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A rail route transporting daily travelers from London from Manchester is scheduled to operate without passengers for approximately five months due to a decision by the rail regulator.

A verdict by the rail regulatory body means the 07:00 GMT train run by the rail operator from Manchester Piccadilly to the capital will continue to run but will only be used to carry staff from the middle of December.

An Avanti West Coast representative expressed they were "disappointed" with the decision, which would "definitely affect those customers who regularly take these services".

An ORR official explained the judgment was based on "robust evidence" from the infrastructure manager to guard against possible operational issues on the key rail corridor.

Network Rail did not provide a statement.

Details of the Operational Adjustments

The express train, which reaches London in less than 120 minutes, will continue to leave from Manchester station at 07:00 on four weekdays, but will not open to the public.

It will, alternatively, ferry Avanti staff from Manchester to London when the new timetable takes effect on December 15th.

The decision means the train could operate for over a hundred journeys without fare-paying customers on the train.

An Avanti West Coast spokesperson clarified they were disappointed with the ORR's determination not to grant access rights from December for four weekday services they currently operated, such as the 7:00 AM fast service from Manchester to London.

The ORR also required a Sunday service which presently operates from London from Holyhead to end at Crewe, they noted.

"This will significantly affect those customers who currently rely on these services," they said.

"However, we will continue to provide even more trains across our network from the beginning of the December timetable, featuring further additional trains on our Liverpool line."

The representative verified that the trains being removed were:

• 7:00 AM GMT: Manchester Piccadilly to Euston station (Weekdays)
• 12:52 GMT: Blackpool North – London Euston (Weekdays)
• 09:39 GMT: Euston station – Blackpool station (Monday to Friday)
• 19:32 GMT: Chester station – London Euston (Weekdays)
• 17:53 GMT: Holyhead station – Euston station terminates at Crewe station (Sunday)

Oversight Reasoning

An regulatory spokesperson stated: "Our decision on the London-Manchester train was based on robust evidence provided by Network Rail that introducing trains within 'buffer' slots on the West Coast Main Line would have a detrimental impact on performance.

"We identified that this train would run in one of those time slots. If the operator runs the train as empty coaching stock (ECS), ECS can be operated with greater flexibility (held back or re-routed) than a scheduled public train.

"This can assist with service reliability and service recovery during incidents."

The regulator said Avanti was earlier granted the right to run this service from May 2025 for the duration of one timetable period exclusively.

This was on the basis that another operator's Stirling services were not operating at the time but the First Lumo services are expected to begin running during the December 2025 timetable period.

The regulatory body noted that under the updated schedule, additional independent train services, operated by the competing operator to Stirling, Scotland, were due to start.