Despite Saturday’s national rail strike, which will wipe out all its trains for the day, Avanti West Coast has announced an improved service from today.
The intercity operator on the West Coast main line from London Euston will be running more trains to and from Birmingham and Manchester in what it calls “the first stage in a recovery plan”.
Last month Avanti West Coast brought in a reduced service. The train operator blamed “the current industrial relations climate”. It said severe staff shortages were being caused by increased sickness levels – “as well as the majority of drivers making themselves unavailable for overtime in a co-ordinated fashion, and at short notice”.
In response, the train drivers’ union, Aslef, said Avanti should recruit more train drivers.
New drivers are now becoming available. From today until early December, up to 10 extra trains a day will run between Manchester and London – mainly on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.
The company says: “These extra trains follow an intensive analysis of the number of additional services that can be provided in a reliable and sustainable fashion.
“They also take account of the significant number of drivers who will be entering passenger service following recruitment and training – nearly 100 between April and December this year.
“The services are being targeted at the busiest routes and times and are not dependent on overtime working.”
At the same time, on the Birmingham route, Avanti West Coast will introduce four additional trains a day on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.
Tickets for these services will be available for purchase over the coming days. The remaining additional services will be introduced as soon as possible.
More trains are planned to be restored in December, with the London-Manchester link back to its pre-Covid level of three trains per hour and trains to and from Birmingham back to at least half-hourly.
Direct services to North Wales will also return.
Barry Milsom, executive director of operations and safety for Avanti West Coast, said: “We know we’re not delivering the service our customers rightly expect and we apologise for the enormous frustration and inconvenience this is causing.
“The decision to reduce our timetable in August was not taken lightly but our customers and communities deserve a dependable train service, so we’ve been working hard to rebuild our timetable in a resilient and sustainable way.
“Resolving this situation required a robust plan that allows us to gradually increase services without being reliant on traincrew overtime.
“We are now in a position to start delivering this incremental increase in services, followed by a further increase in December.”
No trains will run on Avanti West Coast and many other operators on Saturday, when members of the RMT union and Aslef strike simultaneously. There will be further strikes on 5 October (Aslef) and 8 October (RMT), but some trains are expected to operate.
Avanti West Coast is a joint venture involving First Group and the Italian state operator, Trenitalia.
