WHY ARE WE WAITING?

I have lost track, if you will pardon the expression, of how many key dates have come and gone in relation to the Ebbw Vale to Newport project. Enough is enough this rail link is important and needs to be completed and fully opened as soon as possible! Which bit don’t they (the Labour in Wales Government in of Cardiff Bay) get?

Let’s be honest eleven years is a very long time to wait for a train, that’s how long the good citizens of Ebbw Vale and Newport have been waiting for the final stage of rail link to be completed. Now I have heard previously said by smug (and ample) Labourites in Newport ‘That Labour’s hands were tied when they were in coalition with Plaid’, well now you are running the shop so pull your finger out.

Now the interesting thing is that when they want to the franchise can run services via Newport to Ebbw Vale (and back again), as noted by Rail Future Wales (Issue 51 Autumn 2011 )“on the 27th August (2011) the 21.35 and 23.05 Cardiff to Ebbw Vale Parkway and 21.40 and 22.40 Ebbw Vale Parkway to Cardiff services were routed via Newport. Empty stock from Cardiff Canton to Ebbw Vale in the morning and from Ebbw Vale to Cardiff Canton in the evening always runs via Newport for staff route knowledge”.

We have had two feasibility studies, a business case and yet there was no autumn (2011) announcement. The final business case appraisal of Network Rail’s report, has long been completed but not yet released. With more than a few degrees of irony, it can be said that few railways will have (if we get the final go-a-head) been waiting approval through two centuries (the twentieth and the twenty first).

If this is not going to happen, and I for one, hope that the final bit of the line does reopen, could the Labour in Wales administered Government in Cardiff at least develop some backbone and come clean and say so, rather than carry on misleading the good people of the Ebbw Valley and Newport.