Merseyrail announce timetable changes with trains every 15 minutes on most of the network

Merseyrail has today announced that a 15-minute service will operate on most parts of the network from Monday 20th June. 

The change follows emergency timetables put in place over the last two weeks, as a result of an unexpected and significant increase in wheel bearing faults. This significantly affected the number of trains available to run, with those trains found to have the fault being taken out of service for repair.

With trains now beginning to re-enter service following repair the following changes will apply from Monday 20^th June;

• Trains on the Ormskirk, Kirkby, Chester, New Brighton, and West Kirby lines will run every 15 minutes between approximately 07:00 and 19:00, with a 30-minute service operating outside of these hours.
• Between Southport & Hunts Cross trains will run every 15 minutes from the start to the end of service.
• On the Ellesmere Port line, the normal 30-minute service will continue to operate
• A 30-minute service will continue to run on Sundays across all lines

Whilst the number of trains available continues to improve daily, initially all services will operate as 3-car trains. As more trains are repaired, they will be re-introduced to provide 6-car services on the busiest routes.

Yesterday Liverpool Echo journalist Liam Thorp highlighted the problems on the network and the disruption caused during the morning commute:

“The people who got on those services have to go somewhere and the result is packed, uncomfortable and unpleasant journeys. As you can see from the video, today’s journey saw us crammed in like sardines and pretty much unable to move.”

You can read Liam’s report and watch the video here.

Despite the timetable changes announced from the 20^th, Merseyrail says the network is likely to be significantly affected by next weeks planned UK wide industrial action by Network Rail staff. Whilst Merseyrail staff are not taking part in this industrial action, the train operator says it will involve Network Rail staff who operate the signalling systems and provide crucial maintenance which allow services to run safely.

The current planned dates for strikes are Tuesday 21^st, Thursday 23^rd and Saturday 25^th June. Merseyrail promise to share passenger travel advice alongside the rest of the UK rail network later this week. You can keep up to date on the Merseyrail website below.

Andy Heath Managing Director at Merseyrail said:

“We are truly sorry for the disruption to our passengers’ journeys over the last two weeks. Our teams together with our train maintainer Stadler have worked around the clock to ensure we were able to restore the 15-minute service that we know this City Region relies on.

I am pleased with the progress that has been made so far and that we are able to step our timetables back up from Monday with confidence. We continue to work with Stadler and experts from the wider rail industry to ensure we fully understand the root cause of this issue, to prevent this happening again in the future”.