On 29 January the Managing Director of Grand Central issued the following announcement

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We were hoping to introduce our full timetable of services this month, but unfortunately this will not now be possible because of further delays in the delivery or commissioning of vehicles from the organisations undertaking their refurbishment.

Frustratingly for all of us, these delays mean that we cannot at this stage accurately predict when we will have enough reliable rolling stock to introduce the full timetable.

Whilst we currently have two train sets in working condition, we still have no back-up vehicles delivered, or available, should anything go wrong, and we cannot entertain introducing further services until that position improves.

We have been looking at the possibility of hiring-in, on a short term basis, other trains capable of the required top speed of 125mph, though that is not an easy task.

Our contingency timetable (shaded yellow in our publicity) will therefore continue until we get some more vehicles in service.

On a more positive note we would like to thank all those of you who have taken the time to contact us since we launched our services last month. We have had many, many messages of an encouraging and supportive nature about our trains, our staff and our excellent value for money.

As with any start up there have been initial problems, for which we apologise, but the overall message we are getting from passengers is most definitely positive.

Thank you for travelling with us. We will do our best to keep you informed of developments.

Tom Clift

Managing Director