Newport rail link bus fails to convince our man (From South Wales Argus)

Newport rail link bus fails to convince our man

1:50pm Tuesday 24th January 2012 in News By David Deans, Reporter

Scrapped in 2008 because no-one used it, the bus link between Rogerstone train station and Newport was started again yesterday in a bid to link the Ebbw Valley line to Newport city centre. DAVID DEANS gave it a go on its first day.

IT DIDN’T work the first time and it seems the latest attempt to pacify campaigners calling for an Ebbw Vale to Newport rail link with a shuttle bus service has flopped before it’s really taken off.

For years the Argus has campaigned to link the Valleys town to the city centre with its Back on Track campaign.

The rail link bus was put on to carry passengers from Rogerstone station to Newport railway station, which smacks of being something of a sticking plaster rather than a solution.

With an open mind, I boarded the rush hour 8.13am Stagecoach service, only to be outnumbered two to one as the only passenger by the driver and a member of staff.

It is, of course, early days for the Rail Linc 903 service, contracted by Newport council to bus giant Stagecoach as a 12- month pilot to gauge demand for direct passenger trains and funded to the tune of £119,000 for this initial period, by the Welsh Government.

But it’s difficult not to cast your mind back to the old link service, which was also government funded and was scrapped because hardly anyone used it.

That service took a leisurely 40 minutes to meander through Newport, even stopping at Celtic Springs.

The new 903 is much quicker, with my 8.13am bus taking 18 minutes to get to the centre and effectively following a direct route as a train would.

But the issue isn’t speed – it’s the plain fact that people do not like making awkward bus connections.

What happens if traffic gets in the way of your connection to Newport? If you work on the outskirts, how long will it take to get yet another connecting bus?

We have argued consistently for a passenger train service, not a bus link.

However, tickets from many of the stops on the Ebbw Vale line to Newport can be bought which will include the bus link.

The first bus leaves Rogerstone at 7.13am, hourly until 7.13pm, and the first bus leaves Newport station at 6.35am, hourly until 7.35pm.

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EDITORIAL COMMENT: Bus link not promising

IT WAS with a sense of déjà vu that we sent a reporter to try out a new bus link between Rogerstone station and Newport. The idea behind the link is that people travelling from Ebbw Vale to Newport will now be able to use the rail service, which as everyone knows too well, only goes to Cardiff. Passengers will be able to get off at Rogerstone and pick up a bus to Newport. We think it highly unlikely that many people will make use of the service and that in no way will its usage illustrate the likely demand for a rail service. The same bus link was tried four years ago, only to disappear not long after. Granted, this time it is a much shorter journey. But we can’t help feeling this is all beyond a joke. As our report shows the service can hardly boast an auspicious start. It would be a little unfair to judge it on its first day but we do wonder whether this service will be used at all. We firmly believe a rail link is needed from Ebbw Vale to Newport and that this bus link is as likely to fail as a similar service did in 2008.