More robust timetables will be the order of the day after the pandemic, Network Rail’s Central Route Director DAVE PENNEY tells JAMES ABBOTT
Network Rail’s new regional structure was just bedding in when the coronavirus pandemic struck. It’s been a strange time for the railway, as it has for wider society, and a bunch of railway managers fairly new to their roles have had to come to terms with a new reality.
One of them is Dave Penney, NR’s Central Route Director, part of the North West and Central Region under MD Tim Shoveller. Covering the West Midlands conurbation and the Chiltern line up to Marylebone, Central Route is a ‘dense bit of railway, with a lot of passengers and freight’ says Mr Penney. Clearly, there has been less traffic in the pandemic, but that has given an opportunity to sort out some operating issues.
‘The immediate challenge was to restore performance in the West Midlands after the May 2019 timetable change.’ As has been well rehearsed in these pages, the May 2019 West Midlands Trains timetable projected Euston semi-fast services beyond Birmingham New Street to Crewe, Liverpool and Rugeley and introduced some complex splitting and joining of EMUs at New Street. ‘Before it came in…
