A NEW bid to operate open access services between London and Blackpool has been mounted by Arriva-owned Alliance Rail and Grand Central.
The proposal is now to be considered by the Office of Rail and Road (the new name for the Office of Rail Regulation), which will also launch an industry consultation.
If they go ahead, the services will be operated by Grand Central on behalf of Alliance Rail, using a fleet of new six-car Alstom Pendolinos. Alliance Rail said such a service would also create more than 120 jobs.
Trains would run six times a day from 2017, compared with the twice-daily services from and to Blackpool recently introduced by Virgin.
The announcement of the bid follows the recent designation of Blackpool as an Enterprise Zone.
Grand Central chief executive Richard McLean said: "Grand Central has a solid reputation for providing great services and achieving market leading customer satisfaction. Since we began in 2007 we have consistently scored highly in passenger surveys, with our services much valued by more than one million customers.
“We are very excited about the opportunity to provide our market leading services for people on the West Coast Main Line and to delivering much needed services for Blackpool.”
It is not the first time that Grand Central has tried to add Blackpool to its network. A 2010 bid for paths from Euston was rejected by the ORR in March 2011, which said at the time that allowing open access operators on the West Coast Main Line would have to wait until there had been a full recast of the timetable. It also described that bid as 'primarily abstractive', which Grand Central denied.
Meanwhile, the new attempt to boost Blackpool services has been welcomed by local rail campaigners, but they have pointed out that paths on the WCML are still in short supply.
Paul Nettleton, who chairs the Blackpool and Fylde Rail Users Association, told the Blackpool Gazette: “The only problem with these plans is that Grand Central need permission from the ORR. You have seen how many problems Virgin Rail had getting one service from Blackpool to London. It would be very nice but I can’t see it happening. It is being very optimistic.”
Alliance Rail has also made applications to operate services on the East Coast Main Line between London King’s Cross and Edinburgh, while FirstGroup has unveiled a plan to run its own open access service between London and Edinburgh, calling at Stevenage, Newcastle and Morpeth, which First said is intended to attract passengers from domestic flights.