Why there aren't Shrewsbury to Wellington shuttle trains during landslip repairs - but probably could be

The landslip at Oakengates is unfortunate, and cut Shropshire off from the Black Country, West Midlands and London (unless you're prepared to go a long way round via the likes of Crewe or Hereford), until at least Monday, March 25 - possibly longer.

While there's nothing the train operators could do about this - after all, they're not responsible for the tracks they run on - could they do more to put a temporary replacement service in place?

The reason I ask is that, for all the will in the world, people don't want to get on rail replacement coaches if they can possibly avoid it. And while it's been good that Transport for Wales, West Midlands Railway and Network Rail have managed to put alternative arrangements so quickly and worked to get more buses in place after reports that some were full mid-journey, preventing other passengers from boarding, there are missed opportunities for those passengers who could avoid having to go by road.

West Midlands Railway has said it is planning to run a shuttle service from Wolverhampton in the coming days. At first the operator said Shifnal would be the destination, but now it's changed to a more generic 'stations to the east of the landslip' pledge. When asked if they could go to Telford Central, a spokesperson said that's not possible as there is no crossover to allow trains to go from one track to the other and, with each track not having signals in each direction, it's not safe to run trains up and down one track in case of a collision.

That's fine, I understand that. If signalling isn't there to provide a safe service, it can't and shouldn't be done.