An application by Alliance Rail to operate a train service to London Waterloo, which had previously been rejected by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), has now been revisited.
The original application envisaged an hourly service on the South West Main Line from Marchwood and Southampton in Hampshire to London Waterloo. Although the initial rejection remains, the Office of Rail and Road has addressed a number of its initial comments that have been found to be incorrect, including uncertainty around its own forecasts for revenue generation and abstraction.
There are still concerns about the information that Network Rail provided to the ORR, particularly its views on capacity when there is a compliant timetable, and estimates for infrastructure works that are not based on any firm evidence.
There is also uncertainty around revenue generation and abstraction, especially concerning ORR processes relative to previous applications and decisions, when there was a £3.1m difference in its results that the ORR has not been able to explain.
Alliance Rail already has trains ready for testing if the new train service from Marchwood and Southampton to London Waterloo is approved.
“While we are pleased that the ORR has noted our legitimate complaint with the amendments, we are still concerned that the 2nd letter was issued two days before we had a planned meeting in London with the ORR on 12 June, and must therefore reflect that its comment that the “Board has considered Alliance’s application again in its entirety” as not being entirely correct”.
“While there remain a number of areas that are still unclear, the ORR team was open and seemingly transparent as we sought to bottom out the contradictions to ensure our planned revised application fully addresses the ORR’s changing processes. This will hopefully ensure that future decisions are more in line with the standard that we have previously come to expect from the ORR”.
Ian Yeowart, Managing Director, Alliance Rail
Responses
What about Fawley. If the Fawley Line was to be reinstated and Class 769 to use the branch line to Marchwood.
The ORR should allow the service to begin and let the passengers decide if it’s worthwhile or not, rather than letting SWR have the monopoly on Southampton to Waterloo services
Typical initial ORR response; i.e.- ‘No’. Glad the proposed service is being looked at again. Marchwood is interesting as the station building still exists (along with the platforms). There are also semaphore signals and wooden level crossing gates. The provision of new services between places which didn’t have direct services previously was one of the best things about privatisation (along with the principle of ‘open Access’ generally). No doubt from hereon we’ll be getting the usual Nationalised negativity.
Alliance Rail have obviously discovered there is the potential for offering a new service for Marchwood residents and businesses to London.
So I say let them run this service with the restriction that in the Up Direction the stop at Southampton (and all other stops toiwads London) is “Stop to Set Down Only”. Given there is no need for passengers from Southampton to use this service given the frequency of SWR services .
And the Down services back to Marchwood are “Stop to Pick Up Only” at Southampton.
How viable are the 769s? Great Western was going to convert the Gatwick-Redhill-Guildford-Reading services to operation with these units, with the service possibly being extended to Oxford, but the plan was inexplicably cancelled. Was this down to a problem with the 769s?