This independent "open access" rail operator (more properly the Wrexham, Shropshire & Marylebone Railway) has consistently scored more than 96% passenger satisfaction in user surveys (once recording a remarkable 99%), so, of course, in our piss-poor railway system this company would inevitably stop working.
Ultimately owned by Deutsche Bahn, I've never been a huge fan of the Class 67 locomotives it used (they are just so damn ugly) but, at the other end of each rake, there was a rather stylish ex-British Rail Mk3 DVT:
After tomorrow's last scheduled service their silver and grey livery (and rather stylish logo) will disappear from the network.
But the trains themselves will, I suspect, reappear very quickly, to serve on Chiltern Railways' new Marylebone-Birmingham route (Chilterns Railways is owned by, er, Deutsche Bahn).
1 comment:
It was a brave effort but essentially doomed from the start. Without the "top end of the line" to Chester and Birkenhead, with unfathomable limitations on its use at Wolverhampton, with a wholly uncompetitive journey time, and with no stop at New Street it couldn't take up where the GWR Paddington - Birkenhead service had left off in 1967. That service was taken off on the assumption that the electrified WCML would render it superfluous... an assumption based on end-to-end ticket sales which were indeed few, since it served as a combination of a London-B'ham fairly fast train and a "long-distance-local" London - B'head, onto and off which numerous people leapt at the numerous stops. Unless using the sleeper or for some other special reason anyone travelling between B'head/Chester and London pre 1967 would go via Crewe as the GW route took over four hours. Likewise Wrexham and Shrewsbury passengers would go from or via Crewe, and Telford (in those days Wellington) people would use Stafford. And indeed this is what they did 41 years later despite the WS&M alternative offering. The trains were comfortable, the service immaculate and the fares reasonable, but the public voted for Virgin's speed and frequency despite its discomfort and squalor. Its afficionados will miss it, but most of us are used to day trips to London these days and with WS&M they weren't really a proposition. A very sad tale...
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