Letter: Rail is better suited for freight than roads

Letter: You had two articles recently on rail services affecting this part of Wales.

Your correspondent, Mr Amles, seems to consider railways intrinsically unsafe because there are no restrictions on overloading.

As a road service operator, he experiences such restrictions and tries to relate this to rail. However, rail and road are radically different.

Firstly the proportion of tare weight to total weight especially for passengers, is much greater for rail traffic. This means railways are built much more strongly and can take a greater load than is normally comfortable.

Furthermore, a railway is much smoother than a road and so springing can be far less flexible than on road vehicles. Once again, this means a greater load can be carried with safety.

Then, many railways load more than 20 tons per axle; think of the damage this would cause to roads!

The only real limitation on total weight for rail traffic is the power of the locomotive and many railways can add sufficient of these to cope with almost any weight. That having been said, for passenger working overloading is acceptable only in an emergency.

A train or tram may be designed for a crush load, to be able to cope with the rush hour with a minimum of extra stock, but even that allows some degree of comfort.

Totally unacceptable is the deliberate practice of Arriva of putting into service half a normal train at a peak time and expect to carry local passengers in the Birmingham area without concern for the passengers who can use only that train for a return journey.

I experienced this attitude last November and have been in correspondence with the Welsh Assembly since.

There was some rugby match on that particular day and Arriva drafted train sets from elsewhere to enhance services in the south.

At the same time, there were engineering works between Newtown and Machynlleth. In such a crisis, sets could also be sent from the reserve stock kept for breakdowns both in the south and from the north and here. However, it seems Arriva expects to function without any reserve stock!

Apparently, Spanish railways (RENFE) refunds the fare if a train is more than five minutes late.

If this were done on this line, Arriva would refund all the fares. I regret to say that until Deutsche Regiobahn absorbs Arriva and totally replaces the management, the Welsh Assembly is wasting our money.

K L Turns

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