Memorandum from David Potter

 

 

 

Franchise requirements by the Department of Transport have resulted in the loss in recent years of through services from Plymouth/Exeter to Portsmouth/Brighton, (which had run for over a century), to Cardiff, and to stations on the West Coast line north of Birmingham. It is rumoured services to and from west of Exeter to London Waterloo will cease from December 2009.

 

A single morning through service served the needs of the handicapped, those with lots of luggage, holidaymakers, the very old and families. Without it many travellers are forced back into the car. Those travelling to or from the West Coast line have had to change at Birmingham New Street, thus adding to the pressure on that already overloaded station.

 

If the numerous pre-1921 private railways and the big four up to nationalisation could run through services, why not now? Do ministers, civil servants and M.P.s care about the less active and mobile, let alone their own policies on global warming?

 

24 June 2009