. It seems the richer parts of Warwickshire pay less to use trains than we do in Nuneaton. Please join the facebook page to show your support.
Stop crosscountry trains rip-off - Facebook page
| Return to Birmingham 20th January 09 | off peak fare | distance (miles) | Cost per mile |
| Nuneaton | £8.30 | 20 | £0.21 |
| Coventry | £4.10 | 19 | £0.11 |
| Warwick | £6.50 | 22 | £0.15 |
| Rugby | £7.90 | 30 1/2 | £0.13 |
| Leicester | £9.40 | 38 3/4 | £0.12 |
| Hinckley | £8.80 | 25 1/4 | £0.17 |
| Coleshill | £4.60 | 9 1/2 | £0.24 |
| Worcester | £7.00 | 27 | £0.13 |
| Burton | £8.70 | 29 3/4 | £0.15 |
| Tamworth | £6.40 | 16 3/4 | £0.19 |
| Stafford | £8.30 | 29 | £0.14 |
| Telford | £7.90 | 28 1/2 | £0.14 |
| Northampton | £11.40 | 51 1/2 | £0.11 |
| Stratford-upon-Avon | £6.00 | 24 1/4 | £0.12 |
| Hatton | £6.00 | 18 | £0.17 |
| Leamington | £7.80 | 24 | £0.16 |
| Penkridge | £6.60 | 22 3/4 | £0.15 |
| Lichfield trent Valley | £4.70 | 18 1/2 | £0.13 |
There has been huge disruption to travellers all over the West Coast Main LIne over the last few days just as everyone is getting back to work. These problems continue today but these problems have resulted in the slightly bizarre situation where Nuneaton has been served by Virgin trains off-peak as well as London Midland too! It’s a shame it’s not normally like this and we’ll be looking into why this has happened today. It’s a taste of what sort of service we could have expected if 75% of our Virgin trains had not been cut!
If you have any feedback on the way these problems have been handled by the TOCs please let us know - nuneatonrug@btconnect.com
Passengers from Nuneaton, Bedworth and Hinckley will all be hit hard by the fare rises that come into effect today. Crosscountry have increased fares by up to 11%, meaning an anytime day return from Nuneaton to Birmingham goes up from £7.70 to £8.40. At a time of falling petrol prices, the RUG fails to see how the fare increases will encourage more people to use the trains. On the one hand the government promotes railways as a greener alternative but then puts people off using the railways by increasing fares way above inflation.
The chairman of ATOC said that the increases will pay for better services. When? There are no significant planned improvements to capacity, reliability or frequency on Crosscountry services during this franchise lifetime, so the people of Nuneaton and Hinckley have to pay more for a poor service.
New Timetable First Impressions
Train Company Performance
Virgin : Several 10-20 minute delays during the first week but settled down a bit. Considering the changes made to the overall timetable not a bad performance. On the plus side many free seats on the 0707/0732 and reasonable availability for cheap advanced purchase tickets on peak services. Overall, could have been a lot worse.
London Midland : Very disappointing. Regular cancellations, delays and trains cut short of destinations. There is a list of the services that were noticed as being affected at the end of this e-mail. There were probably many more. Most of the time the reason given on the Train Tracker is ‘a member of staff being unavailable’, which does not bode well.
Also, lack of catering on Crewe/London trains and poor First Class accommodation.
Overall, must do much much better!!
Crosscountry : More cancellations and delays than normal, but nothing major. Still overcrowding issues but the banning of off-peak tickets on peak services from New Street appears to have had a small improvement to overcrowding. Overall : The poor Crosscountry service continues.
Timetable Issues