Petition on missed village trains

Peak services on the branch line were doubled

People wanting to use a Cornish railway branch line have started a petition because they say trains do not always stop at their station if requested.

Some commuters in Perranwell said they had tried to flag down trains on the Truro-Falmouth line, but said, on many occasions, it was full or did not stop.

Rail users said a cut in carriages had affected services.

First Great Western said carriages were cut and services increased, but it would look at taking more passengers.

Nigel Banyard, whose shop in Perranwell is hosting the petition, said many of his customers were frustrated and had complained that services were full, especially commuter services, which was "most unhelpful".

'Fails to stop'

He said: "They can neither get to Truro or to Falmouth. Every other train fails to stop.

"Government policy is about people not using cars. But what are people going to do if it's like this? They're going to use their cars."

Julian Crow from First Great Western said that Perranwell was the quietest stop on the line, but that the service should stop if requested.

He said: "It would be judgement by the train crew, but it's news [services not stopping] to me and it's something that we'll investigate".

He said some changes had to be made to make the route, which was increased from 13 service to 29 in May, affordable.

Changes includes moving from a two-carriage hourly service to a one carriage half-hourly service so as the route could use the same amount of rolling stock.

He said: "When we did the business case for the scheme, that was quite enough to deal with the traffic on offer.

"We knew that as traffic built up then we'd have to find ways around that. If that's the case we'll have to explore it with Cornwall Council.