CrossCountry trains cut vital train services across the West Midlands - Here's why

CrossCountry trains has announced plans to temporarily suspend some crucial train services across the West Midlands due to a shortage of drivers.

The company stated that these ‘temporary’ changes, starting from August 10, are necessitated  by ‘performance and reliability issues’ stemming from a backlog of essential training days for train drivers, which were missed during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The changes will impact CrossCountry trains journeying through the West Midlands to various destinations, including Manchester, the South West, and Wales, until November 9.

Changes will be made to services from Manchester Piccadilly heading towards Birmingham New Street, with some services potentially terminating at different stations beyond Birmingham while the temporary timetable is in effect.

Additional trains will call at Wilnecote and Willington to balance the impact of the temporary timetable on customers using these stations.

And there will be fewer direct services from Reading to the North East while customers will instead be able to change trains at Birmingham New Street to continue their journey.

The route between Cardiff and Nottingham will run around two-thirds as many services as it does currently, and some services will begin or end at different stations.

The firm said reducing services on some routes over a 13-week period, while bolstering services with extra carriages wherever possible, will "retain maximum passenger capacity" on the CrossCountry network while working through as much of the necessary driver training as possible.

The temporary timetable will reduce numbers of on-the-day cancellations, which it has said "cause the most inconvenience to passengers". It said a similar approach which was trialled over Easter led to a 94 per cent decrease in on-the-day cancellations.

CrossCountry anticipates by the end of the temporary timetable to have a larger pool of fully-trained drivers available to work across the network and a reduced training backlog. This is expected to provide a more reliable service for customers, with fewer cancellations.

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