Bushey Station Update

Recently, Elected Mayor of Watford Peter Taylor met with senior managers at West Midlands Trains (London Northwestern) to discuss services from Watford Junction and Bushey Stations. Peter joined by Councillor Kennedy Rodrigues also met with local residents and Arriva Rail London at Bushey Station to discuss a number of issues.

A defibrillator should be installed at Bushey Station in the next few weeks. A board outlining the history of the station has been designed and will be installed in the station too.

A Friends of Bushey Station group is being set up. Please email Peter at (themayor@watford.gov.uk) if you’d like to join this or find out more. We will be looking at Access for All Funding to improve step free access at the station and other improvements, with artwork, a community garden by platform one and more shelters on platform six being considered. Officials are going to look at bringing the former newsagent back into use and if a Beryl bike stand can be installed near the station.

From May there will be additional trains into London during the morning peak between the hours of 7:00 and 8:00. There will be services at 0649, 0704, 0719, 0734, 0752 – providing a service into Euston every 15 mins (roughly).

We should also have new trains on this route from June onwards. The operator is working with ASLEF reps and their Company Council to sign off the driver training. This agreement will be essential in order to have a constant stream of new drivers who are trained up to drive the new Class 730 units on the network.

The train operator is confident that we will be able to bid farewell to the old class 319s units by the end of this year and passengers will see a drastic change in terms of train performance and reliability with the new trains. It’s worth mentioning that the trains which will be introduced first are the ones which are designed for the Cross City services in the West Midlands – so there will be more space inside but there will be less seating. These will migrate to the Midlands once more of the long distance trains become available.

Peter has said ‘I know how important it is to have reliable train services locally and to make improvements at local stations and will keep pressing for changes’.