Southport is losing its direct rail service to Manchester Piccadilly.
It follows a loaded consultation which was launched in January 2021 and had the support of both government and Northern leaders.
The consultation presented three options for the future of Southport to Manchester services – all of which involved the loss of the Piccadilly service.
The new timetables, which will come into force in December 2022, instead present an hourly service from Southport to Manchester Victoria and Stalybridge all day.
In a compromise move, there will also be an hourly service that will run between Southport, Wigan and Manchester Oxford Road all day.
The new timetables aim to reduce delays for rail passengers in and around the congested Manchester region by around 25%, benefitting the 150,000 regular passengers on the local rail network as they return following the pandemic.
The new timetables will also see the direct Manchester Airport connectivity for Liverpool, Chester and North Wales retained.
The final details of services are being refined ahead of launch and there will be ongoing public involvement in the process.
A campaign against Southport losing its direct service to Manchester Piccadilly was carried out by cross-party MPs, politicians, Southport BID, business leaders and commuters in Southport and West Lancashire, but their pleas were rejected.
Changes to services aims to ensure that the wider Manchester area remains closely connected while bottlenecks become unclogged. The new timetable is designed to improve the service mix across a number of ‘hotspots’, including the congested Castlefield area in Manchester.
This bottleneck has constrained the flow of rail services for years and has generated millions of minutes of costly and damaging delays.
The timetable was jointly produced by the cross-industry Manchester Recovery Task Force, comprising the Department for Transport, Transport for the North, Transport for Greater Manchester, Network Rail and the train operators Northern and TransPennine Express.
They claim that local views have also been reflected in what is the first step in a wider strategy, including ambitious infrastructure plans being developed. Early phase infrastructure is targeted to start in the middle of this decade, which will help deliver better journeys for passengers and create a modern rail network for Greater Manchester and the North.
Rail Minister Chris Heaton-Harris said:
“This new timetable has been built around the voices of Manchester that helped design it, focused on cutting delays on Manchester’s railways and boosting punctuality.
“Our plan for rail sets out our commitment to putting passengers first when it comes to our rail network. The work we are doing to fix Manchester’s railways, which were bursting at the seams pre-pandemic, is all part of us building back better from COVID-19.”
Liam Robinson, Chair of the Rail North Committee, representing Northern leaders on the task force, said:
“This part of the network is the buckle in the belt of the North’s rail network. It has to be able to do its job. The interim service solution in this consultation is, inevitably, a compromise, but it allows us the chance to run more reliable services until the task force can deliver on infrastructure solutions to enable the network to run as it needs to.
“What’s important is that we now have a commitment from the government and the rail industry to develop and deliver a rail map which will enable us to build back services in a smarter and more intelligent way and provide an exit strategy from the temporary timetable we need in the interim.”
Louise Gittins, Interim Chair of Transport for the North, said:
“While rail travel has been significantly suppressed by the COVID-19 pandemic, all our data suggests that in a relatively short time this rail corridor will, once again, be under severe pressure unless we take action now.
“The task force has, in phase 1 of this consultation, put forward a strategic framework for rail services, which rail operators will now consult with the public on in detail. What really matters is that, while this work is going on, simultaneously, significant work will be underway to address some of the fundamental structural issues of this network that need fixing.”
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