Rail users push for full service to be restored

Train passengers in Cornwall for whom the railway is a "lifeline" stress vital services must be returned to their regular schedule without delay.

A number of Great Western Railway's (GWR) new Class 175 trains were withdrawn from the mainline through the south west in September so they could be repaired.

Commuters said, as well as inconvenience, fewer services to meet demand had led to carriages being overcrowded.

GWR said it recognised passengers' frustration and it would return its normal timetable in full as soon as possible once maintenance work was completed.

Beth Walters, 23, who uses the train from St Germans to travel to university in Plymouth, said the situation was both inconvenient and more expensive.

"There's now no train in between 8.50am and 10.33am so I have to get the earlier one. It's more expensive because it's peak time."

She said she had experienced overcrowding too: "The train I normally get back has only got three carriages and we're all cramming in to try and get on and it's just quite claustrophobic."

Walters said she was concerned about having fewer services to rely on as the weather gets worse.

"The trains are a lifeline in rural areas. If it's anything like last winter with the amount of rain and storms we had, I saw a lot of cuts to the trains - so I'm concerned about getting in and back," she added.

Lizzy Stroud from the St Germans and Rame Area Public Transport Users Group said St Germans was a key station for many and feared the full timetable would not return.

"We cover a really broad area - Millbrook, the Rame Peninsula, and people even from Looe, Saltash, and Tideford.

"In theory, we should get our train service back to normal by December, but we want to make sure we do. What we don't want them to think is people have adopted different times to go for the trains, and it's all okay."

Stroud also believed the Class 175 trains were "notoriously unreliable" and a "step backwards.

She said: "This isn't just about St. Germans, this is about being fobbed off with trains that just are not suited for purpose. If we were having to get rid of those lovely old Intercity trains - why not have something better?"

Hayle-based journalist Andy Bowes-Roden from Modern Railway magazine however, insisted the 175s were "very good" and an upgrade on the previous trains.

He said: "They were incredibly expensive to operate, maintenance was becoming a challenge.

"These Class 175s are reliable, comfortable, spacious but they've been stored out in the open for two years.

"Although some work had been done to refit them, it's only when you start putting serious miles on the thing that the gremlins inevitably come out."

Matt Barnes, head of strategic service development at GWR said he understood passengers' frustration at the disruption but insisted it would be worth the wait.

"We never take these decisions lightly. These are really good trains. Obviously our focus is on on making them as reliable as they can be.

"We didn't intend for them to bring up some of the challenges they've brought. They've had more problems when they're running out in traffic."

He said in the interim, passengers impacted should be able to use on-peak services at off-peak prices and as many carriages as they had available were being used.

"These are temporary changes and, as the 175 position improves, we will be able to go back to the permanent timetable.

"I can't give a certain date because that depends on when the fleet is ready but we'll return the services as soon as we have the trains available to do so," he added.

Bowes-Roden said the problem had been caused by the fragmentation of the privatised rail network.

"One company owns the trains, another company operates them, another company wants to operate them.

"There's no central authority that can take those decisions that as a train fleet is replaced somewhere, we can move it somewhere else, and that's one of the things Great British Railways is intended to resolve," he added.

Great British Railways is a new government body designed to bring the UK's rail infrastructure and most passenger services under a single public operation.

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