DEVELOPING
LIVERPOOL-NORWICH
1. Nation-building Liverpool-Norwich trains link cities, towns, regions and
universities across the country, through Manchester, Sheffield, Nottingham and
Peterborough.
2. Recent improvements include
- fewer cancellations
- 0652 business express from
Norwich
- fleet refurbishment. Each
2-car unit now has brighter decor, cctv, cleaner toilets and 19 extra
seats
- extension to Norwich of the
1352 from Liverpool, completing hourly service through the business day
while offering a 1634 conference train home from Nottingham
- 1500 extra seats a day west
of Nottingham.
3. Our vision is of reliable, clean and comfortable trains with high
levels of customer service, so we see a need for
- a "whole route"
approach to engineering access as a step towards a seven-day railway
- a constant focus on
minimising cancellations
- mid-journey cleaning on all
trains travelling the full length of the route
- regular reviews of the
balance between seats and luggage space
- a system for confining the
reservation of seats at tables to three or four people travelling
together, helping business groups and families
- effective air-conditioning, working even in hot weather.
4.
We welcome the provision of catering between Stockport and Nottingham
or beyond, which must be reliable to be commercially viable.
5. Our vision is of accurate real-time information for passengers at all times,
so we see a need for:
- better maintenance and
performance of the public address systems on trains
- consideration of
re-introducing door/widow destination labels especially as more trains
divide at Nottingham
- making a Train tracker (or
equivalent) available on all mobile phone networks.
6. We should like to see more trains via Grantham
travel between Nottingham and Norwich in a car-competitive 160 minutes or less.
Spring 2012