New Wrexham Bidston line trains welcomed despite ‘scandalous’ delay
The Welsh Conservatives have welcomed the introductions of new trains for the Wrexham Bidston line, however referred to a ‘outrageous saga’ to get to that point.
As we reported yesterday Transport for Wales has run its first service for fare paying passengers using its ‘new’ Class 230 trains which were purchased for the line in 2019.
The Class 230 train are be the first battery-hybrid trains to be used in regular passenger service in Wales. The first service left Wrexham at 7.31 yesterday morning arriving at Shotton at 8.05am.
In recent weeks rail passengers wanting to travel between Wrexham and the Wirral have had to endure an inconvenient and slow bus replacement service that takes twice as long as trains.
The trains that usually run on the Borderlands Line have been withdrawn and sent to service other lines outside of the region.
This is because many TfW Class 175 trains have been taken out of service across the Wales and Borders network following a spate of fires that plagued the trains.
TfW owns five hybrid diesel/battery Class 230 trains, which use the bogies and aluminium bodyshells of withdrawn London Underground trains.
They were initially fitted with Ford Duratorq engine commonly used in the Transit Van however they have since been upgraded.
Each of the Class 230 trains having over 120 seats and with capacity for over 420 passengers – a significant increase over previous trains.
With fully accessible toilets, power sockets, electronic passenger information, Wi-Fi, bike racks and air conditioning, the trains are a significant milestone for TfW.
They were intended to come into service in 2019, but TfW only took delivery of units from Vivarail in July 2020.
Shadow Transport Minister Natasha Asghar saying, “It is excellent news that TFW’s Class 230’s have finally entered service, albeit 4 years after they were scheduled to start.
“These trains have been beset with delay after delay, with TFW initially aiming for them to begin service in mid-2019. Labour and TFW must now learn from the mistakes they’ve made with these trains, as this 4-year delay is scandalous.
“Regular users of the borderlands line have had to deal with subpar services by TFW for years, more recently many had their services replaced with rail replacement buses as their trains were sent to South Wales.
“We hope the introduction of these trains is the end of this outrageous saga of TFW failure that has plagued rail services in Denbighshire, Flintshire and Wrexham”.
