Threat of cuts on major rail route

Aug 29 2005 By Ben Hurst, Transport Correspondent

BIRMINGHAM'S key commuter line could see services slashed by a third, causing dismay among passenger groups.

The Cross City Line is being targeted for cuts. The number of services could be hacked from six an hour to just four.

It is the city’s premier train route for workers, carrying 8.5 million people each year.

At peak times services are packed, leading it to be dubbed the “sardine express”.

Any cuts would lead to even worse overcrowding.

Centro has revealed that the Department for Transport had asked Central Trains to separately prepare business plans for running four and six trains per hour services on the line.

An industry source told the Evening Mail that this meant that if Centro could not stump up the cash for the extra two trains an hour, services would be chopped.

Coun Gary Clarke, chairman of the West Midlands Passenger Transport Authority, which is the decision making body for Centro, said: “It is very worrying and we would be strongly against it.

“We are trying to make progress in Birmingham in terms of attracting people on to the rails and we have done so far. This reduction in services would not be acceptable at all and passengers should rest assured that we will be working with the DfT to sort this out.”

Alan Bevan, from Midland Rail Future, said: “It is a very worrying development and would be a big retrograde step for passengers in Birmingham to go back to the previous situation of four trains an hour when six seems to have been quite a success.

“We would hope that the powers that be see sense and keep six trains an hour.”