Railwatch 079 - April 1999

North Wales

By Dave Sallery

Four-by-four The branch has voiced its concern about what appears to be a plan to reduce the number of seats offered between Holyhead and London as part of the West Coast line upgrade. Virgin's order for tilting diesel trains includes just four four-car sets for North Wales and Virgin is only committed to running six trains a day each way from 2004. Up until 2004, however, North Western Trains will also be running four services a day from North Wales to London, but after that date those will stop because Virgin has been guaranteed no competition. Assuming the NWT services attract decent loadings (the start-up is still waiting for new trains) there may be far more demand than Virgin is equipped to handle from 2004. Virgin say the four-car units can be interchanged with five-car CrossCountry units, but even this may not fully compensate for the loss of NWT's services, so we suspect Virgin will control demand by means of its advance-booking requirements, SuperSaver fare rises and tight restrictions on Saver validity. We want Virgin to increase its order of trains for North Wales or the Rail Regulator to abolish Virgin's no-competition guarantee on this route to allow other companies to provide additional services. The alternative, it appears, is passengers being forced to go by road if they have not booked their Apex tickets far enough in advance.

Conwy Valley conned Spare a thought for passengers who live in the Conwy Valley- Blaenau Ffestiniog and travel to and from London by rail. Virgin's restrictions on SuperSaver and Saver validity from Euston in the evenings will hit them hard. Virgin is reported to have agreed an exemption for passengers returning to places that cannot be reached after the evening-peak ban is lifted. For example, passengers for Wrexham can leave Euston during the restricted period with Saver tickets. According to press reports, no such exemption has been agreed for the Conwy Valley line from Llandudno Junction to Blaenau Ffestiniog. Thus, passengers returning to Blaenau have to leave London in the early afternoon or else pay over £100 — and have the "privilege" of using a bus instead of the Conwy Valley train service over the last 30 miles.

Bridging the gap The branch has attempted to ensure that a new multiplex cinema complex will be properly connected to the rail system. According to the blurb about the plans for a multiplex at Llandudno Junction, the cinema will be conveniently located beside the A55 Expressway. It also happens to be right next to Llandudno Junction station, and on former railway land to be precise. Railtrack is involved in the development plans. While councillors discussed the details of a new 475-space car park, we appealed to them to make it a compulsory condition of planning consent that a covered footbridge/walkway must be provided from the station direct to the cinema complex. Without it, the long walk to the cinema through the station's front entrance and along busy roads would be so roundabout that the railway would effectively be cut off from yet another major potential new source of passengers.

Fare Offers First North Western has introduced two 2 for 1 fare offers, one confined to the Conwy Valley and the other available from stations on Anglesey for tickets booked as far as Chester. Publicity for the fare offers has been very poor, not helped by the fact that a leaflet is required to take advantage of the offers and it is not available from stations or on trains!

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