RAIL SERVICES SET TO IMPROVE ‘FROM NEXT WEEK’:
DISRUPTION-HIT train services in Wales should improve “at the start of next week”, a cabinet member has said.
AM Ken Skates, the cabinet member responsible for transport, answered questions about the first few weeks of the Transport for Wales (TfW) franchise when he appeared in front of AMs on the economy, infrastructure and skills committee alongside two senior civil servants yesterday.
Last week, bosses for the service were grilled by the same committee about disruption through the first few weeks of the service.
Pressed if he could provide a target date for services to be operating as a passenger would expect, Mr Skates told the hearing: “A week or 10 days is what was promised by TfW . . . hopefully by the beginning of next week we’ll be back on target.
“That’s what TfW were promising to you last week”.
Mr Skates was joined by Simon Jones, director of economic infrastructure at the Welsh Government.
They said that the “best experts in Europe” had been brought in but were struggling to explain what had caused so many trains to go out of service last month - and the knock-on effect on delays and cancellations.
Mr Skates began giving his evidence by explaining that getting the rolling stock was “like buying a car. You know it’s had an MOT but you don’t know the quality of the vehicle”, before he was asked why the quality of the rolling stock took the Welsh Government “by surprise”.
Mr Skates said it wasn’t necessarily the state of the rolling stock which “surprised” Welsh Government, but the impact that conditions had on the wheels of trains and the scale of what happened.
“We’re still learning more about factors which may have contributed to such a volume of trains taken out of service,” he said.
Mr Jones told the committee that while Arriva Trains Wales (ATW) met standards, the trains were not up to scratch, with Mr Skates adding the contract with ATW was “dire”.
The hearing was told that at one point, only 86 out of 127 trains were in service - the rest were being repaired
Mr Skates said there had been a “Herculean” effort to get train numbers back up and it will be back to normal service (103 trains) “within days”.
When asked why TfW wasn’t prepared, Mr Skates said: “We followed the DFT process. Transport For Wales undertook a full audit and investigated the fleet as part of the handover...it’s always difficult to ascertain what sort of condition the stock is in.”
He said it was now clear: “The trains were maintained to an absolute minimum standard”.
Russell George, chairing the committee, asked “are you blaming the contract or the previous operator” for the autumn disruption?
To which Mr Skates said: “The contract primarily. The contract was not fit for purpose. ATW met the terms of the contract but the standards were very low.”
Mr George asks why rolling stock couldn’t have been ordered earlier.
Mr Jones says it is partly as it was a DFT contract and it was up to them.
“The stock we ordered in 2017, that’s now been delayed, was a short-term measure using some second hand rolling stock, but that didn’t tie the hand of bidders for any length of time,” he said.
“A lot of the challenges we faced were as a result of electrification programmes across the UK. There was a sense in 2010 there would be no need to develop any new diesel stock.
“With massive cost overruns of electrification the UK Government turned down that [electrification programme] and it led into a problem of diesel rolling stock.
“All these lines which were going to run under electric now needed diesel trains.
“In a time of passenger growth the UK is really struggling with that lack of rolling stock.”
Plaid AM Bethan Sayed said she felt there is an “overly defensive” tone from Welsh Government, and asked Mr Skates if the government knew autumn was going to be a really difficult time due to weather and leaves “why didn’t you extend the ATW contract so you had a longer run in?”
But Mr Skates said that any extended contract would have been based on the same conditions that “has caused problems”.
Vikki Howells then asked if they were confident there would be an enhanced fleet by autumn 2019.
“Yes, we have more fleet that will become available to us...there are good reasons for optimism for next autumn,” said Mr Jones.
Mr Skates added that there were repeated calls for new stations.
“There’s a huge amount of ambition but also a job to be done in terms of containing expectations.”