Posted 13th June 2014 | 10 Comments

Open access plans gain Network Rail agreement

ASPIRING open access operator Great North Western Railway Company said it has come to agreement with Network Rail on the sale of access rights to begin the operation of two new direct services from the North of England to London on the West Coast Main Line.

One would provide six daily return journeys between London and Blackpool and the other between London, Manchester Victoria, Huddersfield and Leeds.

A period of industry consultation is now due to end early next month.

GNWR said its contract would still need approval from the ORR. If this is granted, GNWR will order eight Alstom Pendolinos and begin recruitment, with 200 jobs set to be created.

GNWR managing director Ian Yeowart said: “It has taken a significant amount of work since our initial application in 2011 to get to this point where Network Rail has agreed to the sale of access rights. There is still some way to go following full approval, as new rolling stock needs to be ordered and a full recruitment process needs to be undertaken. The target dates for operation are set to coincide with the full electrification of the two routes”.

The initial application was to serve four routes, including Bradford and the Cumbrian Coast, but with potential timetable and performance impacts on the WCML route, Network Rail is not in a position to agree further access rights yet, GNWR added.

Ian Yeowart continued: “Disappointingly not all our services are deliverable at the moment, but we will continue to engage with Network Rail to try and secure the capacity we need to address the issue in the future. A similar situation was faced by sister company Grand Central in 2006 when it began services to Sunderland from an application that included Sunderland and Bradford. Despite being rejected at the time, Bradford services began three years later ”

Reader Comments:

Views expressed in submitted comments are that of the author, and not necessarily shared by Railnews.

  • Matthew, London

    The devil is in the detail of course. The approved route for GNWR is from Queens Park, not Euston at the moment, not terribly convenient if that is where services end up starting from in London

  • david c smith, milton keynes

    Comparison of open - access passenger rail with bus deregulation a few years ago is not exact.

    Firstly, a DfT consultation 2 or 3 years back concluded that effective competition among local bus services is not feasible, even with multiple operators. Who wants to let company A's bus go past so they can wait several more minutes for company B's bus ?

    Secondly , unlike with buses rail operations have to have an Authority to allocate peths just as in the aviation industry an Authority allocates landing and takeoff slots.

  • david c smith, milton keynes

    Personally I would like to see all routes ( most intercity, for exanple) where effective competition is feasible being de - franchised and given over to open-access
    Of course, some operations are natural monopolies with captive markets (eg many commuter ).. These could be subject to direct democracy ( bypassing local or national government) with local cooperatives / mutuals.

    Subsidies would still be possible, but as ongoing performance - related incentive payments rather than by fixes contract.

  • Melvyn Windebank, Canvey Island, Essex

    Simply look at the mess so called open access made to the bus network where pirate operators came along creamed off profits and in the end evening and weekend bus services were destroyed as there were no profits in peaks to cross subsidise them !

    As for Virgin and Blackpool well Network Rail did offer them time slots but Virgin did not like them .

    Railways are about providing a decent service and one return trip per day is not a decent service .

    Competition needs more lines as Chiltern Railways have shown with their Birmingham service competing with London Midland and Virgin on WCML . And who knows electrification of MML combined with Northern Hub might one day bring back services to Manchester via MML ?

    Funny thing of course is the fact that Lord Beeching was all about destroying competition with closure of parallel routes between same places !

  • Roger Capel, Sheffield

    I gather that the fleet mooted for this is eight Pendolinos (length as yet unspecified). If so, can we hope that instead of the letterbox windows & claustrophobic interior of Mr. Branson's "Airline on Rails", we will see something like PKP's Pendolino Polska? Their big windows, good legroom & seats that align with them put Pendolino Britannico to shame.

  • John Band, guildford

    This won't start until after the current (extended) WCML franchise expires in March 2017, otherwise Virgin would kick up a huge fuss. Virgin may well object anyway, on the basis that they have always been willing to run such services if only Network Rail would let them.

  • Michael , London

    What/HOW exactly is open access going to make a difference to the current rail services?
    National Rail has a peak time service pattern of near 100% utilisation of the rail heads, saying there is open access is point less.
    It would be like saying LHR has open access, when 99% of the landing slots are occupied.
    What a load of twaddle!
    Until we have MORE new built LGV PDL track, such gestures are about as possible as me saying I am going to run a train service on ECML every 4 minutes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to Edinburgh and beyond at 450kph.... Bringing Edinburgh and Glasgow to under 2 hours from London.

  • Roshan, Leeds

    Competition is something our railways are crying out for. Luckily the rise of these open-access operators is bringing back competition and innovation. In fact, I believe the open-access operator model is far better than the franchised TOC model. The WCML has been devoid of competition so far, so this is fantastic news. I hope GNER's plans come to fruition too.

    Now if NR can now just leave TOCs to manage the track they use, things would be much better.

  • Martin Hollands, Aylesbury

    This is long overdue, it is impossible to understate the amount of hoops and hurdles that Ian and his guys have had to go through to get this done over many years. I know I was on the NR side that was "helping" with this.

    Anyone would think that the rest of the industry couldn't face having competition.

    Good luck with this Ian.

  • Chris Neville-Smith, Durham, England

    Hmm ... nice though it would be to have this, how easily can this be justified when a similar Blackpool service by Virgin was rejected?