Direct trains could next year connect Wrexham to London, with a new service capitalising on the town’s Hollywood-meets-football mini-boom.
The train manufacturer Alstom is bidding to set up the Wrexham, Shropshire and Midlands Railway with a promise of cheaper, more comfortable trains straight to London.
The three-hour journey to Euston station may not persuade Wrexham AFC co-owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney to ditch the private jets, but the operators hope to make the greener alternative to and from the Welsh borders ever more attractive.
Dodging a wait in Birmingham will be a selling point for passengers, with trains skirting around the Midlands city on a little-used freight route, opening up new connections from Shropshire to Warwickshire.
An application to run five trains a day from May 2025 has been submitted to the rail regulator, the ORR. The service would be run on an “open-access” basis outside the major train operating contracts set by the Department for Transport.
The rail minister, Huw Merriman, described the plans as “exciting proposals”, adding: “Competition delivers choice for passengers and drives up standards, which is why we continue to work with industry to help make the most of open-access rail.”
A similar open-access plan was approved last week by the ORR for Grand Union Trains to start a new train service between London and Stirling in Scotland from June 2025. The same firm is scheduled to start running a direct train to Carmarthen, in south Wales, from the end of this year.
The proposed Wrexham services would also provide direct trains to London from stations including Gobowen, near Oswestry, and Walsall, as well as Shrewsbury and Telford in Shropshire, whose single daily direct service run by Avanti is scheduled to be scrapped.
Peter Broadley, Alstom’s UK services managing director, said: “There’s a real momentum about Wrexham obviously with the Hollywood connection with the football club. But with all open access you need to find opportunities to serve communities which aren’t currently [served] by rail.
“Wrexham, Shrewsbury and that part of the West Midlands are really underserved by rail services. And the current focus on Wrexham is a nice boost to what we’re trying to do.”
A popular but short-lived direct Wrexham-London service ran from 2008 to 2011, offering more comfortable seating and interiors, but collapsed within three years after running up large losses.
Alstom believes using the west coast mainline to Euston, rather than the Marylebone terminus its predecessor used, will give it an edge, Broadley said. “It’s primarily about journey time – that was quite a lot slower than what we’re offering. And we are going by quite different routes that will pick up customers which they weren’t accessing.”
While the operators may be coming in on Ryan Reynolds’ celebrity coattails in Wrexham, they are keen to emphasise the other rail links that the service will forge, from places such as Shrewsbury to Nuneaton.
That said, even with no documentary series to chart this journey, the official launch on Thursday remains in Wrexham: “We had to start somewhere,” Broadley said.
