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Press Releases
First Great Western woes
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Overcrowded, cancelled, late, expensive: what's going wrong with our trains? In this week's Week In Week Out on 91Èȱ¬ One Wales, rail journalist Christian Wolmar buys a return ticket from Paddington to Cardiff to investigate a railway in crisis – and find who is to blame. The Great Western Blues will be shown at 10.35pm on Tuesday 10 June.
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First Great Western, which operates the trains across the West, is, according to the latest official figures, the worst performing train company in Britain.
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Earlier this year the Government warned that, unless its performance shows sustained improvement, First Great Western could have its franchise taken away.
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Network Rail, which owns and maintains the track and infrastructure, has also been warned by the Rail Regulator that its Western area has caused so many cancellations and delays it could be investigated for being in breach of licence.
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But in exclusive interviews with those in charge of both the train and track along this vital artery in and out of South Wales, both parties insisted to Week In Week Out that things were getting better.
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In the last month nine out 10 high speed trains were on time.
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Merthyr-born Andrew Haines, the Chief Operating Officer of First Great Western, told Week In Week Out: "We didn't have enough crews, we had some problems with our trains, infrastructure long overdue for renewal. Network Rail are doing a lot of work to re-invest in it now, but Network Rail would say it was long overdue.
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"The combination of those things meant we were delivering an unacceptable service to people."
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Network Rail's Western Route Director David Ward said: "There were some certain basics where the eye had gone off the ball. We'd lost some of the basic fundamental skills in delivering an infrastructure.
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"There were a lot of pressures on Network Rail at the time and I think we've worked together to actually understand what they are: how we deliver infrastructure each and every day that's fit for purpose."
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"The improvement will get better," promised Andrew Haines. "David Ward and I won't be here in six months if that improvement isn't better – our bosses will find someone else to do the job. And I'm confident that won't be the case."
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"If this improvement we've seen is better throughout the year we can look back and say we're actually proud of this railway that we're running," adds David Ward. "I think it was a very difficult railway to be proud of. It was very difficult times."
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Both men admit that, until new management was in place, both companies had blamed each other for the poor level of service and performance.
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Christian Wolmar is convinced that most of the blame for such a poor railway lies in the way it was privatised and said of his journey into the Great Western Railway Blues: "I've been following the privatisation story for the last 15 years and in my view it's been a complete disaster and an enormous waste of taxpayers' money. And, what's more, it's also stopped the railway from investing a lot of money."
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But in an interview with the programme Rail Minister Tom Harris denied the problem was down to the way the railway was privatised and fragmented.
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In a frank admission he said: "When Labour came into power in '97 and the railways had still been nationalised then I think we would have privatised them.
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"Ideologically and practically speaking a private railway has provided a level of investment, innovation and imagination that wouldn't have happened if British Rail had stayed as it was."
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Week In Week Out: The First Great Western Blues, 91Èȱ¬ÌýOne Wales, 10.35pm, Tuesday 10 June 2008
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91Èȱ¬ Wales Press Office
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