Plans for an alternative direct train service between Greater Manchester and London have been launched, promising competitive fares, by the transport group that already runs the main Avanti service linking the cities.
Trains straight from London Euston to Rochdale will run from 2027, if approved, under FirstGroup’s Lumo brand, calling first at Warrington and going via Manchester Victoria.
Lumo, which operates a London-Edinburgh service, would run six return trains a day from the capital to Rochdale, restoring a direct London link lost in 2000.
While the struggles of Avanti to fulfil its timetable in recent years might lead some passengers to welcome an alternative, the train is likely to take slightly longer to reach central Manchester, about two and a half hours.
FirstGroup, which also runs the open-access operator Hull Trains, said Lumo would use new UK-built trains powered by electricity and batteries to help push more travellers from road to rail.
It has submitted an application to the rail regulator, the Office of Rail and Road, to launch a second route to Rochdale on an open-access basis – operating outside the government specified contracts on which most of the railway timetable is run.
Although previous applications were fiercely opposed by the main operators on heavily used rail lines, FirstGroup-owned Avanti is less likely to object.
Open access has been encouraged by Conservatives in the name of competition, but many in the industry believe that the taxpayer-funded railway loses out, in terms of revenue and in the efficiency of its overall timetable.
The Network Rail chief executive, Andrew Haines, recently told the Guardian that “you have to be honest about the true costs of running it”.
The Rochdale services would run on the congested West Coast main line and take about three hours to reach the town, with the train also stopping at Newton-le Willows and Eccles.
The FirstGroup chief executive, Graham Sutherland, said: “We have extensive experience of running open access rail operations, and we want to bring our successful Lumo service to this new route that connects Rochdale and London.
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“We have seen the level of growth and opportunity that is possible with open access, as well as the positive effect it has on the wider market, including economic and environmental benefits.”
However, the RMT union said open access operators were “not fronting up the true costs” and that Avanti owner FirstGroup was “one of the worst train operating companies we have ever dealt with” and should not be given additional rights.
The RMT general secretary, Mick Lynch added: “Open access is part of a parasitic private model where operators do not pay the full costs of everything that is involved in running the service, and they are effectively cross subsidised by the taxpayer.”
With the government planning measures to hasten new open access schemes, a number of proposed routes are in the pipeline, including a direct London-Wrexham rail service unveiled in March, as well as trains running from the capital straight to Stirling in Scotland and Carmarthen in Wales.