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Anger at Pembrokeshire's "poor" train service

12:29pm Sunday 27th January 2008

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A 22-year-old Kilgetty man has demanded an apology from Arriva Trains Wales for poor train services which have frequently left him unable to get to work.

Ben Large depends on public transport to get to Pembroke School where he works as a cover supervisor. Since October he has missed a morning's work on five separate occasions due to the train not turning up.

Ben has never needed to own a car and has only found the train system to be problematic after returning to Pembrokeshire.

He said: "I have personally incurred a loss of earnings because of failures in the system where the promised alternative transport is either ridiculously late or non-existent.

"What's laughable about it is that they've now raised their fares."

He added: "It's disgusting coming from a public service, especially when the Government is trying to persuade everyone to go green'. How can we when we can't rely on the train service?"

A spokesman for Arriva Trains Wales said: "We apologise for any inconvenience caused to Mr Large. Our performance overall has gone up this year to 90%."

"We do encounter occasional problems due to bad weather but these are true of most forms of transport during the winter period."

She added: "Providing buses as alternative transport when trains are cancelled is often a logistical problem at that particular time because it coincides with the morning school run."

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Your Say YourWestern Telegraph

Lady Mae, tenby says...
8:16pm Sun 27 Jan 08

Performance? occasional problems? logistics? coincides? all meaning much of the same confusus say!!


I remember clearly what my dear friend Amanda 'encountered' when she boarded the Arriva train bound for Whitland
from Tenby, last year to deliver a bicycle to a gentleman living in Haverfordwest. As she was about to leave the Whitland bound train at its destination the Haverfordwest train was leaving, they coincided both together so to speak. bad weather? winter? in fact it was pouring with rain, yet this was in August. perhaps or if not at worse logistics, or be it bad timing, the poor girl had to cycle to the Haverfordwest town facing all manner of the other public transport the four wheeled variety.

Did she complain? she should have, let off steam? she could have, so one can fully empathize with Mr Large's predicament.

Reliability should be paramount this could lessen the ten percent under performance quite dramatically.

British Transport is now a network, no longer a national pride.

As the consistent message goes the customer is always right, do talk yourself out of that one Arriva.

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