Regular readers of this website may have occasionally seen me ranting about public transport once or twice before. As my long-suffering friends and family will tell you it is a subject area I can drone on about endlessly.
As a regular Merseyrail user, it is often this particular network that forms the basis of my musings. In recent times you may have seen me sounding off about the Victorian-era ticketing system that means people cannot tap in and out with their cards for their train journeys and how people can get fined despite buying tickets online through third parties as they cannot produce a paper ticket.
That remains an infuriating state of affairs for the main rail system in one of the most important city regions in the country. But I have previously cut Merseyrail some slack because I have generally always found it to be a pretty reliable service. Unfortunately, that slack is getting harder to locate at the moment.
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At the start of the week, the operator announced that passengers travelling on the Kirkby and New Brighton lines would face limited services and rail replacements. Merseyrail said this was due to an 'unexpected' increase in wear on train's wheel bearings.
I thought it was an interesting choice that on the Monday, as this disruption began, Merseyrail's social media team opted to tweet out a good morning message alongside an picture of one of the new, yet to be launched, heavily delayed new trains that local people are desperate to see arrive on the network.
Frustration is growing with every passing week that those new trains are not introduced and that feeling will only intensify now that problems with the old stock are starting to really impact on people's lives. Cue another deeply disappointing announcement yesterday.
Merseyrail has now revealed that while next week will see trains running again on the Kirkby and New Brighton lines, there will be reduced timetables across much of the network. Trains will decrease how many trips they do, and run every 30 minutes on the Ormskirk, Kirkby, Hunts Cross, New Brighton, West Kirby, Chester and Ellesmere Port lines.
Regular users of the network will need absolutely no reminding of the fact that Merseyrail only returned to its standard 15 minute timetable in late April after years of admittedly understandable pandemic-affected disruption. To be moving back to a half an hour timetable on so many key lines just weeks later is a bitter disappointment.
I was in London a few weeks ago visiting a friend and we were travelling everywhere using the Tube. I remember my pal being visibly frustrated that the next train wouldn't arrive for a whole four minutes - I had to laugh. I love this city and this region but we are being badly let down by our public transport services. The idea of trains only arriving every 30 minutes across large swathes of the network is just completely unacceptable.
You only have to take a look at the twitter comments underneath yesterday's announcement to get a sense of how people's patience is really wearing thin. Some asked how trains have been allowed to get to this state, others asked if prices will be reduced along with timetables and plenty wanted to know where the new trains are. One phrase that kept popping up was 'not good enough.' By anyone's analysis that is a very fair statement.
