Cancellations after changes to rail services
TRANSPORT for Wales is facing major questions about its ability to staff new Sunday rail services after more than 60 cancellations at the weekend and more on Monday.
There was disruption for passengers on Saturday when almost 60 TfW trains were cancelled due to crew shortages, and 11 on Sunday – the day TfW introduced a 40% rise in train services on top of its normal timetable.
Christmas shoppers and people attending parties and other events were among those affected.
The scale of disruption was unusual for a winter Saturday with no extreme weather, suggesting that TfW does not have enough train crew to maintain its existing timetable as well as running 186 additional Sunday services this weekend.
The extra Sunday services are great news for many communities, especially Maesteg – which has never had trains on a Sunday before.
Luke Roger, who was at Maesteg railway station on Sunday, told us: “The first scheduled train was the 8.05am from Maesteg to Bridgend, the ongoing service to Cardiff was alway going to be difficult as there was maintenance on that section of line.
“However, people gathered at Maesteg station platform and awaited the train.”
He said the information board showed the service was running – but that notice then disappeared and the train didn’t turn up.
On Saturday TfW cancelled at least 31 services entirely because of train crew shortages, with a further 23 cancelled for part of their timetabled journey for the same reason.
Cancellations planned for Saturday night affected people travelling to Ebbw Vale, Chepstow, Barry, Maesteg, Barmouth, Pwllheli, Colwyn Bay, Rhyl, Bangor, Holyhead, Aberystwyth, and Tenby, among others. The shuttle between Cardiff Bay and Queen Street was due to stop running before 11pm.
On Sunday, cancellations occurred on services such as the 10.43am Swansea to Fishguard beyond Carmarthen, the 12.27pm
Crewe to Holyhead, which did not get into Wales as it was cancelled at Chester, the 18.35 Swansea to Haverfordwest, the 18.55 Machynlleth to Pwllheli and 22.01 Pembroke Dock to Carmarthen.
Other services were disrupted by not stopping at all stations.
Staff shortages, signalling problems, a landslip and ongoing industrial action were among the issues affecting the network on Monday.
Industry body the Rail Delivery Group insisted the problems were “unrelated” and the “vast majority of services are running as planned”.
Anthony Smith, chief executive of watchdog Transport Focus, said: “Passengers don’t care what causes the disruption – they just want things running again as soon as possible, and plenty of visible staff on hand to help them in the meantime.
We asked TfW whether the cancellations were down to TfW not having enough staff to cover the extra Sunday trains on top of the existing timetable, and whether this would lead to more cancellations in the coming weeks.
A TfW spokesman responded: “We are continuing to do everything possible to ensure the maximum number of services are operating every day and this time of year can always be challenging, particularly on weekends, and we’re sorry that there have been a number of cancellations on our network today.
“As always, we are very grateful to colleagues who gave up their own time to volunteer to work overtime and rest days.
“Over the past few months we have been meticulously planning and preparing for the new timetable by recruiting additional staff and we’re confident that customers will see a real change as we introduce the additional services including extra capacity across our network.”
It is understood that the Sunday services depend on drivers and conductors volunteering to work. The new Sunday shifts are likely to affect availability of staff on other days of the week.
The policy of the Aslef union is that train drivers work no more than 44 hours in every seven days.
The new Sunday services are a flagship improvement under the new franchise, awarded by the Welsh Government in June 2018.