West Coast Main Line open-access bid rejected

[Thom91]

West Coast Main Line open-access bid rejected

BRITAIN's Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) has rejected proposals by Arriva subsidiary Great North Western Railway (GNWR) to introduce long-distance open-access services from London to Huddersfield, Leeds, and Blackpool via the West Coast Main Line (WCML).

GNWR sought access rights until 2027 and planned to lease a fleet of eight new six-car Alstom Pendolino EMUs to operate six daily off-peak return services from London to Blackpool from May 2017 and six daily off-peak services from London to Leeds via Huddersfield from December 2018. Alliance had previously sought a more extensive track access agreement which also included services to Bradford and Carlisle but this was rejected by the ORR in December 2013 due to concerns around capacity constraints at the southern end of the WCML.

While several freight and passenger operators expressed concerns that there might be insufficient capacity at the southern end of the WCML to accommodate GNWR, infrastructure manager Network Rail (NR) told the ORR that the proposed services could be accommodated with better use of existing capacity, particularly after reworking of the timetable.

NR's decision to back the application was on the basis of the Northern Hub project to increase rail capacity in the Manchester area and the electrification of the Manchester Victoria – Huddersfield – Leeds Trans-Pennine route. However timetable modelling indicated that running a sixth hourly fast train would have significant negative impacts on punctuality on this line and NR suggests reduced signalling headways would be required to accommodate this level of traffic.

ORR says that this could be included in an expanded electrification scheme, but with impacts on the cost, timing and scope of a project already facing delays beyond its planned 2018 completion date.

The Department for Transport (DfT) raised concerns during the consultation that GNWR's proposals could have a negative impact on the revenues of the Inter-City West Coast (ICWC) franchise operator Virgin Trains, potential compromising its ability to meet franchise payments agreed in its contract with the government.

ORR carried out a five-stage analysis of the GNWR proposal to establish whether the services would draw revenues away from franchised services, the so-called not primarily abstractive (NPA) test. This suggested that any loss of revenue to the franchised operator would be offset by growth in the overall market brought about by competition.

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Het Britse bureau voor Spoor Ordening heeft beoordeeld dat er geen open-access treinvervoer komt op de West-Coast Maine Line doordat het spoor daardoor te weinig capaciteit heeft voor de treinen van de concessiehouder.

[Z2N]

Niet zo verwonderlijk, met niet minder dan negen treinen per uur van en naar Londen Euston in de daluren zit de West Coast Main Line domweg té vol om extra treinritten in te leggen.

[groningen]

Dat zou betekenen er totaal geen nieuwkomers kunnen komen, omdat belangen van andere treinmaatschappijen te beschermen. Denk wel dat er tot een bepaald punt 4-sporig is; volgens Wiki in ieder geval tot Crewe.

Vanaf Euston vanaf 12 uur:
00 Manchester
03 Birmingham
07 Liverpool
10 Chester
13 Birmingham
20 Manchester
23 Birmingham
30 Glasgow
40 Manchester
43 Edinburgh
46 Crewe
49 Birmingham

Tussen 17 en 18 15 treinen en dan bedoel ik geen stoptreinen.