Candidate hopeful over transport takeover

Friday 23rd April 2010, 6:57AM BST.

Wrekin Tory candidate Mark Pritchard says he hopes the £1.59 billion takeover of bus and rail firm Arriva by German operator Deutsche Bahn will bring an end to overcrowding on a service running through Shropshire.

Mr Pritchard has been a long-term critic of Arriva Trains Wales and in particular its Shrewsbury to Birmingham International service, which has been dubbed the “sardine express”.

Earlier this year he called on government ministers to force the company to put on a minimum number of carriages at peak times.

It came after a Wellington woman fainted while on the train travelling from Telford to Wolverhampton after claiming she had been packed like a sardine.

Precise details of how the takeover will affect travellers in Shropshire have yet to be released. But Mr Pritchard said: “Arriva train services, along with some London Midland services, are simply not good enough.

“Hopefully the takeover will go ahead and lead to more carriages and less congestion for passengers. I will be backing any train company who improves local services.”

The £1.59 billion move combines the UK’s second biggest bus firm and the operator of Welsh and CrossCountry rail services with a business which carries five million train passengers a day in Germany.

View more: Arriva news, Election 2010 news.

1
Jeepers

April 23, 2010 at 16:44

There is no indication whatsoever that this takeover will mean better standards, either on buses OR trains. I can well forsee it leading to even higher fares though – even bigger transport group, less competition maybe? Why should it necessarily mean an end to congestion on the trains, which is fundamentally a problem with the franchising process more than the train operating company?

Another meaningless statement from someone desperate for column inches in the run up to Polling Day.

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2
Edward

April 23, 2010 at 17:29

Lets hope the Germans get the number 25 bus to Bayston Hill back into the bus station. I, and many others, are fed up with walking all through town from the Riverside to catch it at St Mary’s Street. The 544 needs to come into the village as well so we can access the Meole Brace Retail Park without taking our lives in our hands crossing the busy A49 dual carriageway and roundabout by Sainsbury’s petrol station.

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3
Bill Graham

April 23, 2010 at 18:32

Mr Pritchard is sadly talking out of his posterior (and not for the first time) – the issue is nothing to do with Arriva who provide services for WALES.

Mr Pritchard should take the trouble to read the contracts and understand that commuter services between Shrewsbury, Wellington, Telford and Birmingham are the responsibility of London Midland – who will not, do not but ought to provide two or three semi-fast trains in both rush hours to alleviate the general overcrowding, not just the current ‘all stations’ service which is inevitably slow and unpopular

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4
Bill Graham

April 23, 2010 at 20:51

My previous post may not have been allowed, but Mr Pritchard is demonstrating his lack of understanding of how rail services operate between Shrewsbury and the West Midlands conurbation, the contracts and the obligations

He should inform himself properly before making opportunistic statements as once again – although like many others – he is attacking the wrong target.

Arriva’s contract is to provide services for WELSH passengers. The contract to provide proper services to Shrewsbury, Wellington Telford and points east to Birmningham is in the hands of London Midland, who badly need to enhance their ‘rush-hour’ services with something other than slow ‘stoppers’.

Mr Pritchard needs to get his facts right before making ‘vote-catching’ pontifications

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5
Jeepers

April 24, 2010 at 10:38

I would presume that the way Arriva chooses to operate it’s bus services in Shrewsbury are based on commercial reasons based at least part in what the information their ticket machines tell them. It may not be financially viable to provide services exactly as individual people may want them, unless there is a proven need that the majority do.

The suggestion that ‘the Germans’ would perhaps make local managers route a bus in a particular way (if Edward was seriously suggesting that) sounds rather ludicrous to me. I would doubt they know anything about the services and would care even less.

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6
NH

April 24, 2010 at 11:45

Any chance we could have an idea of what non-Tory candidates think about the issues of the day?

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7
a

April 26, 2010 at 09:52

agree SS is not balanced in this election

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8
Rob, Telford

April 26, 2010 at 12:25

How long will it be before ALL bus and train services in the UK are operated by DB?

It seems to have escaped the notice of many that the “independent” Wrexham Shropshire & Marylebone service is actually operated by a DB subsidiary.

No reflection on DB (who before privatisation were the old German state railway Deutsches Bundesbahn) – but why is that so many strategically-important public utilities are now foreign-owned (the majority of the gas, electicity, water and nuclear power industries being prime examples)?

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9
Chris

April 26, 2010 at 15:43

Mark Pritchard obviously likes to ignore the facts and provides is own negative opinion about ARRIVA. Agree with points provided by Bill Graham as he provides facts.

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10
Kate

April 27, 2010 at 11:57

Maybe we’ll finally get some decent service on the Telford – Shrewsbury bus services.

As well as overcrowding, there aren’t buses at rush hour times so if you finish work at five, you can get the long rural route and get back to Telford about 18:15 (when it turns up on time!) or you can wait until six to get an express service that gets you to Telford Town Centre just as all the other buses have gone hourly.

Hopefully the new owners will put some improvements in, they surely can’t make it any worse.

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11
Grey

April 27, 2010 at 16:51

Having had the pleasure of using the German public transport system I can only praise it very highly for its efficiency and comprehensiveness. We should let DB have complete control of ours. They have high speed, excellent regional sevices, u-bahn and s-bahns in major cities and in a town a size of Telford they would probably have extablished a tram network consisting of aboout 6 lines.

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