Imagine a train, full of staff, ready to depart, but with no passengers allowed! That's precisely the baffling situation that unfolded on the Manchester to London route, and now the very regulator who made the call admits they were flying blind.
The Office of Road and Rail (ORR) has come clean, confessing that crucial information was missing when they decided to turn a popular peak-time service into a 'ghost train' for months on end. This wasn't just a minor oversight; it meant a daily service, intended to be fully staffed and departing from Manchester Piccadilly, was slated to run empty.
But here's where it gets controversial... The ORR's chief executive, John Larkinson, revealed that his team didn't realize the train would be fully crewed, depart from Manchester Piccadilly (not a depot), and crucially, needed to reach Euston to become the vital 09:30 GMT service to Glasgow. "The information that later became available to us meant that our assumption turned out to be incorrect," he stated, a candid admission of a significant misjudgment.
This whole kerfuffle erupted after the ORR faced a public outcry in November for allowing the 07:00 train to run without passengers. This decision, which was set to take effect from mid-December, was quickly reversed after widespread criticism, including from Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander. The ORR's initial justification? That the service needed to run empty to act as a 'firebreak' – essentially, a planned gap in the timetable to manage potential delays.
And this is the part most people miss... In a letter to Ruth Cadbury, the chair of Parliament's Transport Committee, Larkinson explained that the facts that emerged later showed the slot couldn't effectively serve as a firebreak anymore. He admitted that the ORR team assessing the application simply didn't ask Avanti for further details, which would have clarified the situation. "If the ORR team had contacted Avanti, its decision 'may have been different,'" he conceded, explaining that the team was stretched thin and juggling 82 complex and competing applications for track access at the time. Even when the train operating company raised concerns in early November, their points weren't handled with the urgency they deserved.
Larkinson described it as "an unusual case, but nevertheless one we will learn from." He took full responsibility and assured that processes are being strengthened to incorporate these lessons.
Ruth Cadbury, the Labour MP for Brentford and Isleworth, echoed the public's confusion, stating, "The public was understandably baffled by the ORR's decision not to allow the 7am fast service from Manchester to London to carry passengers when a fully crewed train was running anyway." She acknowledged the ORR's detailed explanation and recognition of responsibility as a welcome step. The Transport Committee will now be looking at ways to prevent similar incidents as the government works on establishing Great British Railways.
So, what do you think? Was the ORR's initial decision a simple mistake, or does it point to deeper systemic issues within our rail network? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
