Gatwick Express - good news for rail passengers but not just yet!
Welcoming to the Government's announcement today that the Gatwick Express service has not only been reprieved but will run on to Brighton at peak times Serena Tierney, Lib Dem parliamentary spokesman for Mid Sussex, said:
"This is good news for those of us who travel up and down to London in peak hours. Despite recent improvements to the service, it is still often difficult to get a seat at peak times.
I am particularly pleased that the luggage space on the Gatwick Express service will be retained. It makes a big difference to the comfort of all passengers.
However, I am concerned at the time it will take to introduce the new services and urge the government and the train companies to try and bring this service into operation in less than the planned 18 months."
NOTES:
Gatwick Express
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Tom Harris): My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport announced, on 4 April 2007, the results of the recent consultation on the implementation of the Brighton Main Line (BML) Route Utilisation Strategy (RUS). I would like to take this opportunity to inform Parliament of the announcement.
The key conclusion is that the Gatwick Express will be retained as a non-stop service between Gatwick airport and London Victoria every 15 minutes. In addition, at the busiest times of day, the service will also run beyond Gatwick to Brighton, doubling the number of express trains between Brighton and London Victoria in the high peak. Unused carriages will be taken from storage and reconditioned to provide the extra trains. At least two extra trains will also run between Redhill and London in the peak. These changes will provide more than 3,700 seats into and out of London at the busiest times.
To facilitate this change, the existing Gatwick Express franchise will be ended in May 2008 to allow the creation of a new franchise that will include both the Gatwick Express and Southern services. The new Gatwick Express service will begin in December 2008 under the same branding and with the same frequency to and from the airport. Luggage storage will continue to be provided to accommodate the needs of airport passengers.
A stakeholder briefing document, giving summaries of the responses made by stakeholders to the consultation, and outlining how the key decisions were reached, was also published on 4 April 2007. This document has been placed in the Libraries of both Houses and can also be downloaded from the Department's website at:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/consultations/closed/brightonmainlinerusconsultation/briefingdocument
This is the finalisation of the last of the RUSs that were started by the Strategic Rail Authority. All future RUSs, which are designed to show how the best use may be made of existing network capacity and to assess whether the available capacity can meet medium-term demand, will be led and published by Network Rail.