Secretary of State for Transport

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Virgin Trains fear festive travel chaos due to engineering work

Passengers face six months of weekend engineering work and delays on the £8.6bn West Coast Main Line upgrade, even though work was supposed to be completed next month. Tony Collins, chief executive of Virgin Trains, told The Observer he was concerned there would be a repeat of last new year's travel chaos, when planned engineering work overran by four days. The London-to-Glasgow line will again be shut for a week over Christmas. New high-speed services will begin on 14 December, the line's scheduled opening date. But Collins said that sections of the line, particularly north of Preston, could be closed every weekend until June, so that Network Rail engineers could complete additional work. Trains will have to be diverted, or bus replacement services introduced, causing more disruption and delays to thousands of passengers. Collins expressed concern that teething problems with the upgraded line could cause further disruption. 'We are still nervous about how it's going to work,' he said. 'There is a question mark over the reliability of the infrastructure - if there is a problem, the impact on the network will be great.'Network Rail, the state-backed body, is responsible for delivering the huge project. A spokesman insisted that major work associated with the project will be completed by 14 December. He admitted that there would be minor 'possessions' - when lines are closed so work can be carried out - next year but said they would be for 'normal maintenance'.Virgin Trains is likely to press for millions of pounds of compensation if services are disrupted as feared.Theresa Villiers, shadow secretary of state for transport, said: 'Passengers will be anxious about a repeat of last year's fiasco. It's depressing news for passengers that after all these months of disruption, they are still going to face closures and possibly bus replacement services over the next six months.'Virgin Trains, which is 49 per cent-owned by Stagecoach, will also delay its publicity blitz, which had been planned for the December opening, until next summer. Collins said: 'We wanted to go out there with lots of publicity, saying "It's here, it works, it's reliable". But we are holding back from that until we have confidence it works.' The vast majority - 95 per cent - of the 390 new weekday train services will start as planned next month. The remainder will be brought in early next year. It is not known how many weekend services will be cut. Virgin Trains and London Midland are the two train companies that use the line. Some 1,500 trains operate each day. Plans to upgrade the 400-mile line have been dogged by controversy. Network Rail's predecessor, Railtrack, had envisaged that the high-speed upgrade would be completed by 2005 at a cost of £2bn. The original plan had been to cut journey times between London and Birmingham from one hour 40 minutes to just one hour, using new 140mph tilting trains. But problems with signalling means that a maximum speed of around 125mph is likely.Virgin RailStagecoachTransportChristmasguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds