North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has hit out at the poor excuses used for the recent delays and cancelled train services in North Wales and called on the Transport Minister, Ken Skates AM, to stop blaming others and to start taking responsibility.
At the end of November, North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood called for a Ministerial Statement on rail services in North Wales after rail-users were left extremely concerned by the disruptive service and were demanding answers.
Speaking In the Assembly Chamber this week, Mr Isherwood said despite a subsequent apology and assurances then, problems persisted. He called on the Transport Minister to explain why.
He said:
“On 27 November, I called for a Welsh Government Statement on rail services in North Wales after a weekend of delayed and cancelled rail services in North Wales, where I had been reliably informed by rail insiders that a shortage of tooling and spares, and access to wheel lathes not being put in place by the incoming operator, had caused that, although there was now access to wheel lathes in Crewe, Bristol and Taunton.
“How do you, therefore, respond - given the subsequent apology and assurances from Transport for Wales - to the e-mail I received at the end of December - five weeks, almost, later - that there'd been no trains on that particular day on the line from Shotton to Wrexham, that there'd be none tomorrow, the Monday would revert to a train every two hours, like it had been for several weeks? They were told there were no trains on Thursday either. The e-mail stated that they are peddling ‘Storm Callum’ as part of the excuse, but that was six weeks ago - and asked how is it that other train operators are not affected by all the wheelset damage that's occurred in Wales?
“Given the original assurances we had from yourself and Transport for Wales, why was that still happening five weeks later?”
The Minister replied:
“Well, largely because for far too many years we've seen in Wales a complete lack of investment by the UK Government in our rail infrastructure, particularly on our train lines, which remain a responsibility for Network Rail, and, therefore, the Department for Transport, and as I've said on many occasions now, this major problem can be largely attributed to the lack of wheel-slide protection. Why? Well, because the contract that Arriva Trains Wales was awarded was, simply, not fit for purpose. It did not incentivise them to invest in such technology, nor did it compel them when Welsh Government wished for such protection and technology to be installed on trains.
“I was pleased that the first service to return to full and normal operation was one of the North Wales services, and the Member points to an industry insider who gave him intelligence on the lack of wheel lathes in Wales. Well, it's true that when you have huge demand for wheel lathes, if you can't meet that demand with what you've got in your own country, you go elsewhere. Llywydd, I'm pleased to say that we did just that, and we were able to identify additional wheel lathes outside of Wales, and that's why we got so many trains back into full use so quickly.”
Mr Isherwood added:
“It’s all very well blaming others and the weather, but the spares issue should have been picked up by the incoming Wales and Borders rail franchise operator, Welsh Government-owned Transport for Wales, who should also have arranged for adequate access to wheel lathes if they did not have sufficient capacity in house. The previous operator, Arriva Trains Wales, had access to Arriva Train Care's lathe at Crewe. We are told that Transport for Wales trains will now be going to wheel lathes at Crewe, Bristol and Taunton, but such arrangements should have been put in place much earlier”.
