A REVOLUTION in rail travel starts on 14 December with the introduction of new services on Europe’s longest, busiest, mixed-traffic railway — Britain’s West Coast Main Line — following completion of Network Rail’s £9 billion modernisation programme.

The route — which connects London with the West Midlands, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, North West England and Scotland’s Strathclyde Region — will see over 1,000 extra trains operating every week.

Although headlines will focus on Virgin Train’s new high-frequency timetables — including trains every 20-minutes between London and Birmingham and London and Manchester, even on Sundays — all train companies using the West Coast route, freight as well as passenger operators, will be able to increase services following completion of Britain’s biggest-ever rail improvement scheme.

The West Coast Main Line comprises a total of 1,660 miles of track and, even before the new timetable, handled 2,500 trains every day, and 75 million passengers every year.

But from 14 December there will be many extra passengers services. And additional tracks — notably increased from two to four through the Trent Valley in Staffordshire — will also provide extra capacity for freight trains.

Birmingham-based London Midland will be running up to 50 per cent more or longer trains serving intermediate stations between London, Watford, Milton Keynes, Northampton, Rugby, Coventry and Birmingham.

And London Midland will also be operating an entirely new hourly service each way between London and Crewe, serving Watford, Milton Keynes, Northampton, Rugby, and stations through the Trent Valley to Stafford — and then to Stone, where the station is re-opening after more than four years, on to Stoke-on-Trent, Alsager and Crewe.

But most attention will be given to the new Virgin High Frequency (VHF) inter-city services, using tilting Pendolino and Super Voyager trains at up to 125 mph — known on the West Coast route as the Enhanced Passenger Speed (EPS).

As a result, both the City of Coventry and the town of Rugby are being brought under one hour’s travelling time of London.

Virgin Pendolino tilting electric trains are due to run between Manchester and London in only 2hr 12min, and Birmingham and London in only 1hr 22min — but on Monday to Friday mornings ‘flagship’ services are due to travel from Coventry to London in only 57min, from Birmingham to London in  just 1hr 12min, and from Manchester to London in only 1hr 58min.

Virgin Trains says its new timetable from 14 December is “the most frequent long-distance inter-city service in Europe,” according to Brendan Fox, Editor of Thomas Cook’s European Timetable.

Tony Collins, Virgin Rail Group’s chief executive said: “The new West Coast timetable represents a huge opportunity for the industry following the £9 billion upgrade by Network Rail.

“More seats and dramatically reduced journey times are huge wins for passengers but quite rightly we will all be judged on how well this railway will perform.

“The successful running of Europe’s busiest main line railway is going to be a huge challenge for the train operators and Network Rail and, during the first few months as the timetable beds in, passengers’ expectations may not always be fulfilled. I believe however that within six months we shall have a railway of which the nation can truly be proud.” 

Passengers travelling at weekends — previously used to slow schedules — will see some of the biggest changes as the weekday journey-time improvements will be carried over into Saturdays and Sunday afternoons.

Iain Coucher, Network Rail’s chief executive said: “It has been a long road, but Network Rail has delivered West Coast on the day we said we would. The infrastructure is now ready for the introduction of new, faster, more frequent services across the route.”

Mr Coucher added: “This has been an extraordinarily complex project to rebuild Europe’s busiest mixed-use railway. Now it is complete, passengers and freight operators will reap the benefits. Network Rail has made good on decades of underinvestment, and will continue to invest in the route in the years ahead as demand continues to grow.”