The next hourly service on platform one is.... unlikely!

 

In a week when we could find out that our countryside is to be decimated by pylons and a power station, it also seems likely that our long awaited hourly rail link to the rest of Britain has been swept under the carpet.

 

Montgomeryshire AM Russell George revealed the delay after quizzing Government Ministers at the Senedd, and was horrified to learn that it would not commence before 2014-15, and even that date is only pencilled in.

 

Originally the hourly service was promised to be in place by now as part of the National Transport Plan.

 

Mr George said: “This revelation from the Welsh Government is truly amazing.

 

“When the Government published its National Transport Plan in 2010, it identified building capacity on the Cambrian Line as a priority and had already committed itself to investing millions of pounds in the infrastructure work required to upgrade the service.

 

“It promised that this service would be in place by 2011, yet I now discover that the Government is not expecting Arriva Trains Wales to implement the service before the winter of 2014-15 at the earliest. They have effectively kicked this commitment into the long grass and have not properly explained why.

 

“All Ministers are telling me is that they are discussing the sustainability of the service with Arriva Trains Wales and Network Rail and there are also some financial barriers to overcome. However, it sounds to me that the barrier is more to do with political will and leadership than anything else.

 

“Having discovered last week that a new hourly service is to be implemented this winter on the rural East Suffolk line, between Ipswich and Lowestoft, less than two years from when the plans were announced, it proves what can be achieved even in these tough economic times.

 

“This announcement just shows the disregard this Government has to Mid Wales and I believe this lack of prioritisation is totally unacceptable.”

 

Last week, National Grid announced a decision was imminent on where they intend to plonk a power station in Montgomeryshire which would be linked to England via ghastly pylons.