ORR declines Grand Central Railway’s bid to run services on WCML

Grand Central Railway have reported that they are ‘surprised and disappointed’ by the Office of Rail Regulation’s announcement today that it must await a ‘full recast of the timetable’ before considering whether or not Open Access Operators can serve destinations along the West Coast Main Line. 

Grand Central’s proposed North Western service would have used existing capacity and rolling stock to introduce regular daily services from May 2012 linking Blackpool North, Poulton-le-Fylde, Kirkham & Wesham, Preston, Hartford, Lichfield Trent Valley, Tamworth, Nuneaton, Milton Keynes with London Euston. 

Our timetable for the proposed North Western service was robust and written by the industry expert who drew up the current West Coast timetable whilst at Network Rail.

The significant support Grand Central received from Members of Parliament, Local Authorities, Rail User Groups and potential users of its proposed North Western service mean that there will be many communities along the route of the proposed new service that will share Grand Central’s deep disappointment about ORR’s announcement today.

Grand Central looks forward to meeting with the Office of Rail Regulation to better understand today’s announcement and in particular to gain an insight into the methodology by which the ORR and its consultants MVA determined that Grand Central’s North Western proposals are primarily abstractive, a conclusion that we contest.