Confusion and loss of identity on trains

DEAR Editor, With a somewhat muted fanfare of trumpets, West Midlands Rail has been hailed as the great success story in the ongoing quest for devolution in our region. But is it?

I have travelled through rural Warwickshire, to Coventry, Birmingham and on through the West Midlands conurbation and the Black Country to Wolverhampton. I have yet to see a single West Midlands train, or hear a service announcement which makes any reference to our region. Why is this so?

With a total absence of logic or common sense, significant areas of the West Midlands have summarily been stripped of their local identity and given a new false and irrelevant designation. Important centres like Rugby, Coventry, Birmingham and Wolverhampton, not to mention a host of local West Midlands destinations, have now all been rebranded London Northwestern.

Those running the new franchise appear to be as baffled as I am as they freely acknowledge that it has led to considerable confusion amongst passengers. So, will this futile and unwelcome incursion into the West Midlands heartland now quietly be dropped in the interest of common sense and regional unity and harmony?

No, of course not. Rather than dispense with a perverse anomaly which defies logic and achieves nothing, the plan is to waste a huge amount of time, effort and money attempting to justify a decision which runs contrary to the Government’s pursuit of greater devolution for the regions, and which is little short of insulting to a region which has fought so long and hard to achieve a semblance of unity and regional identity. It really couldn’t happen anywhere else!

It seems we were better off with London Midland after all!

Tony Millinger, by e-mail