Minister wants quicker rail trips to Manchester

Sep 11 2007 by David Higgerson, Liverpool Daily Post

GOVERNMENT ministers have ordered the rail industry to shave nearly 20 minutes off the average train journey between Liverpool and Manchester within the next six years.

Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly wants shorter train journeys between the North West’s two key cities so that more people will stop relying on the congested M62.

She has set the main rail operators between Liverpool and Manchester, including Transpennine Express, Northern Rail and Network Rail, the task of reducing the rail times to 43 minutes by 2014.

Train times currently vary between 50 minutes and one hour seven minutes, depending on which operator is running the service.

At the same time, Ms Kelly has also committed a 30% increase in capacity on services between Leeds and Liverpool from 2009.

It is not yet known how the reduction in travel time between Liverpool and Manchester will be achieved, but Ms Kelly believes that by tackling certain bottlenecks along the way, trains will be able to run faster, and more frequently.

She said: "Our railway is flourishing and in this White Paper we show how we will grow and develop the network for decades to come.

"Passengers in the North West want not only more capacity and reliability on their trains but also more modern stations, simple and efficient ticketing, quality of service and value for money. They're right to be so demanding and this strategy can deliver what they want.

"Steady investment has given us a rail network which is in good shape for the first time in a generation and this means we can be ambitious for its future..

“We can't know precisely what our railway will look like in 30 years time but now we can be confident of making it bigger, stronger and more flexible."

Currently, 716,000 journeys a year are made between Liverpool and Manchester, and Network Rail said it expected that to rise by 44% over the next decade.

Extra carriages have already been added to some services to ensure that an extra 250,000 seats a year are available on services into Liverpool.

davidhiggerson