With demand set to increase as passengers head to London to pay their respects to the late HM The Queen, Avanti West Coast have released plans for additional services on the West Coast Main Line.
The operator has confirmed that they introducing, from today (13th September), a number of additional services between Manchester Piccadilly and London Euston.
This takes the number of direct services operated by Avanti to 26 a day, with the first leaving at 05:55 and the last departing at 21:15.
The following services have been added by Avanti West Coast (correct at the time of writing on 13th September)
Avanti West Coast says that they are aware that Saturday and Sunday are likely to be extremely busy with people from all over the UK heading to London to pay their respects. Avanti is looking closely at what they can do for extra services on those days. The operator is also looking into options for services between London and Birmingham and also at the possibility of hiring in charter trains.
An Avanti West Coast spokesperson said: “With the sad news of the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, we are expecting a great many mourners to visit London on our services. We want to ensure that everyone who wants to travel on our trains to pay their respects can do so, and have been working hard to see where we can put on additional services for the period of mourning. With that in mind, we have been able to put in place up to eight additional services a day on our busiest route between London and Manchester. This will add a total of around 16,000 extra seats.
“We expect services to be very busy so ask people to check before they travel and allow plenty of time for their journey.”
“We are acutely aware that Saturday and Sunday are likely to be extremely busy with people from all over the UK travelling to London to pay their respects. We are examining closely what opportunities there are for additional services on those days. We are also examining the options for additional services between London and Birmingham and the possibility of buying in charter trains.”
Responses
Great one operator is doing its best to cope with the additional transport needs. That now begs the question what are the other main line operators doing. So far it seems nothing. Nothing new their.
East Midlands RAilway are running through the weekend rather than having buses as the engineering works between LUT and STP have been postponed.
I assume that other TOCs will do such things as strengthening trains to provide extra seats without having to find extra paths in and out of London.