| Metro Mayor defends Merseyrail performance in cold snap - Jan 2026 Posted by Chris from Nailsea at 12:27, 8th January 2026 |     |
From the BBC:
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Metro mayor Steve Rotheram says lessons have been learned from when snow hit in January 2025
The mayor of the Liverpool city region has defended the performance of the Merseyrail network after icy conditions caused some delays and cancellations earlier this week.
Steve Rotheram said problems lay with the rail infrastructure, rather than the fleet of trains. One rail commuter said repeated cancelled services had turned going to work into "Russian roulette" in the winter months.
Operator Merseyrail said the issues were caused by ice on the tracks, with trains struggling to draw power from the third rail, which is the power source on the ground for the network.
Merseyrail said that despite Network Rail treating all lines with anti-ice solution throughout the night and during the morning's peak period – and implementing a "full range of preventative measures" – trains had struggled to take power in several locations.
On Tuesday, the Ellesmere Port and Chester lines were suspended from Rock Ferry. Services on the Ormskirk line and Hunts Cross line were also suspended during the morning.
One commuter told the BBC that using Merseyrail to travel to work was inconsistent in the winter months.
David Fairclough, who travels every day from Moreton in Wirral to Waterloo in south Sefton, said he liked the new trains and they were a "great investment" but added: "In winter you can't 100% rely on the network".
He said: "If we have a network that is unable to operate efficiently with a little bit of frost on the line then we've got something wrong."
"I don't remember this being as bad with the old trains," he added.
"The new trains are great, fantastic, you can plug your phone in, you can charge them, which is really handy. But we need to sort out the current trains, the current network, ahead of any other grandiose schemes that the metro mayor has."
Speaking on BBC Radio Merseyside's hot seat phone-in, Rotheram said the fleet of £500m trains had performed "really well", although this was not the experience of many of the listeners who rang in.
Rotheram said lessons had been learned from January 2025, when icy conditions caused the rail network to grind to a halt. In April, he commissioned transport expert Vernon Everitt to investigate what had gone wrong.
Rotheram said some infrastructure improvements had been made, but that it was not just the rail company's responsibility. He said: "We're having to foot the cost because we want the improvements for passengers, but this is something that national infrastructure should be paying for."
He added: "The problem that we have, consistently, are issues around infrastructure and that's because previous governments of all persuasions have not invested in the infrastructure, in the tracks and the signals. We've got analogue signals, but digital trains."
Rotheram said lessons would be learned from the events that impacted Tuesday's services and vowed to improve the passenger experience. "From last year, we've improved by more than 50% and we'll get better and better and better because we'll learn".
The Metro Mayor added that he travels by train "every day" and said he was committed to making Merseyrail "the best operating system in the country with targets of 97% for performance".
Metro mayor Steve Rotheram says lessons have been learned from when snow hit in January 2025
The mayor of the Liverpool city region has defended the performance of the Merseyrail network after icy conditions caused some delays and cancellations earlier this week.
Steve Rotheram said problems lay with the rail infrastructure, rather than the fleet of trains. One rail commuter said repeated cancelled services had turned going to work into "Russian roulette" in the winter months.
Operator Merseyrail said the issues were caused by ice on the tracks, with trains struggling to draw power from the third rail, which is the power source on the ground for the network.
Merseyrail said that despite Network Rail treating all lines with anti-ice solution throughout the night and during the morning's peak period – and implementing a "full range of preventative measures" – trains had struggled to take power in several locations.
On Tuesday, the Ellesmere Port and Chester lines were suspended from Rock Ferry. Services on the Ormskirk line and Hunts Cross line were also suspended during the morning.
One commuter told the BBC that using Merseyrail to travel to work was inconsistent in the winter months.
David Fairclough, who travels every day from Moreton in Wirral to Waterloo in south Sefton, said he liked the new trains and they were a "great investment" but added: "In winter you can't 100% rely on the network".
He said: "If we have a network that is unable to operate efficiently with a little bit of frost on the line then we've got something wrong."
"I don't remember this being as bad with the old trains," he added.
"The new trains are great, fantastic, you can plug your phone in, you can charge them, which is really handy. But we need to sort out the current trains, the current network, ahead of any other grandiose schemes that the metro mayor has."
Speaking on BBC Radio Merseyside's hot seat phone-in, Rotheram said the fleet of £500m trains had performed "really well", although this was not the experience of many of the listeners who rang in.
Rotheram said lessons had been learned from January 2025, when icy conditions caused the rail network to grind to a halt. In April, he commissioned transport expert Vernon Everitt to investigate what had gone wrong.
Rotheram said some infrastructure improvements had been made, but that it was not just the rail company's responsibility. He said: "We're having to foot the cost because we want the improvements for passengers, but this is something that national infrastructure should be paying for."
He added: "The problem that we have, consistently, are issues around infrastructure and that's because previous governments of all persuasions have not invested in the infrastructure, in the tracks and the signals. We've got analogue signals, but digital trains."
Rotheram said lessons would be learned from the events that impacted Tuesday's services and vowed to improve the passenger experience. "From last year, we've improved by more than 50% and we'll get better and better and better because we'll learn".
The Metro Mayor added that he travels by train "every day" and said he was committed to making Merseyrail "the best operating system in the country with targets of 97% for performance".
