Marcus Jones, the Member of Parliament for Nuneaton, has welcomed an announcement from Virgin Trains that will see Nuneaton benefit from additional train services during the Olympics.

From April, Virgin Trains will be providing extra seats on many of their busiest trains, by lengthening most Pendolino trains from nine carriages to 11. In addition, four new 11-car trains will enter service this year.

The longer trains will be used on key routes between London and Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow.

This will provide almost a 50% increase in the number of standard seats on each of the trains that are extended to 11 carriages. By the end of April, Virgin Trains expect to be running over 30 services using these longer trains every weekday. By the beginning of next year, after all the extra carriages have been introduced, there will be an extra 28,000 seats a day or 10 million a year.

Virgin Trains have are also taken measures to prepare services to allow customers to get to and from the Olympics efficiently. Additional services to complement their core timetable have been announced. Nuneaton will benefit from a new Sunday service to London and will also benefit from two new services from London each day during the games. 

Commenting on the changes, Marcus, who has campaigned for improved off-peak services for Nuneaton, said: “The announcement from Virgin Trains is very positive. I am very pleased that Nuneaton will benefit from additional services during the Olympics as I know that many local residents will want to enjoy the Olympics experience without necessarily needing to spend a small fortune on hotels in London.”