Arriva is making a fresh application to run open access services, in spite of discouraging indications from the Department for Transport, which has highlighted possible path shortages.
Arriva Group is notifying Network Rail today that it is submitting an open access application to the Office of Rail and Road to run direct services between Cleethorpes, Grimsby, Habrough, Scunthorpe and London. Grand Central already serves the section between London King’s Cross and Doncaster, but the route onwards to Cleethorpes would be new territory.
Arriva said local people in north Lincolnshire have been campaigning for the restoration of direct trains to London which last ran over 30 years ago. Arriva is proposing to run four return services each day, which would provide more than 775,000 seats a year.
Arriva’s UK Trains division interim managing director Amanda Furlong said: ‘Arriva wants to make travelling by train as accessible as possible and this proposal will offer a much-needed, direct connection between major Lincolnshire towns and the capital, providing significant connectivity benefits for communities and businesses and driving long-term economic growth for the region.’
The ORR is currently considering a number of open access applications, including one from Virgin for at least 35 trains a day from London Euston to destinations in north west England and Scotland, but the DfT has warned that capacity is limited on the West Coast Main Line.
Readers’ comments
As the industry reorganisation gathers pace ORR has an increasingly unenviable task of weeding out the viable from the opportunist applications for additional Open Access services before the legislation formally creating GBR is enacted. As the revised ECML timetable has been subject to years of consultation and debate a key question is how the latest Open Access services on that route could be accommodated without reopening that whole can of worms. Perhaps ORR's greater challenge is defending the integrity of the WCML where multiple applications have been made. Performance on this route is already fragile as the infrastructure has aged after the last route modernisation. Also Euston's challenges are well publicised both concourse congestion and reduced platform capacity due to HS2 works. South of Rugby fast line capacity is already at a premium especially as a consequence of the lack of grade separation at key junctions to avoid conflicts when semi fast LNW outer suburbans require to cross between fast and slow lines. A particular challenge now is adjudicating on Virgin's threat of litigation to secure paths currently allocated but unused by Avanti. Amongst inter city operators Avanti's post pandemic recovery has been affected by both self imposed and external woes. Apart from fully reinstating pre covid paths now that full delivery of Enviro units is being completed is it not time for DfT/ORR to compel Avanti to use its allocated capacity? Besides the track access legislation in the 1993 Act certainly did not envisage the consequences of recovery from a global pandemic so rigid application to meet Virgin's, as yet unresolved demands, may not be appropriate.
Chris Jones-Bridger, Buckley, Flintshire
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