Proposals for new train services between London and Wrexham rejected
Rosie Shead, Press Association Transport Correspondent
Plans for new train services between London and Wrexham, Rochdale and Blackpool have been rejected by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR).
The proposal to add more trains on the West Coast Main Line would “likely increase delays and cancelled trains for passengers”, the regulator said on Thursday.
It rejected the Wrexham, Shropshire and Midlands Railway Company (WSMR)’s application for four return Wrexham to London Euston services as well as Lumo’s proposal for up to four return services between Rochdale and Euston.
Avanti West Coast’s plans for additional services between Blackpool and Euston were also denied by the ORR.
“Gaps in the current timetable need to provide important space for trains to recover when disruption occurs, minimising delays to passengers,” the regulator said.
“ORR concluded that adding more services into these windows in the timetable for recovery would reduce that resilience, increasing the risk of disruption spreading to other services and affecting more passengers.”
Stephanie Tobyn, ORR’s director of strategy, policy and reform, said: “New services, destinations and greater choice can bring real benefits for passengers and communities.
“But the West Coast Main Line is already under significant pressure, with performance reflecting limited resilience on a heavily used part of the rail network.
“Our detailed analysis has shown that adding more trains to the current timetable would reduce the ability to recover when disruption occurs, increasing the risk of delays spreading and making reliability of the network worse for all passengers.”
The ORR said its assessment and decision came after similar applications were rejected in 2025.
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So essentially commuters in northeast Wales and northwest England should continue to suffer with inadequacies in chronically underfunded rail services. If you don’t like it move to London, where a lion’s share of investment goes. Stick to the status quo and quit asking for better.
Not really a government funding issue in this case – these were commercial operators’ proposals to try and profit from perceived leisure traveller demand for a few extra direct trains to and from London. Unfortunately, the plans relied on squeezing extra trains onto an already overcrowded route. It would have inevitably increased delays all round, as well as wasting capacity by using up valuable slots on the UK’s most important intercity trunk route with low-capacity 5 carriage trains. Investment in increasing capacity on that route has started – it’s the whole point of the much-maligned HS2! North East Wales is… Read more »
Wasn’t the intention to use the Chilterns line between Birmingham and London Marylebone thus, along with the Birmingham-Shrewsbury-Chester line, i.e. not using the same tracks as the “west coast” franchise?
That was the previous attempt:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrexham_&_Shropshire
Perhaps TfW could extend the Chester to Birmingham International services to Marylebone.