Grand Union (Alliance Trains) has withdrawn its plans to introduce a new direct service between Cardiff and Edinburgh.
While the service would offer almost two million additional seats annually on this important cross-country route, linking Wales, England and Scotland with a regular daily service of 5 trains per day – the current political landscape, where new privately funded train services, investment in new trains and job creation are discouraged, has meant the plans have been shelved.
The Route
The planned route had been: Cardiff Central, Newport, Severn Tunnel Junction, Gloucester, Birmingham New Street, Derby, Sheffield, Doncaster, York and Newcastle before continuing on to Edinburgh Waverley. The stopping pattern is to reflect the ‘inter-city’ nature of the service, alleviating pressure on other services with more stops, and offering an overall significant increase in passenger carrying capacity.
Working Local
Stakeholders have regularly identified the lack of connectivity, the lack of seating and the high ticket prices on this route. The new service would have brought significant full-time direct employment to a number of areas on the route as well as in maintenance and outsourced service support . The fleet of new trains would have been built at Newton Aycliffe. The operation had planned to be based at Doncaster with out-bases at Cardiff and Edinburgh.
All Aboard for a Relaxing Experience
We aim to provide the very best on-board experience – where we value every single customer and offer a good choice of catering and refreshments regardless of ticket price.
Our comfortable trains will be configured to our specification to provide much better seats, with more space and leg-room for passengers compared to other train operators, with good space for luggage. Trains are planned to be formed of 7 coaches.
All our journeys will have a full complement of safety-trained staff onboard, so passengers can be confident their service is as safe as possible.
A Fair Price
We believe train travel should be affordable and accessible for everyone. We will aim to provide the best possible value for money on ticketing, attracting passengers who currently cannot afford rail travel or are crowded off services due to overcrowding.
As well as selling advance tickets, passengers will also be able to buy tickets on the train, with prices significantly below the inter-available fare. Passengers will also be able to use railcards for on-train ticket purchase.
Our Seat Guarantee
Passengers rightly expect to receive a seat – and a seat will be part of the ticket price for all journeys over 30 minutes. If we cannot provide a seat on a particular journey, we will refund a standing passenger 50% of their ticket price for that journey, or if they buy a ticket onboard, discount their ticket at the time of purchase.