Media Centre

6,000 extra seats a week for 'one' Metro customers

20 Jun 2007

National Express Group is providing an extra 6000 seats a week for passengers on 'one' railways peak Metro services between Shenfield and London Liverpool street.

In order to ensure customers have a more comfortable journey, ‘one’ railway has leased two additional Class 321 trains from sister company Silverlink for the next six months, offering increased capacity on this crucial commuter route. 

National Express are continuing to upgrade their fleet of trains on the 'one’ network and while this programme is ongoing the two additional trains will ensure that they can continue to provide as many seats as possible on some of their most popular services. Each train incorporates 275 standard seats and 28 first-class seats, providing a total of 606 extra seats in all and other key locations along the line including Brentwood, Romford, Ilford and Stratford will also benefit.

Dave Winder, ‘one’ railway’s Metro Business Director commented:
“Our peak services are consistently busy, so we are pleased to be providing additional seats for customers using the Metro route into Liverpool Street. The extra trains will help us to ensure that our passengers receive a better level of service when travelling with us.”  

Richard Bowker, Chief Executive of the National Express Group commented:
"As people increasingly use 'one' railway to travel into London and our services become busier, we recognise that we need to do everything we can to provide customers with a comfortable journey.   These extra seats are good news for our passengers and come just weeks after a similar initiative saw thousands of extra seats on our Central trains services across the Midlands."

Notes to Editors/Picture desks
National Express Group PLC is one of the largest operator of train franchises in the UK with six rail franchises; c2c, Central Trains, Gatwick Express, Midland Mainline, ‘one’ including Stansted Express, and Silverlink.  The Trains Division has a revenue of £1,497.2m and employs 10,000 people. 

Class 321 trains are four carriage electric multiple unit trains which ‘one’ railway currently operate on a number of routes from London Liverpool Street Station.

For further information about this press release, please ring the ‘one’ Press Office on 01206 363947/48/49 and ask for Peter Meades, Jill Casswell or Ellen Rossiter.  For urgent or out-of-office hours calls, please leave a message by ringing 07623 952612.  We’ll get back to you as soon as we can.  All recent press releases can be found on the ‘one’ website: www.onerailway.com