What's Wrong with Our Trains? Week In Week Out

It's a familiar scene for many commuters.

If there's less than three carriages, you're not getting on.

We're tamping because we have to wait till 6.43 here.

We go behind the scenes as Arriva work every night

Our oldest train is 4.1 million miles ?

And we see them deal with tens of thousands

Cardiff station is not built for managing events of this size,

Wales has #traintrouble - so how did we get here?

And is there light at the end of the tunnel?

All across Wales, people are getting ready for the journey to work.

In Ebbw Vale, Matt and Tara Marshman are grabbing a quick breakfast

before Matt heads off for an hour-long train trip

How have the trains been? Trying to get an earlier one in or

an earlier one home. It's a scene repeated

in households across South Wales. Rhiannon MacElvenny

and her partner Gareth live in Ton Pentre in the Rhondda -

and it's Rhiannon who braves the cold first

to catch her Cardiff train. Every morning rush hour,

14,000 commuters pour Matt Marshman works for a web design

firm and has found the train from his local station to Cardiff

is much better than trying to drive. But while he's a fan,

in recent months he says some of his journeys to and from work

have seen scenes like this. So each day he and thousands

of other commuters head to their station with

a sense of trepidation. Everybody has got the same sort of

thing on their mind, and I going to get a seat? If I was on the longer

line I would feel a little bit more nervous. Hopefully they have got the

Peter working as well! -- heaters. In a different valley,

on a different line at Ton Pentre - Rhiannon has found the right train

to get her to work. The trains you get here at 7:53am,

arriving at 8:45am, so as long as it is on time, 15 minutes is plenty of

time for me to walk over and get to work and start my shift.

But some days, things don't go to plan.

And Rhiannon has arrived late at the call centre where she works.

It is really stressful, straightaway you are worrying about explaining to

work that you're late again, and it is not by two or three minutes, it

is up to half an hour, 45 minutes that I have been late. You are at

the mercy of the train, there is nowhere you can go.

Today Rhiannon's train is on time and while there are plenty

of seats at her stop, they'll soon be filled.

And she says over the last few months she s experienced

overcrowding, delays and even cancelled trains.

Both Rhiannon and Matt have taken to social media

Hundreds of other commuters have vented their frustrations

Those are the stories ? but is it as bad as all that?

I'm joining the morning rush hour at Llandaff to get a taste.

It's one of the last stations on a main valley line,

before you reach the city centre in Cardiff.

And where there have been complaints from passengers that

I have just tried to get on the 7:50am from Llandaff into Cardiff

city centre, it was absolutely rammed. Very few people managed to

get on, and all the conductor could say was, there will be another one

along in ten minutes, and I will try to get on it.

It all 5am, from Llandaff into the city centre of Cardiff.

It was pretty busy, standing room only, what I would have expected. At

the train I got on had four carriages, the one before only had

two carriages. What I have gone through is the experience for

thousands of commuters every day, who rely on the trains to get them

to work on time. So how did we get into this mess?

Under the spotlight are Arriva Trains Wales.

Arriva are part of the largest transport companies in Europe -

Other train operators come into Wales, but since 2003

it's Arriva who run local services and manage the stations.

They're punctual and have improved timetables.

Today's passenger satisfaction survey on issues from tickets

to stations showed their overall figures remained the same.

However, satisfaction with their trains has dropped.

Arriva's overcrowding has prompted inquiries by politicians.

Deeply frustrating for us, but even worse for our customers. Because we

cannot actually address that demands that we have got.

The number of train journeys in Wales has risen from 18 million

So, what do passengers think is the answer?

More carriages on. Putting bigger trains on the tracks.

More carriages, frequent trains, more communication.

Nothing it seems is that straightforward when

I've come to Manchester to meet rail industry expert Tony Miles.

He says Arriva's much discussed zero growth contract did give them

You were locked into the number of trains you have got at the beginning

for the whole length of what, in Wales, is quite a long contract. And

that is the problem. How do you predict what will happen

in 15 years' time and how it right? We didn't predict the number of

people that would use public transport. It was lovely to have

everything nice and secure and signed off, but it gave no

flexibility. That means that in Wales

on the morning commute, more passengers are being

crammed into the same number Back with Matt on his journey ?

he knows the comfort of his trip depends on

how many carriages turn up. Three carriages this morning, which

is good, a lot of happy and smiley faces getting on the train this

morning. If there is less than three carriages, it is a gamble whether

you going to get on not. If you are a little further away from the doors

than someone else and it is only two carriages, you are not getting on.

Of course, overcrowding on the railways is not

A busy station like this in Manchester is a case in point.

According to the latest department for transport figures for 2015,

overcrowding rates for Manchester are higher than in Cardiff.

But the difference is they are decreasing here,

but in Cardiff are on the rise at a faster rate than anywhere else

And that was before Arriva Trains Wales admitted

that overcrowding on its services had reached its highest level

The travelling public have gone home.

But for Simon Hughes and his team of engineers

at the Cardiff train depot, their timebable has only just begun.

-- timetable. This depot in Cardiff get 60-70

trains every night, and we have people who will clean, fuel, repair

and maintain the trains and put them back out to service the next day.

With an average age of 27 years, Wales' fleet of trains are some

Our oldest train is some 4.5 million miles. Sometimes they turn up with

some unknown defect that we have to repair. That takes people away from

doing their day job and onto repairs, and it is more maintenance

burden again. We understand there are customers standing on our

trains, there are failures in the fleet, and we are working really

hard to train to mitigate that. -- to try and mitigate that.

Even with the best efforts, old trains will break down -

This carriage is in darkness, and I don't think they know, because it is

in complete darkness. And if carriages

are out of service - having their wheels fixed

after damage caused by sliding on leaves,

there are few spare trains. And passengers like Matt have

to deal with the consequences. Loads and loads of people with only

two carriages available, we had, people left on the platform. We had

people standing, not a lot of room for anybody at all. It is

unbelievable the amount of people who can voice their opinions, and

you can actually hear the tweets and things going on in the background.

Arriva's contract continues until 2018, and it's often used

to explain why more trains can't be added until then.

But is it really as black and white as that?

This station here in Ebbw Vale did not even exist in 2003 when

company-mac took cover, but in 2008, and new line was introduced, and

thanks to extra money from the Welsh Government, three additional trains

were least, taking passengers from here down to Cardiff, so it seems

that where there is a will, and more money, extra trains, and services

can be run, above and beyond any franchise agreement.

Two years ago, this new train service and carriages

were introduced to run from Holyhead to Manchester

thanks to extra central government money.

But in North Wales there are people as unhappy with their rail service

One is business leader Askar Shebani in Deeside.

He thinks it's holding back the local economy.

It is not really a railway network that our employees can use

businesses can use. They have used it, they were either late to work or

they could not access work, and so they can lose their jobs if they

continue to use that, so they have given up. Whole rail infrastructure

is very poor. Nothing has really improved here at all.

It was once thought that rail travel would be going out of fashion.

Now there's a scramble to try and deal with the growing demand.

Commuter routes from the Valleys are filling up with customers.

Surely all the additional fares from passengers sitting

or standing could help fund extra trains.

The rail industry is full of surprises. For example, it may

surprise you to learn that Arriva Trains's services are some of the

most heavily subsidised in the UK. They receive anything between 110

and ?160 million per year, because while some routes make money through

fares, many of us don't, because they are carrying what the company

likes to cold fresh air. Money could be saved

if Arriva could get more Trains that don't need constant

repair, like these being assembled at one of the

largest train manufacturers - There have been enquires from Wales,

but no trains will be ordered from anywhere until

it's clear which company wins And whether our trains will be

diesel, electric or something else. Passengers in Wales need

a solution before then, so for now it's a case of Arriva

buying some existing Here is another surprise about the

rail industry. Train operating companies like Arriva Trains do not

actually own their own trains, they lease them from just three private

rolling stock companies that control virtually the entire supply for the

country. So why do Arriva Trains not simply release more trains? Well,

here it seems there is a problem. There are no trains to lease, no

diesel locomotives that fit our roots and our fleet and maintenance,

that we can go out there in get. They do not exist.

It's hard for commuters to believe there are no spare trains.

For Rhiannon and her partner, it means the commute home especially

It is two carriages again. And it is full.

We now have to wait until 6:43pm here, the next train, if that is on

time, so we now have been nearly 45 minutes late.

It's true that the three big rolling stock companies don't

Tony Miles says there are smaller companies with rolling stock that

They've been able to make some of those available to railway

They used to use them from North Wales to the north of England.

They're very expensive to use but they're there and they'd happily

hire them if somebody came up with a contract.

And were on charter this Christmas in Newport.

They used to run up and down the Rhymney Valley

So could they run up and down the same routes again?

The Customer Services Director for Arriva is Lynne Milligan.

We have specific requirements for trains here.

Locomotive and coaches are useful on Rhymney Valley here but they're

not best kind of train for this network at all.

But as a short-term measure, in recent months, couldn't you just

We've already put into North Wales a locomotive and coaches

Arriva Train Wales is now supervised by the Welsh Government.

I'm meeting the minister in charge, who is critical of the 2003

contract that predicted zero passenger growth.

So can they help Arriva conjure up the much-needed stock?

But the problem would be even worse if the Welsh Government did exactly

what you said we should have done five years ago and looked

at where additional capacity was needed and as consequence spent

an additional ?25 million a year on the franchise which otherwise

We're not responsible, we're not obligated to spend that money.

We're doing that because the problem been so pressing.

There are days where the Wales rail service is really

Good afternoon and welcome to the Arriva Trains briefing...

Bethan Jelfs has the difficult task tonight

Ticket sales are just over 71,000 so this is going to be our busiest

Major events have caused problems in the past.

But lessons have been learned and Arriva say

These events take a year of planning, so as soon

as we have dates available, we start planning.

Every single train that we have is in operation.

I know people think we've done nothing but, yes, we do hire in.

But not all passengers have had a good journey to town.

And there must have been 1,000 people.

We have had word the game is about to finish so we need to put things

into operation. to manage the wave of passengers

all desperate to get home. 100 Newport over to

platform one, please. Ultimately it's 40,000 people

catching train for an event. We're seeing these figures more

and more regularly so we have to have some crowd-management

measures in place. How long have you had to queue? Not

too long, to be fair. 20 minutes. Cardiff Station wasn't built

to manage events of this size so we use every inch of the station

to move people around. We've heavily invested in having

extra people at events. The weather is not very good so we

have foil blankets and sweets. The interaction with customers is really

key. You've got to take it as it comes. There's lots of people. There

is no flow! It's static! Compared to last year this is far better, people

coming out of town, but something needs to be done, I think. We won!

Who cares? They're probably not enjoying it

greatly but we try and get the message to them that it's

for their own safety. An army of volunteers and trains

begged and borrowed ensure things But could they find carriages

on a more regular basis? I've come to these to these

sidings across the border, where we're told there

are some hidden treasures. I feel like a bit of

a train-spotter, because I'm at Long Marston in the Cotswolds,

where rolling stock I'm actually trying to spot

some Mark 3 carriages. But the reason I'm here

is that we understand that there are around 18 carriages

belonging to Arriva Trains Wales that are now owned by their German

parent company, Deutsche Bahn. So the question is why

are they sitting here getting rusty when they could be helping

passengers deal with overcrowding? I couldn't pick them

out from my location. But we know in the past,

Arriva have refurbished some of these carriages

for routes in Wales. If you travel in the morning

from Chester into Manchester, or Manchester out of Llandudno

in the afternoon, you may travel And they also own the train that

does the one special So they do own some trains

and they've got a few So if Arriva own them and have used

them before, why not now? We have the best of those trains

that have been refurbished and they're running around

at the moment on our network. I'm told there are carriages

there that could be used The trains that are left

in that field are not They're not in a good enough place

to be a quick enough solution, so we're looking at other solutions

that are currently being explored. But Tony Miles believes there could

be life left in those carriages. They could, if they had the money,

get them out of the sidings So when Arriva say there's no

rolling stock out there, It's not strictly true to say

there's no rolling stock out there. It's probably true to say

unless somebody finds money to pay for it,

it can't use the rolling What Arriva wants is more

of the small commuter So why didn't Arriva secure them

when they were available? We've been trying to secure rolling

stock and it hasn't come to us. So we're currently in

discussions with the Welsh The options are complex but they may

well provide a short-term solution. Back on the daily commute,

Rhiannon's homeward Her train was cancelled

and she's stuck at Treforest. I'm now having to wait

for my other half to pick me up Luckily he's got a day off,

otherwise I'd be stuck There's not an actual statement

but probably signalling issues. Over half the problems experienced

by passengers are not because of the trains,

but because of the track. That's Network Rail's

responsibility, as well as cleaning Over Christmas, they caused major

disruption at Cardiff Central. But in his new signalling control

room, Route Manager Director Andy Thomas believes the changes

will deliver benefits. To put this into context, the

signalling system in Cardiff, 300 million, this was the biggest system

commissioned ever for the UK to date. A signalling system is

designed to increase the number of trains that go through Cardiff, from

12 trains per hour to 16, and that resilience is important because it

allows us, when things do go wrong, to recover really, really quickly,

so we minimise the impact on passengers.

But as Cardiff moves into the 21st century,

its main station is decades out of date.

It's just one example of what some say is an under-investment

Unfortunately, the amount being spent on the network

in Wales has only been 1% of the overall provision.

That's despite having 6% of the railway lines.

It's been met with resistance from the UK Government consistently

but we've been equally consistent in our demand for a fair

share of network funding and for devolution of responsibility

so we can invest where it's necessary.

The UK Transport Secretary, Chris Grayling, declined

His department highlighted their recent investments

But they say the provision and funding of the rail franchise

in Wales is the responsibility of the Welsh Government.

Back with Matt, and he's just arrived in Cardiff as scheduled,

Most trains run as planned but he says there's enough

uncertainty to cause him some anxiety.

All I want is a consistent service, with consistent carriages,

that does the job, that gets you in and out of Cardiff

Luckily I work for a company that's very understanding that I travel

by train so it can take a bit longer.

But certainly in the past you're supposed to be sat down

in your desk at a specific time, and if your train is a bit

delayed, they encourage you to catch an earlier train.

But on our line, with just one train an hour, it's not really possible.

Arriva Trains Wales have been regarded as one of the UK's

They've hit their performance targets and last year they made

That's double the margin that similar regional franchises

So could they have used more of their profits to help

We operate about 20% more than is contractual to us,

so we've really made a commitment to this business.

We've invested well over ?30 million in a whole series

And this year alone, we're going to invest

a further ?2.5 million, despite fact that in 18 months' time

Arriva Trains Wales is one of the most heavily subsidised

What does the Welsh Government think about their investment levels?

It's galling that we spend ?25 million a year on additional

services above and beyond the franchise agreement.

But isn't the point whether Arriva Trains Wales has

a responsibility to invest more of its profits in the services it

runs because it receives such a generous subsidy

It's fair to say Arriva Trains Wales should invest in a quality service

wherever and whenever a passenger expects.

More than it has done in recent years?

I think it stands to reason they should be investing more

in the service and I constantly raise with Arriva the need

He said it is galling to have to spend given this heavy subsidy that

goes to Arriva. Government subsidy made up 55% of the subsidy and it

now makes up 40% of that income because that subsidy declined every

year. And the nature of the franchise protect the government

from variations in cost. Today's Passenger Satisfaction

figures show Arriva's But happiness with their

trains has declined. Every day, Arriva say

they're doing their best. I'd love to be able to say,

"Here's more trains, give everybody a seat

on those services." But we just don't have it,

so for us, the challenge is how do we make the best

of the service we've got? In 18 months' time,

there will be a new franchise. Whoever's successful,

getting the contract right But how to solve the

current overcrowding? Well, that seems to have descended

into a blame game with the commuters So for now, those like Matt

and Rhiannon are left to adjust their lives

to fit the trains. The boss said, "Look,

you need to adjust your travel plans I now get the 7:23,

so I arrive 8:15. So I'm about 45 minutes

early for work. I'm not sure. Obviously they promise

every year the service will improve and more investment has been done on

the network and things like that. I've been using this service

for six years and haven't At the moment it's

a roll of the dice.