As you know, Avanti West Coast is running a reduced timetable at the moment for which we’re sorry. We know we’re not delivering the service our customers rightly expect and we apologise for the enormous frustration and inconvenience this is causing.
This note is to update stakeholders on how we plan to improve this situation by increasing our services over the coming months.
From now to December 11th 2022
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.
We have more than enough staff within the business but delays to driver training as a result of the pandemic meant we needed a number of staff to volunteer to work additional shifts.
We’re working with our people, their union representatives, and industry partners to match the resources we have to demand, so we can deliver reliable services across our network to all our customers.
Whilst the current timetable is indeed heavily reduced, we did not make those reductions in a blanket fashion. We included additional services where they were most needed and where resource allowed. For example, on weekdays between 6am and 8am we run seven trains from Manchester to London which is almost the same as pre-covid, and from 7am to 9am we have six trains from Birmingham to London which is the same as pre-covid.
We have now completed the work required to analyse the additional services that can be provided in a reliable and sustainable fashion above and beyond those we are already running. We have targeted these services at our busiest routes and times. This will see up to a further ten trains a day running between London and Manchester on both weekdays and weekends. The weekday timings are as follows below; the weekend services are subject to engineering work which is taking place on most weekends over the coming months.
