Government commits to extra carriages on Liverpool-London line

May 7 2008

TRANSPORT ministers have placed an order for 106 new Pendolino rail carriages for the West Coast main line which links Liverpool to London.

The high-spec leaning coaches will create four new 11-car trains and will lengthen 31 existing trains from nine to 11 cars.

It is hoped the 7,420 extra seats will ease current over-crowding on the line. The new carriages will be over and above a 45% increase in services already due in December.

The service boosts are designed to offset a predic-ted 24% surge in passen-gers on the Liverpool-London line by 2014.

If manufacturer Alstom sticks to its delivery schedule they will be online by December, 2012, with some stock ready before then.

The Department for Transport also revealed the two companies invited to bid for the contract to support the Government through design, delivery and testing of the new rol-ling stock before they are put into passenger service. Current West Coast op-erator Virgin will be invit-ed to apply, along with Govia, which runs South and South East services.

But there remains con-fusion over how the scheme will function if Govia win and have to test the trains before handing them over to Virgin.

The new carriages could be held back from the front line until after Virgin’s franchise expires in 2012.

A spokesperson for Virgin told the Liverpool Daily Post: “We’re not quite sure how it’s all going to work out if that was the case.

“It’s unlikely that there would be two carriers. It seems more likely that the trains wouldn’t be added in until 2012.”

Virgin had asked the DfT to extend its current franchise by two years in return for lengthening the trains themselves.

The operator offered to put extra carriages on every train but wanted the extension to make the process cost effective.

But ministers rejected the proposals and settled on the scheme announced yesterday, which will leave 21 trains of nine cars long. There is an option to buy a further 42 carriages by early 2013 to meet passen-ger demand if necessary.

A spokesperson for Govia said: “We are pleased to be invited to bid and we are now waiting to see what it involves.

“The reason we have gone for it at this stage was it was a good opportunity and we are well placed to deliver.”