Originally Posted by
LTNman
Corby trains do not presently stop at Parkway but if they did and the timetable remained the same there would indeed be no peak time service with a 4 hour gap in the morning from Parkway and then an hourly service from after 10.00
It would not be the end of the world but it would kill off any idea of a regular 30 minute journey time between the terminal and St Pancras with an express type journey after the rail link is put in.
It would be though a major blow to the airport and the lobbyist supporters including easyjet, Luton Council, Bedfordshire Chamber of Commerce, Hertfordshire Chamber of Commerce and the CBI
I am sure that not in their wildest dreams or should I say nightmares could they have predicted a potential outcome that would leave the airport with a worse service when it is trying to get a substantial improvement at no cost to the government.
Train lengths on East Midland trains are much shorter than the west coast and east coast main lines so for the sake of adding coaches the potential solution is to cut services.
Also looking in the other direction Luton would lose its direct services to cities like Nottingham and Leicester.
Clearly if implemented without a 4 train per hour non stop service to London would cut the number of potential new passengers arriving by train but for that very reason seems to be the motive behind this proposal.
When I mentioned in the past my certainty that Luton would gain a major improvement some here pointed out the issues with the existing overcrowding of trains. It seems that their concerns were well founded. This must be the only country where a major airport that serves a capital city and has substantially rising passenger numbers gets a potential cut in service.
I'd have my doubts as to whether these proposals ever come to fruition, as it just seems to create the opposite effect as to what was intended.
As someone who uses the train a lot between the Luton stations and London, it is clear that a substantial number of people leave the service at St Albans. At the last count, more people used that station than all three stations in Luton combined, which surprised me. Considering the population is probably double in Luton and has a major international airport, its probably a result of usage.
It would not surprise me if LLAOL/LBC actually decide to postpone the £200m link project if these plans got the go ahead.