Birmingham and Manchester rail links to London cut as passenger numbers slump

No indication whether trains will be restored after England’s lockdown ends

All change: Avanti West Coast is cutting one-third of trains connecting Birmingham and Manchester with London (Simon Calder)

As passenger numbers slump during England’s second lockdown, two key inter-city rail routes to and from London are to lose one-third of their express services.

From 14 November, Avanti West Coast will cut links from Euston to Manchester Piccadilly and Birmingham New Street from three trains per hour to two.

At present both cities have departures every 20 minutes in each direction to and from London Euston.

But the train operator is not switching to a half-hourly service; to do so would involve recasting the entire West Coast main line timetable. Instead, one in three existing departures to and from each city will be cut.

From London to Manchester, the service on the hour – calling at Stoke-on-Trent, Macclesfield and Stockport – will not run.

The train 20 minutes later will operate as normal, with a stop scheduled at Milton Keynes Central and an additional call at Macclesfield – extending the journey by a couple of minutes.

The departure at 40 minutes past the hour, via Crewe, Wilmslow and Stockport, will run as normal.

To Birmingham New Street, the train at three minutes past each hour is axed.

A spokesperson for Avanti West Coast said: “Services between London and Manchester/ Birmingham will change from three trains an hour to two.

“Whilst we’re not seeing it at the moment, we want to ensure our service continues to be resilient if we have rising staff absence.

"We’ve seen reduced passenger demand over recent weeks so are able to change our timetable whilst still ensuring we can meet the social distancing needs of customers.

“We’ll continue to serve all our other routes and destinations with roughly the same timetable as we’re running now, and we’d always recommend customers check our website before they travel.”

The Independent understands the proposal originated from Avanti West Coast rather than the Department for Transport.

Mark Smith, the former British Rail manager who founded the Seat61.com international rail portal, said: "A decade ago, modernisation of the West Coast main line allowed an unprecedented 'high-frequency' timetable with three trains from London to Manchester and Birmingham every hour.

“Lockdown has decimated passenger numbers, so it's entirely sensible to scale back the number of trains, many of which are running largely empty.”

The train operator said: ”Anyone impacted by these changes, who has booked directly with us, will be contacted via email.”

Passengers travelling between Euston, Milton Keynes, Coventry and Birmingham can also choose from cheaper-but-slower services operated by London Northwestern.

In addition, Chiltern Railways links London Marylebone with Birmingham via Banbury.

Avanti West Coast, a joint venture between FirstGroup of Aberdeen and Trenitalia of Rome, took over the West Coast main line franchise from Virgin Trains on 8 December 2019.

Along with other former rail franchises, the operation is being supported under an Emergency Recovery Measures Agreement (ERMA). The cost to the taxpayer of keeping the network running is around £25m per day.

Until restrictions are lifted from 3 December, very few passengers are expected to be affected by the reduction in frequencies.

Passenger numbers have collapsed to a fraction of 2019 levels since the coronavirus pandemic began. Any prospects of recovery in England have now gone into reverse under the second lockdown.

The rules state: “No person may leave or be outside of the place where they are living without reasonable excuse.”

The presumption is that people will not travel, though there are exemptions for travelling for education, caring responsibilities and work where this cannot be done from home.

Before England’s second lockdown was announced, Nigel Harris, editor of Rail magazine, said: “Post-Covid we probably do not need a thrice-hourly Euston-Manchester service."