New timetables brought in by London Midland following the completion of the upgrade of the West Coast Mainline leaves Walsall back where it was in the days of Dr Beeching, stuck up a siding cut off from everywhere other than Birmingham.

“What sort of a message does that send out to would be developers at a time when you need all the help you can get to fight the effects of the credit crunch.” said Lib Dem councillor Ian Shires.

The new timetable sees Walsall’s link with Wolverhampton severed which puts at risk another longstanding goal, that of re-opening a train station at Willenhall as part of a major regeneration project to combat the effects of the last recession back in the early 1990′s.

The journey time from Walsall to Wolverhampton by train was 15 minutes. The same journey by bus takes anything up to 40 minutes and if you go by train via Birmingham it will take you an hour. Now that’s progress I don’t think!

But it doesn’t stop there if you’ll excuse the pun. They’ve also cut the Walsall-Stafford service. Trains go only as far as Rugeley Trent Valley now. Here passengers will have to wait anything from 8 minutes to 1 hour for a connection to Stafford.

To top it all this new timetable has an introduction from none other than Stephen Banaghan the MD of London Midland. It starts: ” There’s good news for the Chase Line…..” well if cutting the direct link to Stafford is good news I’d hate to think what his bad news looks like!

The MD’s introduction concludes with this final comment…”We’d love to know what you think.” So please don’t disappoint him, do get in touch. There’s even an address included for your comments which is comments@londonmidland.com so go on let him know exactly how you feel about this retrograde step for Walsall. Times are hard enough without this sort of negativity!!