Grand Union writes to DfT after U-turn in stance on cross-country open access plan

Grand Union Trains has become the latest operator to write back to the Department for Transport (DfT) after it opposed eight out of nine open access applications.

Grand Union’s proposed Cardiff-Edinburgh via Doncaster service (submitted under the Alliance Rail name) was one of the eight DfT objected to.

The department said last month it did not back the scheme, despite previously supporting it.

Managing Director Ian Yeowart noted this U-turn, saying he was “naturally disappointed”. He also cited how DfT had said in December 2023 that it wanted “to see more open access to make best use of the network, deliver for passengers and grow new markets for rail”, and that his proposal would help provide benefits.

In his letter to Joe Hickey, Deputy Director, Rail Reform Coherence and Cross Cutting Policy at DfT, Yeowart wrote: “At a time when ‘economic growth’ is the major driver of current government policy, it seems counter-intuitive to comment on the current fiscal landscape as a reason for objection when it should actually be a reason for more support, particularly as many projects recently promoted by the Chancellor involve significant amounts of public investment while this proposal involves significant private sector investment.”

DfT said its Not Primarily Abstractive (NPA) test for the plan did not meet the Office of Rail and Road’s 0.3 threshold, coming in between 0.21 and 0.24. Yeowart said his firm’s work, undertaken by AECOM, showed an NPA ratio of 0.39-0.41.

Two other DfT’s objections were capacity, with CrossCountry set to reintroduce more services on the East Coast Main Line towards York and Doncaster this year, and power supply from overhead line equipment north of Doncaster.

Yeowart acknowledged ECML power situation. Grand Union/Alliance plans to use seven-car Class 222 DMUs as they come off-lease from East Midlands Railway, before replacing them with a brand new fleet of Hitachi bi-mode units (also seven carriages long) as power supply issues are addressed.

He said this would help secure the immediate future of Hitachi’s Newton Aycliffe factory which the Prime Minister and Transport Secretary visited in December off the back of FirstGroup’s order for new units for Lumo services.

Yeowart said it was “sobering to think that many of those new trains will not be delivered if your objections result in rejection of those and our own application”.

He also described CrossCountry’s recently introduced service linking Cardiff-Edinburgh as a “token” offering. One train a day currently links the two cities, whereas Grand Union plans five. He said that service was known about when DfT previously supported his scheme, and said the current offering was not acceptable from a ‘Union connectivity’ perspective.

“It is well known that the cross-country route suffers from severe overcrowding, particularly in the core, and Alliance’s proposals would, annually, add over 1.3 million seats to the route initially, rising to 1.8 million when the new trains arrive.

“With such suppressed demand and passengers currently priced off, the use of modelled abstraction numbers to try and justify not supporting significant private sector investment is illogical, particularly as this application is the only application that acknowledges and seeks to address known overcrowding on the route.”

FirstGroup and Virgin, whose applications were also not welcomed, wrote back within days of the DfT’s letter. The only open access application it did support was a new Wrexham, Shropshire and Midlands Railways service linking the North Wales city and London Euston.

ORR is currently reviewing the applications.