News Release

25th July 2008

NEW TRAIN TIMETABLE EMERGES FOR LICHFIELD

After more than three years of negotiations with the Department of Transport and Virgin Trains, a new timetable from mid-December onwards was agreed with Michael Fabricant at a meeting in the House of Commons with representatives from the Department of Transport. "This is not a perfect solution, but the new timetable represents a major improvement on current services linking Lichfield to London. It secures the City as a firm base for the many Lichfield residents who hold down top jobs in London. Not every commuter will be satisfied, but I am sure many will be pleased and relieved" says Michael Fabricant.

"The downside is that one of the current three fast Virgin morning trains to London will be axed. But this will be supplemented by the slower hourly service provided by London Midland where no service exists at present. Meanwhile, there will be additional high speed trains - five in all - returning from London back to Lichfield in the evening plus the London Midland stopping services. And at weekends there will be a regular hourly stopping service either way on Saturdays while on Sundays there will be a 2 hourly service running for most of the day.

"Of course, I would like to have seen more Virgin Trains stopping at Lichfield Trent Valley. I raised this recently with Ruth Kelly, Secretary of State for Transport, in the House of Commons. She said 'Clearly, there is a trade-off between reductions in journey time and the number of stations where trains stop'. The Government has decided to give greater priority to major centres of population. However, I am being advised that with some further tweaking of train timetables, extra fast Virgin train links may be possible" Michael adds.

Virgin services to London will take around 1 hour 18 minutes while the hourly London Midland Service which travels via Northampton will take 2 hours 9 minutes. However, by changing at Rugby and joining the linking Virgin service, the hourly service journey time can be reduced to 1 hour 33 minutes in total.