Transport Central

London Midland has gotten off to a relatively good start with a big rise in punctuality over the previous two periods (85% to a shave off 90%) which is something not seen that much under the previous operator. One can see that to be true when travelling on London Midland’s services as they seem to operate without issues and certainly good things are being said about them in the press.

London Midland is in the process of refurbishing its older trains at the moment with the first trains being rolled out on their West Midlands services (picture from londonmidland.com) over the next six months at the rate of one a week:

These are fairly standard three-car trains and will receive new seat covers, interiors and facilities for people with sight problems. These have also been ‘deep cleaned’ so they should be looking nice inside very soon too. Some of the carriages are receiving “intelligent sensors” to assist with the counting of passengers and identify overcrowding so something can be done about it. This sounds quite interesting and it will be good to know how well this works.

In addition to this there are a large number of other improvements London Midland are making to their franchise. There will be many new trains including thirty seven new four-car Siemens Desiros, twelve two-car Bombardier Turbostars and fifteen three-car Bombardier Turbostars. These are going to be replacing existing trains. These trains will also be fitted with the loading sensors and London Midland say they will alter train formations to allieviate overcrowding where possible.

London Midland are also going to be operating the rather strange looking Parry People Mover train on the Stourbridge Line which has received quite a bit of press. This is a welcome innovation that will perhaps see the end of single car diesel trains which are horribly noisy, usually dirty (on many train operator’s routes) and inefficient in terms of energy use. An overview of the technology can be found on the official website for those who are interested. These are environmentally friendly and for less well used lines, they are an obvious choice.

London Midland are investing into other things as well to benefit the travelling public and it is good to see a train operating company being so proactive instead of the usual stagnation – especially that which has blighted this particular franchise area in the past. There will be station improvements where London Midland is responsible. The most notable feature is their plan to introduce a smart-card technology allowing season ticket automatic renewal and easier ticketing by 2010. National Rail Oyster card anyone? We hope it works better and more transparently than the London one!

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