VIRGIN has insisted all its extra trains to and from Liverpool will be at peak times, as it was accused of misleading passengers about its planned improvements.
The Liberal Democrats hit out after the train operator admitted just 1% of a planned 30% increase in capacity from next year on the West Coast line will be when passengers need it most.
Lord Bradshaw, a Lib Dem transport spokesman, accused the company of putting a false “gloss” on the impact of its new timetable, dubbed VHF – or Virgin High Frequency.
The row came just weeks after Virgin was criticised for indica- ting it would refuse to run an extra 106 carriages pledged by the Government for existing trains, unless its franchise was extended beyond 2012.
But, yesterday (Mon Mar 17), the operator – while not denying the majority of new trains on the West Coast would run at off-peak times – insisted that did not apply to services to and from Lime Street.
It said three extra daily, weekday trains out of Liverpool would all run in the morning peak, leaving between 5am and 7am. The exact times are still under negotiation with the department for transport (Dft).
Of three new daily services to Liverpool, one would be at around 5.30am, with the remain- ing two leaving London Euston in the evening peak, for business people heading home.
A Virgin spokesman said: “We have built up demand on the Liverpool-London route and we want to offer more trains and seats in the peak periods. On other routes, such as Manchester- London and Birmingham- London, we already run extra trains during the peaks. We want to do the same on the Liverpool route, in the VHF timetable.”
At present, there are 15 trains each way on weekdays on the Liverpool-London route. The new timetable will also slash around 25 minutes off the journey time, which will take just two hours and seven minutes.
But the timetable will only be introduced in January if Net-work Rail completes the up- grade thrown into doubt when work dramatically overran at Rugby, at the New Year.
The latest row blew up when Lord Bradshaw was told by a senior Virgin official that 29% of the West Coast capacity increase would be at off-peak times.
The peer said: “Virgin is put-ting a gloss on figures when, in reality, they will do nothing to alleviate the capacity problems at peak times, which are very bad in standard class.”
On the separate issue of extra carriages on existing trains, Virgin and the Dft are attempting to negotiate a way out of the stalemate. The oper- ator insists it would be too costly and time- consuming to lengthen the trains, as the clock ticks down to the end of its franchise in 2012. Its bid for a two-year extension has been rejected.
