A peculiar scene is unfolding on the railway line between Manchester and London. Starting next month, the 7am Avanti West Coast express, a favored route for business travelers, will run…empty.
Imagine a sleek, modern train, capable of whisking passengers from Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston in under two hours, gliding through the countryside with not a single fare-paying customer on board. This isn’t a scheduling error, but a deliberate decision driven by operational concerns.
The change, impacting a service that can cost nearly £200 for a standard class ticket, is intended to create “firebreak” paths – essentially, dedicated slots for recovery in case of disruptions elsewhere on the network. Passengers are understandably baffled, questioning the logic of expending resources on a ghost train.
One rail expert described the situation vividly: passengers will be able to “see it, touch it, watch it” depart, yet remain firmly on the platform. The decision, made by the Office of Road and Rail (ORR), aims for greater flexibility in managing the busy West Coast Mainline.
This isn’t an isolated incident. A Sunday service to Holyhead will now terminate prematurely at Crewe, further altering travel patterns. The ORR insists that despite these changes, the overall number of Avanti services to the North West will actually increase.
However, the move has sparked debate about access to the line. While a new low-cost operator, Lumo, is slated to begin services to Scotland next year, applications from other companies, including Richard Branson’s Virgin group, have been rejected due to perceived capacity constraints.
Virgin had proposed rival services to Birmingham, Liverpool, and Glasgow, but the ORR feared adding more trains would jeopardize the reliability of the entire network. The regulator cited a potential “serious negative impact” on performance as the reason for denial.
Avanti West Coast itself expressed disappointment over the cancellation of the 7am Manchester service, acknowledging the inconvenience it will cause to regular commuters. The future of West Coast services remains in flux, with a potential shift to public ownership anticipated by 2027.
The situation highlights a complex balancing act between passenger needs, network efficiency, and the ambitions of competing rail operators. It’s a stark illustration of how seemingly simple journeys can be entangled in a web of logistical and regulatory considerations.
