Transport Infrastructure in North Wales

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Economy and Transport – in the Senedd at 2:16 pm on 16 January 2019.

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Photo of Mark Isherwood Mark Isherwood Conservative 2:16, 16 January 2019

Thank you. Well, a few days later, on 27 November, I called for a Welsh Government statement on rail services in north Wales after a weekend of delayed and cancelled rail services in north Wales, where I've been reliably informed by rail insiders that a shortage of tooling spares and access to wheel lathes being in place and ensured they were put in place by the incoming operator had caused that, although there was now access to wheel lathes in Crewe, Bristol and Taunton. How do you, therefore, respond, given the subsequent apology and assurances from Transport for Wales to the e-mail I received at the end of December—five weeks, almost, later—that there'd been no trains on that particular day on the line from Shotton to Wrexham, that there'd be none tomorrow, the Monday would revert to a train every two hours, like it had been for several weeks? They were told there were no trains on Thursday either, that they're peddling storm Callum as part of the excuse, but that was six weeks ago. And how is it that other train operators are not affected by all the wheelset damage that's occurred in Wales? Given the original assurances we had from yourself and Transport for Wales, why was that still happening five weeks later?