Transport for Wales apologises to South Walians – train ‘fiasco’ affecting local services too

A lengthy apology by Transport for Wales has been issued, however unless you buy specific newspapers you may not have seen it.

Transport for Wales has communicated via ‘the national newspaper of Wales’, the Western Mail, via a full page advert. The Chief Operating Officers’s of TfW say ‘we are sorry’ for cancellations, delays or fewer carriages than normal as 36 trains out of a total fleet of 127 are under repair.

A notice is in place at the top of the TfW Rail website, that contains details we published earlier, however does not contain the lengthy apology that features in print. The apology does not appear on the TfW website either.

.@tfwrail tell customers “we’re sorry” with a full page apology in today’s Western Mail pic.twitter.com/FJE0GveGzf

— Ruth Mosalski (@ruthmosalski) November 20, 2018

Over recent weeks we have been contacted by readers unhappy with various levels of services, many commenting they were expecting better provision now Arriva Trains had ceased operation.

One reader who works for the emergency services in north east wales contacted us this morning regarding issues from Wrexham to Bidston that they described as a ‘fiasco’, they said: “The company have cancelled the busiest trains on the line i.e. the 8.06am in the morning and the 4.30 pm in the evening.

“No details are available from the company to explain why other much quieter times such as the 3.30 pm and 9.05am are still running, yet they have taken off trains which are invaluable for traveller getting to work and back. For regular train traveller this is hugely inconvenient.”

“The replacement bus was 30 minutes late and far too large a bus to even get down to many of the stations, it took nearly an hour to get to Buckley station. The driver didn’t know the stations or where they were or the ones that are too small for a coach to turn around. Luckily for him a regular train traveller was able to both direct and inform him where to stop.

“I have rung ‘Transport for Wales’ this morning to check the train times to find out if the 4.30 train is running tonight from Wrexham Central to Buckley and been told to my complete surprise that it has been cancelled again and there is no date when this train is being reinstated! Yet some inexplicable reason the 5.45pm is running. Far more people get the 4.30 train than used the 5.45pm train.”

“I am very annoyed that this train isn’t running and I suspect they are unaware there are no buses to from Wrexham along this route to Cefn y Bedd, Caergwle, Pennyfford, Hope, Buckley, Hawarden, Shotton at this time either. The first is 5.25pm! It would be a much better idea to reinstate the 4.30 pm train and take the 5.45 train off as public transport is available at this time.”

Wrexham.com has attempted to get further details of today’s ‘apology’ with no luck with Reach PLC (formally Trinity Mirror) appearing to be the sole voice – although the issues have been picked up by popular spoof website WalesOnCraic.com via an article entitled “TfW Rail change their name to WTF Rail“.

Communication locally has been poor, with the launch itself prompting the below tweet from ourselves…

We would love to bring you info on @wgcs_economy‘s billion quid rail plans but it seems @transport_wales has no interest in communicating with some of north east wales! So have a Thomas The Tank Engine gif instead 😀 pic.twitter.com/yIJZgLIdU9

— Wrexham.com (@wrexham) June 4, 2018