FIRST DOUBLE THE TRAINS BUT HALVE THE CARRIAGES ON TRURO FALMOUTH BRANCH LINE

Terrye Teverson, Lib Dem Prospective MP, has demanded that rail bosses run two carriages on the new half hour train service between Truro and Falmouth due to start in mid May.

Improvements to the Falmouth-Truro rail link will be wasted if First Great Western halves the number of carriages on the Falmouth Branch Line.

The £7.8 million improvement scheme on the Falmouth Branch Line has been jointly funded by European Regional Development Agency, Cornwall County Council and Network Rail.

The extra 400 metre-long track at Penryn Station will allow two trains to run simultaneously. This should mean double the current service, but it has come to light that the train operator is planning to increase the frequency while cutting carriages.

Mrs Teverson said, "From 18th May 2009 First Great Western are planning to run trains with only one carriage every 30 minutes, instead of the current two carriages every hour.

"Millions of pounds have been invested to improve this rail link and encourage people to get out of their cars and onto the train," said Mrs Teverson.

"At the moment First run an hourly service with two carriages. They now plan to run a half hourly service but with only one carriage - effectively halving the possible capacity. The whole point of investing in the railway was to make the service better. At peak times now there will be more people crammed into one carriage - which was not what millions of pounds of tax-payers money was supposed to be used for."