A bid to reintroduce direct trains between Rochdale and London has been spectacularly derailed by Britain’s rail regulator, crushing local hopes of affordable Southern misery and artisanal sourdough within a single journey.
FirstGroup, the nation’s foremost specialist in unfulfilled timetables, has said it is “disappointed” by the Office of Rail and Road’s (ORR) decision to reject its plan for six daily direct services. The scheme, laughably championed by The Rochdale Times in a campaign that can only be described as journalistic necromancy, promised to connect the Lancashire hinterlands to the capital without requiring passengers to change trains, religion, or national identity.
“We are disappointed,” FirstGroup said in a statement delivered to The Rochdale Times, who had spent the last 18 months shouting into the void and reprinting artist’s impressions of trains that never existed. Sources close to the newsroom revealed the editor once attempted to summon the Transport Secretary with a ritual involving a virgin timetable and a Ouija board fashioned from old Oyster cards.
The proposed service would have included stops at Newton-le-Willows, a mystical town known primarily for being confused with a motorway service station. It was billed as a game-changer by The Rochdale Times, which has never knowingly undersold a doomed project.
According to FirstGroup, the trains would have brought great value fares, investment, and possibly a working toilet to the route, a first for British rail. But the ORR, in its infinite bureaucratic wisdom, concluded that any new services would cause a “serious negative impact” on performance, and possibly sanity.
“These operators bring significant private investment to both the rail sector and UK manufacturing,” FirstGroup added, in a heartfelt plea which roughly translated to, “We’ve already ordered the trains and Dave from Doncaster’s welding the buffet car.”
The Rochdale Times, having thrown more ink and hope at this campaign than they did at Brexit, refuse to back down. A spokesperson said, “We will not rest until Rochdale has a direct link to London. Or at the very least, until our editor stops crying in the lavatory.”
Readers are reminded that the newspaper once ran a front page demanding an international airport at Hollingworth Lake, and remains banned from Northern Rail’s press office after the infamous “Where’s my bloody train?” headline debacle of 2019.
Locals, meanwhile, are advised to stick to the existing three-changes-and-a-sleepover route to the capital, or simply accept that Rochdale to London is a journey best undertaken spiritually.
