For the first time in 20 years, the Government’s contract with Chiltern Trains is up for renewal.
Though your Conservative Ward Councillors have never stopped demanding an end to the dirty diesels at Marylebone Station, this is our first real opportunity to obtain radical changes.
Local people including the Marylebone Station Environmental Action Group have joined Cllr. Arzymanow, Westminster Council Leader Rachael Robathan, and our MP, Nickie Aiken, in lobbying the Minister to dump the diesel trains. Only the DfT can resolve the problem.
It must be said that since 2015, Chiltern Directors have done everything possible within operational constraints to mitigate the pollution. They have held quarterly Resident Committee Meetings initially with former Cllr Julia Alexander and currently with Cllr Barbara Arzymanow.
The evidence-based work for our campaign involved a pollution-survey directed by local activist, Sheila D’Souza. Your Councillors have helped secure funding. The study proved that pollution at the station was 13 times worse than that on the Marylebone Road.
The long-distance locomotives travelling to Birmingham have to idle at the platform for 20 minutes before departure. The other type of train normally serves shorter distances. Each carriage of these trains is individually diesel-powered.
We are asking that the highly polluting long-distance locomotives be removed from service and that the local trains be converted, as soon as possible, to run as hybrids so the diesel engines are turned off when the trains come into the station. Meanwhile, we want to see the standard diesel fuel replaced with a cleaner fuel (Shell GTL).
This would drastically improve the air quality on the station concourse, in the neighbouring area and inside the trains themselves.
