Nuneaton, Bedworth & Hinckley Rail Users Group

THE government has given the go-ahead to phase 1 of the Nuckle project which will include new stations at Bermuda Park and the Ricoh, an extended platform at Bedworth and a new platform at Coventry.

The green light was given by transport secretary Justine Greening to a £9.7million bid for government funding for phase one on the NUCKLE scheme - to improve passenger services between Coventry and Nuneaton.

The new half hourly service, which will also service events at the Ricoh, are expected to be introduced in late 2013/early 2014.

This is great news for the people of Nuneaton, Bedworth and Hinckley and is something this group has been campaigning for a long time. The new services should also make travel between Coventry, Hinckley and Leicester a lot easier.

Transport Secretary Justine Greening is expected to announce today which transport projects that were given the amber light earlier this year will get funding. Included in this batch of projects is phase 1 of the Nuckle programme which would see longer, more frequent trains between Nuneaton and Coventry with two new stations at Bermuda Park and the Ricoh along with a platform extension at Bedworth and a new platform at Coventry. We hope that the Transport Secretary will be sending the people of Nuneaton and Bedworth an early Christmas present later today.

Lond Midland have announced ‘Project 110′, which will test the viability of running London Midland’s fleet of trains at 110mph instead of 100mph. London MIdland have cited several benefits from this increase in speed as a result of an extra ‘fast path’ being free’d up by trains running at 110mph. Their proposals would speed up significantly services between Nuneaton and Atherstone to London by about 30-40 minutes and also improve timings to the north. The main reason for this reduction in journey times would be the ability for the Trent Valley service to run fast from Rugby to Milton Keynes missing out Northampton. An extra service would then serve Northampton. Also included in their proposals are the increase in the number of services plugging several gaps that exist at present. We will be examining the proposals and feeding back our response to London Midland. If you have a view let us know by emailing nuneatonrug@btconnect.com.

The proposals to build a new station at Bermuda Park, based on the assumption that the new Nuckle proposal goes ahead, has now moved forward to the planning application stage. Once approved and the government approves the overall scheme it is expected that the new service would be completed in 2013.

London Midland have now withdrawn on-train catering from Saturday 27 August. A limited catering facility has been provided on some of their longer distance trains, but they have now decided this is not viable.

London Midland say that many of their services wait for around 10 minutes at Northampton and Stafford, where passengers will be able to buy refreshments from the catering outlets on the stations.

We believe that this is completely unacceptable, nearly two hours to London without any catering facilities, worse for users further north. This further strengthens our argument for the return of the fast services we lost in 2008.

Virgin Trains have agreed to operate the new Pendolino from July this year. They had originally tied in the use of any additional trains to an extension to their franchise, but have now agreed to operate this new train anyway. However the train will operate as a 9-car set so as to be compatible with the existing trains, and not the full 11-car set as delivered. There are also problems with some platforms which will need to be extended before 11 car trains can call at them.

It is intended to use this additional train on Birmingham - Glasgow workings to ease overcrowding on some of the Voyagers. Its introduction should also ease the rolling stock situation a little and hopefully lead to less cancellations due to no available trains.

To enable the recommendations on franchising made in the McNulty Report (see separate item) to be incorporated into the new West Coast franchise, The DfT has announced that the re-letting of this franchise will be delayed from April 2012 to December 2012. The department is currently in discussion with Virgin Trains about a possible extension to their franchise, but if this does not prove possible then the goverment-owned Directly Operated Railways will take over and operate the services during this period. The Department for Transport will now consult with interested parties on the draft Invitation to Tender documents, which are available by clicking here.

The report also gives backing to the upgrade of the Coventry to Nuneaton line which is currently under consideration by the government and also says that there is a strong economic case for additional services from Nuneaton to London and the North West. The report which covers services along the Trent Valley in more detail is due out shortly.

The Department for Transport (DfT) Rail Group has announced that four bidders have been shortlisted for the new West Coast franchise which starts on April 1st 2012.
These are:
1. Abellio InterCity West Coast Limited (NV Nederlandse Spoorwegen)
2. First West Coast Limited (FirstGroup plc)
3. Keolis / SNCF West Coast Limited (Keolis SA and SNCF)
4. Virgin Trains Limited (Virgin Group Holdings Limited).

The successful bidder will be announced in the Autumn.

For further details see the DfT press statement, which also includes information on the Greater Anglia franchise. Nuneaton, Bedworth and Hinckley RUG have submitted our feedback as part of the consulation exercise. Both Passenger Focus and Network Rail are positive towards additional fast services at Nuneaton, but the Department of Transport, as usual, are not in favour!