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

A ruling by the Office of Rail and Road implies the 07:00 GMT service operated by Avanti West Coast from Manchester's main station to London will continue to run but will only be used to transport staff starting mid-December.

An Avanti West Coast representative stated they were "let down" with the decision, which would "clearly impact those passengers who regularly take these services".

An regulatory official explained the judgment was based on "solid data" from Network Rail to prevent potential service disruption on the key rail corridor.

The infrastructure company declined to comment.

Details of the Service Changes

The fast service, which arrives in London in less than 120 minutes, will still depart from Manchester Piccadilly at 07:00 on four weekdays, but will not be available to commuters.

It will, alternatively, transport company employees from Manchester to London when the updated schedule takes effect on December 15th.

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

An Avanti West Coast spokesperson confirmed they were displeased with the regulator's decision not to grant operational permissions from the winter period for several daily trains they currently operated, such as the 7:00 AM fast service from Manchester to London.

The ORR also mandated a Sunday service which presently operates from Holyhead to London to terminate at Crewe station, they noted.

"It will significantly affect those customers who currently rely on these services," they stated.

"However, we will still be delivering even more services across our route system from the start of the winter schedule, including more extra trains on our Liverpool line."

The representative confirmed that the trains being withdrawn were:

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

Regulatory Rationale

An regulatory official explained: "Our ruling on the London-Manchester train was grounded in robust evidence provided by Network Rail that introducing trains within 'buffer' paths on the West Coast Main Line would have a negative effect on performance.

"It was determined that this service would operate within one of those paths. If Avanti operates the service as unoccupied train cars (ECS), ECS can be operated with greater flexibility (held back or redirected) than a scheduled public train.

"This can assist with performance management and service recovery during disruption."

The ORR indicated Avanti was earlier granted the permission to run this service from May 2025 for the period of one timetable period only.

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 December 2025 schedule update.

The regulatory body added that under the updated schedule, new open access train services, run by the competing operator to Stirling, were scheduled to commence.