Transport for Wales says Coryton line services ‘have not been good enough’

Transport for Wales has shared an apology to rail passengers, saying that their services on the Coryton line “haven’t been good enough”.

Writing on their website, Transport for Wales (TfW) shared: “Whether that’s down to trains being delayed, terminated early or cancelled altogether, the service we’ve delivered isn’t what you deserve.

“We know that and we really are sorry.”

According to the news post, a dedicated group has been set up to look at the problems and find ways they can get back to the levels of reliability that passengers “rightly” expect.

While there are lots of reasons a train can be delayed, they shared that in June last year they developed a new timetable to get the best out of brand new trains which are currently being rolled out.

This new timetable links Coryton, Penarth and Caerphilly.

New trains

Because of how many trains run on the Valleys Network, they say that the turnaround time is very tight at both Coryton and Penarth. This means when one train gets delayed, it can very easily have a ripple effect on the trains behind it. It’s not easy to make that time back up, or as we call it ‘recover the timetable’ without causing further disruption.

If the train is running very late it may mean terminating early such as at Ty Glas, or running fast past several stations to the end of the route in order to reset the situation.

They shared: “This works in terms of impacting the fewest people overall but we understand the impact it has on those using the stations we do miss.”

TfW’s new trains for the Coryton/Penarth/Caerphilly route are not quite ready yet, but TfW say that when they are introduced later this summer they aim to offer improved acceleration, greater capacity and more accessibility.

With more carriages and more doors to board and alight from, they say they can save vital seconds and minutes getting trains into and out of stations. Over the course of a journey these small gains make a big difference.

Benefits

TfW added: “We brought the timetable in when we did so customers could get more of the benefits earlier, rather than waiting for all the new trains to be in place.

“It also meant we could get used to the new operating structure and identify any changes that needed to be made.

“While most of the routes have seen improvements, this is one area we need to work on.”

Sharing a number of commitments to passengers, they wrote: “In the short term we will be introducing a new plan from 24 March that will see these services run fast between Caerphilly and Cardiff Queen Street.

“This will create more recovery time in the schedules and creates a fast service into Cardiff for Caerphilly customers. While we will be taking out stops at Lisvane, Llanishen and Heath High Level as these are connected to the Coryton line, these stations still have four trains per hour in each direction. This will be on a trial basis.”

They also commit that if they have to run a train fast in one direction, they will make sure it stops in the other direction. So if a train is running late onto the Coryton Branch they miss the stops on the up journey to Coryton but ensure the service calls at all stops on the down journey from Coryton.

Furthermore, they commit that they will improve our information to customers and provide this in a timely fashion and also plan to protect some key trains at school times and morning/evening commutes.

Finally, they say: “We commit to listen and remain open to specific ideas.”