ORR Rejects Grand Union London – Cardiff plans

THE Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has rejected the application submitted by Grand Union Trains to introduce an open access service between London and Cardiff. The proposal was to operate seven return services a day between Cardiff Central and London Paddington, calling at Newport, Severn Tunnel Junction and Bristol Parkway from December 2021 with an extension to/from Carmarthen, adding limited stops at Llanelli and Swansea, from late 2023. The latter would have been achieved through the acquisition of Class 802 Hitachi bi-mode trains which would have replaced the electric-only Class 91, Mk4 coaches and DVTs which were to be used for the initial service. However, Network Rail identified only six return paths had been identified and Grand Union agreed to proceed on the basis of the slightly reduced service. Objections received from Freightliner, GWR, Crossrail, TfL and CrossCountry trains cited both performance and financial impacts in their correspondence. After careful evaluation, the ORR concluded the application did pass the ‘Not Primarily Abstractive’ (NPA) test but it would abstract £28.6m of revenue per annum, for six return paths or £34.2m for seven paths, “predominantly from GWR”, and would see “an impact on government funds by £25.6, or £30.8m per annum.” All evaluation was done on perCovid performance and revenue. In reaching its conclusion ORR also noted the “high degree of uncertainty over future rail demand following the shift to home working that has taken place as a result of Covid”. It added: “We expect there to be a material and permanent reduction in the number of short to medium distance commuting journeys by rail,” although it considers it too early to determine whether there will be “a lasting effect on business, leisure, education or longer distance commuting journeys”. Summarising, the ORR said: “We considered carefully the beneficial aspects of this application, but decided to place additional emphasis on the absolute level of abstraction due to the current exceptional state of rail finances, and therefore gave additional weight to our duty to have regard to the funds available to the Secretary of State. We have therefore rejected this application.”