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Milton Keynes Rail Services – Matter 5 – Transport – 24 July

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Milton Keynes Rail Services – Matter 5 – Transport – 24 July Milton Keynes rail services – Matter 5 – Transport – 24 th July – Jim Middleton – REP/269971 1. Since I wrote my initial submission there have been some positive changes so I have revised my statement. Firstly on Crossrail there is now the inclusion in the Network Rail Programme of a Crossrail extension to join the West Coast mainline near Willesden. I petitioned and appeared before both the Commons and Lords Crossrail Select Committees to put my basic case that the Crossrail services proposed were a waste of expensive tunnelling under Central London and that Crossrail should be a Thameslink style regional rail scheme. Not a downgrading of main railway lines to a London Underground type operation that hardly crosses the M25. The Committees were only allowed to consider details of the scheme and not whether it made transport sense but particularly the Lords Select Committee encouraged me to continue my campaign. 2. The recent work done by the wider rail industry for their report London and SE RUS confirms that the Crossrail scheme is poor use of the central tunnels and the 28 trains out of the 48 each hour not getting west of Paddington are wasted. The RUS proposes a link to WCML which will allow trains from WCML to access directly Paddington, Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon, Liverpool Street and Canary Wharf. Potentially there are huge benefits for Milton Keynes if the opportunity is taken – particularly when HS2 allows more fast suburban services into London. 3. Although the West Coast mainline has been upgraded at enormous expense with years of chronic disruption and weeks of blockades for Milton Keynes residents what has emerged nothing like what people were expecting. Along with other intermediate stations such as Rugby, Nuneaton and Crewe Milton Keynes has been very badly treated. It is of little use building new platforms at stations if all they are used for is to stand on and watch Pendolinos flying straight through. The table below summarises for Milton Keynes 1996 2008 Trains from Euston 81 146 Milton Keynes 38 54 MK to Birmingham 16 19 MK to Manchester 7 18 MK to Liverpool 7 2 MK to Glasgow 3 1 MK to Preston 5 0 MK to Chester 0 10 MK to Holyhead 0 4 4. Of the 65 extra trains through Milton Keynes only 16 stop. This means Milton Keynes was served by 47% of inter city trains in 1996 and this is now reduced to 37%. So although there are more trains stopping there is not the significant improvement there should have been. In the peak hours there is the odd situation of five early morning Virgin trains into London between 6.23 and 7.14 then a gap to 9.19 but none at all returning in the evening peak meaning significant overcrowding on London Midland peak services in the evening. Although there are hourly services to Birmingham and Manchester the services to Liverpool, the north and Scotland have been virtually eliminated. There is now an hourly service to Chester. The service pattern from Milton Keynes is probably worse than before as although there are more trains to Manchester there is only one to Glasgow and the two to Liverpool leave at 6.10am and 9.38pm. 5. The Council should be clear in its transport policy documents that it recognises these problems and is proactive in pressing all available avenues for more intermediate stops – particularly the refranchising process. The route should operate as an integrated whole with interchange allowing all significant places and good direct service or quick changes to complete journeys effectively. Virgin has new trains and extra coaches and the Council should be lobbying forcefully with others in a similar position to improve the service to intermediate stations. Those rail workers coming to the big new Network Rail offices will be bitterly disappointed with the rail services on offer. The last government said MK was now a rail destination in its own right and then decided to ignore it. Hopefully with HS2 there will be a decent integrated pattern of inter city services on WCML as a positive part of the HS2 project. 6. HS2 is coming and hopefully there will be more thought given to disruption during construction. Euston is forecast to take seven years and again Milton Keynes travellers could end up no better off after more years of blockades and disruption. The Crossrail WCML link referred to earlier could enable a lot of trains to avoid Euston entirely during the reconstruction and this should be a specific Council objective. The opening of HS2 should then remove non stop inter city trains from WCML allowing more fast and semi fast suburban trains onto Crossrail with huge benefits for Milton Keynes travellers. It is vital that there is a clear commitment to post WCML services after HS2 as part of the HS2 project. As far as I can see the benefits to places such as Milton Keynes and Northampton could be the saviour of the overall HS2 project cost benefit. 7. It is important for the MK Council to have a vision for rail services and for these to be included in its strategic development document. The Council will have to work with others to achieve any rail improvements but the strategic plan should be its starting point. East-West rail is welcome and will allow better connections but the WCML and Crossrail are the most important. The strategy plan should define the Council’s vision for rail services up until after HS2 opens. It would be a disaster if after all this investment Milton Keynes ended up with a worse pattern of services than say Bedford or Peterborough. With Network Rail’s head office opening in Milton Keynes the Council should be able to form a group with them and other authorities on the existing WCML to make sure that there is a huge improvement in services on WCML once HS2 opens removing the non stop trains. 8. I can supply further information of these issues if you want. .
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