IRVINE’S MP has vented his anger about train disruptions in his constituency.

Central Ayrshire politician Brian Donohoe has this week lashed out at Network Rail over continual signal failures on the Ayr-Glasgow railway line.

Mr Donohoe claims he has been approached by constituents who are fed-up that cancellations and delays have caused them to lose days at work or miss rail and air connections.

The Labour MP raised the signalling issue – which appears to originate in Kilwinning – with Network Rail as the national body responsible for rail infrastructure.

Speaking this week, Mr Donohoe said: “It is imperative that rail passengers have a service they can rely on, whether these people are workers going to the office, students going to university or shoppers going for a day out in the city.

“We constantly encourage travellers to leave the car behind and use the public transport system which is all well and good if it works – and works properly.

“When things go wrong commuters are often left in the dark for long periods. They are given little notice about problems with the network and the arrangements for continuing their journey by other means.

“Late trains and cancellations can have a detrimental effect on a person’s work record.

“This is a long-standing concern that never seems to be resolved.

“I will be asking Network Rail to provide accurate figures of all delays and cancellations due to signal failures in the last two years, together with an account of what has happened on each occasion. I will also be asking how they have managed the transport of passengers when a failure has occurred.

“I need to be confident that they have proposals in place to limit the number of times that commuters find themselves in this situation.” However, a spokesperson for Network Rail said the majority of the cancellations and delays affected the Largs and Ardrossan services rather than those to Ayr.

They said: “The January storms had an immediate impact on the services we could provide by making it dangerous to run trains as the conditions can damage our infrastructure. Overhead power lines, signalling equipment and other kit can be damaged by the conditions – either weakened by winds or affected by water – causing faults to develop and services to be delayed in the immediate aftermath of the storms.

“On Sundays, between January 18 and February 15, services were also withdrawn so that pre-planned engineering works could take place to renew sections of track on the Ayrshire lines. These works had been planned for some time and were not linked to the weather.

“We have also had several incidents where signalling equipment has failed in and around the Kilwinning junction area. On each occasion engineers have responded as quickly as possible to identify and rectify the fault. Signalling refers to a range of different equipment on the railway – from signal lights, to power cables, to pieces of rail (points) that move trains from one track to another – so it is not a case of the same piece of equipment failing at Kilwinning, but rather isolated incidents involving different types of equipment.

“We are committed to providing as punctual and reliable a service as we can across Scotland’s railway – where nine out of 10 trains run to time – and we review all faults and failures to see how our performance can be improved.”