For those of us who use the North Wales - Chester - Manchester railway line on a regular basis the travel disruption over the last week has been something more than an inconvenience. Whilst all of us can accept travel disruption caused by weather, to learn that the problems on our line have been caused by Arriva Trains's need to check the integrity of the wheels on their long distance train sets takes us more into the realms of incompetence and an uncaring operator.
Don't get me wrong, I fully support, and indeed would insist that if Arriva Trains discover a safety critical defect on a particular type of train they must, as a matter of priority check the integrity of all the affected rolling stock. The safety critical nature of the checks may require all the trains to be taken out of service as they are being assessed. That appears to be what they are doing.
My criticism is their failure to have effective contingency plans in place to be able to manage such an eventuality that look after the needs of the passengers. Every train operator, in my view, should plan for detecting a potentially safety critical defect that would lead to a withdrawal of a significant number of trains. That should lead, in my view, to sharing all available trains across their network and borrowing or hiring trains from elsewhere so as to minimise the effect of the loss of rolling stock on the travelling passenger. Where that can't be done rail replacement buses should be hired. Arriva should be trying to maintain a reasonable service on all their services. I struggle to believe that is what is happening at the moment.
Arriva's franchise for the services through Frodsham is handled by the Labour controlled Welsh Government. I will be writing to the Welsh Government enquiring whether their franchise agreement with Arriva is being honoured, whether their franchise agreement caters for the protection of the travelling public in the circumstances that we have, and what the franchise agreement says about the need to provide effective communication to passengers. I will also be writing to the Secretary of State for Transport seeking his help and intervention with the Welsh Government and Arriva. I will also be writing to Arriva themselves complaining about the way in which the Frodsham travelling public have been treated and asking why their contingency planning and communication appears to have been so poor.
If you are interested here is a link to the BBC account of the rail problems. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-43223415.
This is a link to Arriva's journey check pages https://www.journeycheck.com/arrivatrainswales/
Don't get me wrong, I fully support, and indeed would insist that if Arriva Trains discover a safety critical defect on a particular type of train they must, as a matter of priority check the integrity of all the affected rolling stock. The safety critical nature of the checks may require all the trains to be taken out of service as they are being assessed. That appears to be what they are doing.
My criticism is their failure to have effective contingency plans in place to be able to manage such an eventuality that look after the needs of the passengers. Every train operator, in my view, should plan for detecting a potentially safety critical defect that would lead to a withdrawal of a significant number of trains. That should lead, in my view, to sharing all available trains across their network and borrowing or hiring trains from elsewhere so as to minimise the effect of the loss of rolling stock on the travelling passenger. Where that can't be done rail replacement buses should be hired. Arriva should be trying to maintain a reasonable service on all their services. I struggle to believe that is what is happening at the moment.
Arriva's franchise for the services through Frodsham is handled by the Labour controlled Welsh Government. I will be writing to the Welsh Government enquiring whether their franchise agreement with Arriva is being honoured, whether their franchise agreement caters for the protection of the travelling public in the circumstances that we have, and what the franchise agreement says about the need to provide effective communication to passengers. I will also be writing to the Secretary of State for Transport seeking his help and intervention with the Welsh Government and Arriva. I will also be writing to Arriva themselves complaining about the way in which the Frodsham travelling public have been treated and asking why their contingency planning and communication appears to have been so poor.
If you are interested here is a link to the BBC account of the rail problems. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-43223415.
This is a link to Arriva's journey check pages https://www.journeycheck.com/arrivatrainswales/