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A rail route that carries commuters from Manchester to London is set to operate without passengers for approximately five months following a determination by the railway oversight authority.

A verdict by the Office of Rail and Road means the 07:00 GMT train operated by the rail operator from Manchester's main station to London will still operate but will only be used to carry employees starting the middle of December.

An operator spokesperson stated they were "let down" with the outcome, which would "clearly impact those customers who already use these trains".

An ORR official explained the decision was founded on "solid data" from the infrastructure manager to prevent possible service disruption on the West Coast Main Line.

The infrastructure company declined to comment.

Specifics of the Operational Adjustments

The fast service, which arrives in the capital in under two hours, will still depart from Manchester station at 07:00 on weekday mornings, but will not be available to commuters.

It will, instead, ferry company employees from Manchester to London when the new timetable takes effect on December 15th.

The decision implies the train could run for more than 100 journeys without fare-paying customers on board.

An operator representative confirmed they were displeased with the ORR's determination not to grant operational permissions from December for four weekday services they currently operated, including the 07:00 express train from London from Manchester.

The regulatory body also required a Sunday service which currently runs from Holyhead to London to terminate at Crewe station, they noted.

"This will clearly impact those passengers who already use these services," they said.

"However, we will continue to provide even more services across our route system from the beginning of the winter schedule, featuring further additional trains on our Liverpool route."

The spokesperson confirmed that the services being withdrawn were:

• 07:00 GMT: Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston (Monday to Friday)
• 12:52 GMT: Blackpool station – Euston station (Monday to Friday)
• 09:39 GMT: Euston station – Blackpool station (Weekdays)
• 7:32 PM GMT: Chester – London Euston (Weekdays)
• 5:53 PM GMT: Holyhead – London Euston terminates at Crewe (Sunday)

Regulatory Rationale

An regulatory official stated: "Our decision on the Manchester-London train was grounded in robust evidence submitted by Network Rail that introducing trains within 'buffer' paths on the main rail line would have a negative effect on reliability.

"We identified that this service would operate within one of those paths. If Avanti operates the train as unoccupied train cars (ECS), ECS can be run more flexibly (held back or redirected) than a scheduled public train.

"This helps with service reliability and operational restoration during disruption."

The regulator said Avanti was previously given the permission to operate this service from spring 2025 for the duration of a single schedule cycle exclusively.

This was on the condition that First Lumo's Stirling services were not running at the moment but the First Lumo services are anticipated to start running during the winter 2025 timetable period.

The regulatory body noted that under the new timetable, new open access train services, operated by the competing operator to Stirling, were due to start.