Four of Welsh town’s five train stations at bottom of UK leaderboard for poor service
Alec Doyle – Local democracy reporter
Four of a Welsh town’s five train stations are languishing in the bottom 500 in the UK for poor service and lateness – with one inside the bottom 50.
Data collected over the last three months shows Chirk in Wrexham is the worst station in the county borough for service reliability, ranking 2,592nd out of 2,636 stations across Britain according to data collected by the On Time Trains website.
Over the last 12 weeks only 22% of the 2,864 services expected at Chirk were on time. Another 22% were 10 minutes or more late and 10% were cancelled.
Cancelled
Ruabon was not far behind, ranked 2,583rd with 25% of services on time and 10% cancelled.
Wrexham General fared better, with 31% of its 6,547 services running to timetable and 9% cancelled as it came in at 2,366th – still within the bottom 500.
Gwersyllt was the borough’s other poor performer with 33% of services sticking to their time and only 6% cancelled.
Wrexham Central stood out, ranking in the mid-range at 1,616th with 49% of trains arriving on time – although 8% of services were cancelled there.
‘Inconvenience’
A Transport for Wales spokesperson said: “We know when trains are delayed or cancelled this can cause significant inconvenience for customers and we would like to apologise for this.
“Whilst there have been several issues in the last few months, storms Darragh and Bert did have a huge impact on Wales and the western side of the UK, leaving lines blocked by trees, debris and flooding.
“Working with our partners in Network Rail we had multiple speed restrictions in place and recently the route between Wrexham and Shrewsbury has been closed for a number of days due to a landslip.
“We understand the importance of the Wrexham line to the local community and have introduced brand new and newly refurbished trains onto the route, as well as dedicated team to improve performance. This resulted in a significant improvement in punctuality and reliability, as well as growth in the number of passengers using our services.
“In the year to September 2024, the Wrexham-Bidston Borderlands Line saw 60,000 extra passenger journeys made and a 27% increase in trains arriving on time.
“We continue to look at measures to improve performance and reliability for our customers both at a local and national level, with workshops set up to deliver this in partnership with Network Rail.”
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Very strange. Rhiwabon is the next station to Y Waun (Chirk). All trains that go to one go to the other.
And the next station northwards is Wrecsam Cyffredinol (which also has a few trains a day on the Bidston service).
So how come they have such different numbers?
You would expect Rhiwabon and Y waun to have the same figures but Wrexham could be getting some trains on time via the Bidston line while the Shrewsbury line is closed?
Not all trains to Wrexham stop at Chirk?
The figures for the Wrexham area look good compared to the Heart of Wales line which had no trains yet again for a week post-Darragh. It’s just excuses, excuses: TfW blames Network Rail, and Network Rail (more quietly) blames TfW. Frankly they both deserve a pox on their houses for the lack of any idea of how to co-operatively run a service where you have pre-planned for all types of disaster.. What is really needed is a vertically integrated system for Wales and the bits of track outside Wales that run predominantly TfW services, with a thoroughly competent management based… Read more »
Taking data from the last 12 weeks is not going to tell you a lot when areas of the UK were badly hit by Storm Darragh, and others not so much. The rail line south of Wrexham was closed for 4 (?) days and the last rain event caused a landslide, closing the line again near Gobowen.
To get a clear idea of reliability you need to compare when the weather has a more benign period across the UK, so that all rail stations have a similar baseline.