Fury as train services axed

Trains from Walsall to Wolverhampton are to be axed after the Government decided to withdraw funding.

The service, used by hundreds of passengers every day, will be off the tracks by the end of the year unless millions of pounds can be found to save it. Walsall rail users were left reeling at the loss of their vital service.

Operator London Midland runs 17 trains a day with a service every hour, carrying 60,000 passengers every year between Walsall and Wolverhampton.

Ray Thomas, aged 54, of Coalpool, said: “There should be a service between Walsall and Wolverhampton, it is an important link and withdrawing it is just going to force more people back onto the roads.”

Retired Amanda Woolley, aged 50, of Pelsall, said: “My son used to use that service all the time to get to college and I am sure a lot of other people rely on it as well.

“It just doesn’t make sense for it to be taken off. I am sure it will mean less people coming into the town as well.”

Councillors on the panel of transport authority Centro have been told they will have to find the cash themselves if they want to keep the service.

Rail minister Tom Harris said the service “does not add value to the franchise”.

Walsall’s Streetly ward councillor Gary Clarke, the chairman of West Midlands Passenger Transport Authority, is now urging people to inundate the minister with letters calling for a U-turn.

He said: “We need public support for this between now and December. People have to use it or lose it.

“I urge everyone who uses this service, which has improved tremendously, to write to Mr Harris.

“We are not going to take this sitting down,” he added.

If it is axed, the trains would be replaced by buses, making journeys almost three times longer.

By Ben Lammas