UK - Victory of the 'Shropshire thunderbolt'

[John Ashworth]

Victory of the 'Shropshire thunderbolt'

Its staff are polite, serve afternoon tea and let you buy your ticket on the train - and now they've seen off competition from Virgin

* Euan Ferguson
* The Observer, Sunday 12 April 2009

'Now, the train's going to be moving off in that direction," says the guard, bending solicitously over a sweet little bundle of embroidered tea cosies which turned out to be a shawl wrapped around a lady of rather more than a certain age. "Do you want to go to the opposite seat, face forward, see the countryside? Oh, don't worry about the ticket stuff; we'll get that sorted later. Can I get you some tea in five minutes? The buffet's just there, and I'll have a bit of time, save your legs."

I am sitting a couple of rows back, slack-jawed, wondering what's going right. The lady didn't actually have the money for a ticket, but her daughter, waiting at Banbury, did, so the world's most solicitous train guard sat down beside the rustling tea cosies and did something complicated with mobile phones and credit cards, sorted it, then escorted her off the train to be reunited with her daughter.

But this is rail travel. In Britain. In 2009. How can it all be going so right?

Well, it did go right last week, and continues to do so for the Wrexham and Shropshire Railway consortium, a David among the subsidised Goliaths of the British rail industry.

The triumphant rise of the W&S resembles a reprise of the plot of The Titfield Thunderbolt, the Ealing comedy from 1953, about a group of villagers starting their own steam railway line when the state-backed megalith pulls out citing unprofitability.

In the case of the W&S, the Shropshire to London route used to be run by Virgin but, despite the line's £35m annual public subsidy (up to last year, at least), it pulled out in 2004 citing insufficient demand. So last April, after a few diligent years of planning, careful regulatory negotiations and venture capital-raising, the Wrexham and Shropshire Railway began running, entirely unsubsidised, a route from Wrexham, through Shropshire, to London's Marylebone station.

Commuters I spoke to by the ancient walls of Shrewsbury were ecstatic at the return of the direct London trains at bargain prices. "With my age card, it's just cost me six quid to come back from London," says Graham Watley from Bishop's Castle. "Love it. Long may it continue."

The fares are astonishing: £40 return from London to Shrewsbury - half that if booked even a day in advance. An open standard London-Wrexham direct return is £53, when Virgin charges £201 for the equivalent, with connections.

And with the W&S there are no peak-time fares. Tickets can be bought on board without penalty. The food on board is locally sourced. The prices are great, the service a revelation. The entire staff - drivers, guards, caterers, a few necessary money men and, surely significantly, no logo facility marketing consultants - number 65, locally hand-picked. Andy Hamilton, the MD, told me he could hardly believe how well it had taken off. Between the last 12 weeks of 2008 and the first 12 of this year, there was a 20% rise in passengers. During a recession. The trains are what trains want to be: full, but not too full.

So when, last week, Virgin announced that it suddenly, retrospectively, wanted a slice of the pie it had rejected in 2004, there was a minor outcry. Local MPs made loud noises and there were rumours of rebellion in the shires. Eventually Virgin put out a statement saying it had pulled all proposals. It had never been the intention to force W&S out of business, and detailed analysis had suddenly shown there was "not a compelling case" for more trains.

It was a narrow squeak. "If Virgin wins," I was told by a former government transport adviser, Professor David Begg, before the announcement of the pull-out, "it will essentially signal the end for open-access rail companies, not just on this line, but throughout Britain".

But Virgin has backed off. And the W&S carries on. The trip from Shrewsbury to London is a curate's egg of a journey, much of it mesmerisingly beautiful. Fields sprawl to the horizon, lit by dawn sunshine. Clean carriages (old and strangely reassuring InterCity ones, pleasantly reminiscent of phone cards and the Match of the Day theme tune. Hamilton says that these are being upgraded - wi-fi and disabled access, power points, a bit of livery - but promises nothing too pointlessly futuristic).

But, oh, Birmingham. You crawl, crawl, crawl, stopping nowhere (because Virgin and other senior operators have collared the stopping rights) but, because of having essentially pauper's rights at every light, signal and minor junction, hardly moving forward either.

Hamilton explained that, as a new operator, the W&S must wait a few rounds of bargaining before it can get better lines, faster routes. "Essentially," I put to him, faintly understanding, "the longer you have your feet under the table, the further up the table you move. If you see what I mean." He laughs, I hope not unkindly. "Precisely. We are getting there. And we will."

I got there, to Shrewsbury, in a twitch over three hours. I wandered in the sun, heard the happy commuters, walked the fields and willows lining this picturesque loop of the Severn and at 4pm re-entered the fine old station - gargoyles, flagpoles, courtesy - got back on, behind tea cosy woman, and came home.

There were Thermoses and smiles and polishings of spectacles, and gazings-out at hollyhocks. There was the interminable crawl through Birmingham. Then there's the faster, nearly-on-time rush to London, and I haven't yet stressed this enough, but this lovely little venture arrives, with great serendipity (and mainly because Virgin has sewn up, along with the faster, uncluttered west-coast line, all the entrances to big stinky Euston) in Marylebone station. With its designer bread shop, pristine espresso stands, big fast clean un-busy M&S food store and sprawling gorgeous flower stall whose gorgeous sprawlingness is only slightly diminished on inspection of the prices (£6.95 for a sprig of gypsophila? We've been speeding past eight tons of the stuff a second), I have to say that Marylebone is still by many moons the prettiest, happiest train station in London.

So. The downside is that, until W&S has gone through a few more biannual tranches of negotiation over route rights, until it becomes deservedly more established, you'll crawl through the West Midlands, shunted on to any half-empty squiggle of a track. Virgin's indirect route, should you want or need to pay more, is still, for a different market, faster, as Hamilton freely admits. On the upside: peace. Cleanliness. Service. Marylebone. Lovely loos. No corporate red. No complex fares, nor false corporate bonhomie, nor mission statements. A gentle direct landing, with no changes, just more and more decent coffee, by the fabulous old walls of Shrewsbury.

And the kindest train guard, apparently, in Britain. Chap called Chris Taylor, by the way. Someone please give him, give everyone playing their part in what could be the way forward, a fat pay rise, and give to them our hopes.