THE National Assembly is utterly committed to opening the railway track between Newport and Ebbw Vale, says the senior civil servant in charge of transport.

Last week the Argus launched our Back on Track campaign to reinstate the passenger rail link between Newport and Ebbw Vale in 2005 - the year the line between Cardiff and the Valleys town is due to reopen.

We have already secured the support of Assembly Members, MPs, councillors and members of the public from across Gwent.

Now Robin Shaw, the Assembly's director of transport, has spoken exclusively to the Argus.

He said: "The Assembly is very, very keen to see this service run into Newport, and we will do all we can to see that it does."

But he said the Assembly was unable to do much.

He said: "The line is owned by Railtrack, or now Network Rail, and so the Assembly actually has very little role in maintaining or improving services."

Mr Shaw revealed that transport minister Sue Essex planned to seek primary legislation from the Westminster government in order to give rail powers to the Assembly.

He said: "She would be seeking powers of direction over the Strategic Rail Authority.

"At the moment we can ask, we can cajole, or we can talk to the SRA and Railtrack, but we can't order them to do anything."

Ironically the National Assembly has no powers to instruct Railtrack to carry out any work in Wales but can actually work on the lines themselves.

Mr Shaw said: "Our expertise here is in roads; however, if we needed to we could turn that expertise to the rail system.

"We would have to come to an agreement with Railtrack to work on their lines, but it is quite possible to do and it is something we haven't ruled out yet."

Blaenau Gwent AM Peter Law said: "I think if Mr Shaw and his team took over direction of the job they could do a brilliant job getting it up and running."

Neither First Minister Rhodri Morgan nor Sue Essex were able to speak to the Argus on the issue.