ANGRY commuters are urging fellow passengers to make their views known on proposed timetable changes on the c2c line amid fears of longer journey times.

The rail firm launched a three-month consultation in October over plans to offer more carriages and seats on peak time and weekend services to Strat-ford and Liverpool Street.

The plans have been met with concern from commuter groups including Southend Rail Travellers’ Association which says the plans are “unrealistic” and will lead to longer journeys.

The group is discussing the issues with c2c, which runs the Shoebury to Fenchurch Street line.

Peter Slattery, association chairman, said: “People’s journeys are long enough already and some journeys will have another 11 minutes added.”

He urged passengers to respond to the consultation.

He said: “We are still in talks and we are hopeful, but we can’t just sit and hope we have to be pro-active and we need everyone to go on the c2c website and reply to them. There will be few trains for Shoeburyness, Thorpe Bay and Southend East passengers and there will be too many trains stopping at Barking, meaning it is a possibility Southend passengers cannot board a train at Fenchurch Street station in the evening as Barking and Upminster passengers have filled the carriages.”

Despite the association’s concerns it has welcomed the start of Laindon services from Leigh as well as more trains stopping at London stations.

c2c bosses acknowledged commuters’ fears in an interim report last week.

Julian Drury, c2c managing director, said: “Our original timetable proposals were designed to provide more capacity where most needed, better connections, and faster average journey times across the day. There are three main areas that have been highlighted by some customers so far and so we are now testing what is and isn’t possible to try to address the issues that have been raised.”

The consultation ends on January 15. A final report will be released after that and a final timetable sent to National Rail in March. The new timetable will operate from December 2015.

View the consultation at: c2crail.co.uk/consult_tt