West Coast rail passengers to benefit from more capacity and additional services from May

Commuters and leisure travellers between Northampton and London Euston will benefit from a range of improvements this May, with the introduction of the new London Northwestern Railway timetable.

The train operator is introducing a range of changes from 19 May, with more peak time services, increased capacity, and earlier and later departures from London Euston throughout the week. The changes will benefit passengers travelling for both work and leisure – including those using rail services during evenings and weekends.

There will be more seats to and from the capital throughout the day with more 12 car trains operating on various routes serving the West Coast Mainline.

Additional services will operate between Watford Junction and London Euston during the morning and evening peaks, with 0856, 0913 and 0937 departures from Watford and additional 1715 and 1815 departures from Euston.

Fast services between London Euston and Milton Keynes (coming from Crewe) will have more services made up of eight carriage trains rather than four carriages. This is due to alterations being made further north on the network to allow these to operate. There will also be earlier morning and later evening services on weekdays and Saturdays. From Monday – Saturday, there will be an additional early 0628 departure from London Euston to Crewe, as well as a later 2149 departure.

There will also be quicker direct journeys from London Euston to a range of long-distance destinations, including Birmingham New Street and Birmingham Airport (three trains per hour daily), Wolverhampton and Liverpool Lime Street. This will bring about more options for affordable leisure travel across the rail network and will include reduced waiting times at Northampton.

On the Marston Vale line between Bedford and Bletchley, the new timetable will be enhanced, so that customers will have an hourly service throughout the day, from Monday – Saturday. A Sunday service is planned to operate on the line from 2021.

Richard Brooks, customer experience director for London Northwestern Railway, said: “The timetable improvements being introduced in May will bring a range of benefits to passengers, with more direct services to destinations across our network and improved capacity on some of our busiest services.

“However, this isn’t the whole story. We will also have a further timetable change in two years time, where passengers will see further benefits from the introduction of new trains onto the network, which when fully operational, will increase capacity by 25%.”

The new timetable will operate from Sunday 19 May. There will be changes to the time and formation of some services, so passengers are advised to check their train times and to plan ahead for the changes. The new timetable is now live on journey planning systems and can be found at www.londonnorthwesternrailway.co.uk

ENDS