00:00Avanti West Coast's plans for additional services between Blackpool and Euston were also denied by the Office of Rail and
00:07Road, or the O.R.R.
00:10The body rejected the Wrexham, Shropshire and Midlands Railway Company's application for four return Wrexham to London Euston services and
00:21also low-budget carrier Lumo's proposal for up to four return services between Rochdale and Euston.
00:29The regulator said gaps in the current timetable need to provide important space for trains to recover when disruption occurs,
00:37minimising delays to passengers.
00:40O.R.R. concluded that adding more services into these windows in the timetable for recovery would reduce that resilience,
00:48increasing the risk of disruption spreading to other services and affecting more passengers.
00:53Stephanie Tobin, the O.R.R.'s Director of Strategy, Policy and Reform, said new services, destinations and greater choice can
01:02bring real benefits for passengers and communities.
01:05She added, however, the West Coast mainline is already under significant pressure, with performance reflecting limited resilience on a heavily
01:13used part of the rail network.
01:15She said their detailed analysis has shown that adding more trains to the current timetable would reduce the ability to
01:21recover when disruption occurs, increasing the risk of delays spreading and making reliability of the network worse.
