Train Services Axed from Popular Station | Local train services see further cuts

12.00.00am GMT Mon 3rd Dec 2007

News that local train services will face further cutbacks in the new winter train timetable is being described as 'short-term', and 'an action that undermines the confidence of local train user leading to more cars on the road'.

Despite growing numbers of passengers using train services at Severn Tunnel Junction, a hub-station used by people across Southern Monmouthshire, did not prevent the announcement that the increasingly popular station will have fewer train services on the Cardiff to Bristol and Bath lines.

Speaking on the launch of the Winter timetable, local Assembly member and leader of the Liberal Democrats in Wales, Michael German, said that, "the cutting back of services doesn't make sense. This will only contribute to more people using cars, putting more traffic on local roads and lead to yet more carbon emissions, exactly the opposite that the government keep on telling us that they working to reduce."

Severn Tunnel Junction sees the loss this month of services form Cardiff to Bath stopping at the station. "In the past twelve months we have seen ticket sales increase by 39% on the route between Severn Tunnel Junction and Bath", says Phil Hobson, a local county councillor and leader of the Liberal Democrats on Monmouthshire County Council.

In pointing to official records, Mr. Hobson says that these cuts don't just affect Severn Tunnel Junction but all of south Monmouthshire. "Figures from Office of the Rail Regulator statistics show that almost 9000 people changed between the Caldicot, Chepstow and Lydney services to the Bath/Bristol services at Severn Tunnel Junction in the last year (2005/6).

"The number was growing by 12% a year, one of the highest growth figures for rail travel in Wales. There are now no connections either at Severn Tunnel Junction or Newport through the day so you have to wait for fifty minutes if you want to travel by rail on or off the Gloucester line."

"There's little incentive for people to use trains services beyond the regular commuter ones," added Michael German AM, "all these cuts seek to do is put more cars on the roads and take away the ease of train travel from a growing number of people."