Rail shunt into side track
Rail travel groups are urging Lancashire passengers to fight back after Preston and Lancaster were wiped off the Cross-Country map.
The firm no longer runs direct trains from Lancashire to the South West, meaning passengers must now change at Manchester or Birmingham, which campaigners claim adds an hour to many journey times.
Critics fear a lack of through trains will prove to be the latest step in driving travellers away from public transport and on to increasingly congested roads.
And they say tourism to Lancashire and the North West could suffer as less people travel from the south to towns and cities in the region.
The Cross-Country timetable, which traditionally linked Preston and Lancaster directly with cities such as Bristol, Plymouth and Exeter through services which also went to Scotland, was changed in December by the Department for Transport.
The changes followed the transfer of the Cross-Country franchise from Virgin to Arriva.
Now national rail campaigners Railfuture have started a drive to convince the Department for Transport to reinstate at least two Cross-Country services between the South West and the North West.
Gerard Dudderidge, chairman of Railfuture's Devon and Cornwall branch where passengers have lost direct links to Lancashire, Cumbria and Scotland, said: "The problem is the connections are not that good.
"We are finding it is typically adding an hour to journeys because the connection times are only a few minutes, so unless you have someone who can do a sprint and knows exactly which platform the train is leaving from, they are going to miss it.
"What we are saying is we should have at least some through trains.
"I think this will affect the number of visitors. If we want to go to somewhere like Clitheroe it has always been more convenient to go to Preston rather than try and go across Manchester."
The timetable changes have come as another slap in the face for Lancashire's rail users, following a hike in fares.
The Evening Post reported last month the increases mean it is now cheaper to fly abroad than buy a standard return ticket from Preston to London.
And passengers suffered New Year disruption thanks to delayed major engineering work on the West Coast Main Line.
Preston-based Aiden Turner-Bishop, of the Campaign for Better Transport, said: "It is massively inconvenient for people travelling from the North West to the South West and it needs seriously looking at again.
"The civil servants have been given this wonderful train set to play with. On one side they say let private industry run it, and on the other hand they can't resist getting involved themselves."
But the Government is adamant the changes will improve the network.
A spokesman for the DfT said: "The new Cross-Country service will include 40 extra carriages to provide 3,000 more seats every day for passengers on the busiest parts of the route.
"Passengers on some of the more lightly-used routes, including from Preston to the South West, will now have to change trains during their journey.
"However, the concentration of resources on the busiest parts of the network will create more seating space where it is urgently needed and improve reliability across the franchise."
Would you like to see through trains reintroduced on the Cross-Country network? Or have you had a nightmare journey thanks to the new timetable? E-mail matthew.squires@lep.co.uk or leave your comments online at www.lep.co.uk
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Weather for Preston
Thursday 29 July 2010
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 15 C to 17 C
Wind Speed: 28 mph
Wind direction: West
Tomorrow
Light rain
Temperature: 15 C to 19 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: South
