Journey times on the west coast main line have already been substantially reduced and will be further improved with completion of the west coast route modernisation in late 2008. Stoke-on-Trent is now an hour and a half from London. Before September 2004, the journey took almost two hours.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his response. As a result of the fantastic improvements to rail services and times, my constituents can transact business with London. Indeed, Stoke-on-Trent is now an excellent place for business. When my hon. Friend next discusses with Network Rail further improvements to train times along the west coast main line, will he press it on the fact that, after almost 50 years, Longton railway bridge still awaits a repainting job?
I know the Longton bridge extremely well, and I am distraught to hear that it has not yet been painted, after all these years. If my hon. Friend wishes me to raise the issue with Network Rail on his behalf, I am more than happy to do so.
Train times from Milton Keynes have actually increased, because Virgin trains no longer stop there during peak hours. As the Minister may recall, back in January I raised the fact that Milton Keynes commuters are upset that although two Virgin trains do stop there, no one is allowed to get on the trains, despite there being more than 300 seats on each train. At the time, the Secretary of State said that the issue in Milton Keynes was the platforms, but that has now been changed, and he has admitted that there is no issue with platform lengths in Milton Keynes. May I finally have an answer on why those two trains stop in Milton Keynes to let people off, but do not allow anybody on?
The Pendolino trains do not pick up passengers at Milton Keynes because they are designed not for short-distance commuter traffic, but long-distance traffic. They are not designed as relatively short-haul commuter business services, which are provided by Silverlink and will be provided by the new west midlands franchise.
I congratulate Virgin Trains on the remarkable progress that we have made on the west coast line. With luck, next year we will be back to the times that we achieved in the mid-1960s, when the west coast electrified line was first introduced. The one thing that we have not achieved is a programme that serves the users of the west coast line. There are still too few trains that stop to pick up people at towns such as Tamworth, although many more trains stop at stations down the line that serve smaller populations. Will the Minister look at the way timetables are organised there, particularly as that is where the cross-country lines cross the lines that run from the top to the bottom of the country, which means that a hub station should be created at Tamworth?
Work is still under way on the timetables for late 2008 and early 2009, and I cannot make any comment on the service that Tamworth will receive, but I hope that my hon. Friend will accept that the west coast main line modernisation will provide a major economic boost to the whole country and will provide a much-improved service for the many hundreds of thousands of passengers who use that service every year.