A NEW company has been set up aimed at creating a direct railway line between Wrexham and London.
Wrexham, Shropshire & Midlands Railway is a new "open-access" operator which aims to bring new services from Wrexham to London Euston, via Gobowen, Shrewsbury, Wolverhampton, Walsall, Nuneaton and Milton Keynes.
The company has written to North Shropshire MP Helen Morgan saying it is proposing the service to begin in 2025. It compares itself to other open-access operators in other parts of the country including Hull Trains and Grand Central, which run direct routes to London from Hull and Sunderland respectively.
North Shropshire MP Helen Morgan says further details are going to be announced in January 2024.
She said: “One of the main issues on the doorstep here in north Shropshire is the lack of decent public transport links.
“A new link between Wrexham, Gobowen, Shrewsbury and London is very good news, and will bring an important improvement to our links with other areas.
“This is also an exciting prospect for Oswestry, which is set to be connected to Gobowen by rail in the coming years.
“They could see the benefits of additional services to Shrewsbury and Wrexham as well as to London Euston, making the case for reopening the line even stronger.”
There are currently no services from the North Shropshire constituency direct to London, and Mrs Morgan added that Shrewsbury remains one of the worst-served larger towns in the region for service regularity.
She was joined in her welcoming of the proposal by Shrewsbury Councillor Alex Wagner.
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He said: “For many years, Shrewsbury’s services to the rest of the West Midlands and down to London have been really lacking.
“It is very positive to see an initiative being taken to get us up to the service level a town of our size needs.
“Local Liberal Democrats will be giving any measures to improve local rail services our full support both on the ground and on the council, and look forward to working cross-party to help make this materialise.”
Avanti, which runs the West Coast Main Line and the current direct services to Shrewsbury, and the Department for Transport have been contacted for comment.
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