Great Western Coffee Shop

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/cross-border-train-routes-could-10785491?


"All Change" at Hawarden Bridge, Chester, Shrewsbury, Newport and Knighton?

What that agreement says about rail in general, and cross-border services in particular, is this:

So what that says in effect is "if there are any services that serve mainly English places and passengers but, run into Wales as well, they should be moved into a franchises under DfT." There's nothing about changing services, only responsibility for them.

So it would all come down to how the two governments get on with each other, and whether this promised more formal (and perhaps strengthened) involvement of the Welsh one in defining and letting franchises works. What could go wrong? You don't think that ministerial childishness, or the retreat of civil servants to their own department's remit and no more, could possibly frustrate that noble ambition, do you?

After this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-35418829 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-35418829) "Ministers have been accused of wasting tens of millions of pounds buying Cardiff Airport for around double an initial valuation of ^20m-^30m"

...and this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-35399951 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-35399951) "The first minister has apologised to AMs after a report said taxpayers had lost tens of millions of pounds over the sale of publicly-owned land"

...I personally don't hold much hope in everybodys friend Carwyn and his merry band of Welsh Government gasbags of being capable of securing a better deal for the travelling public in Wales when the franchising system is devolved. Whether that turns out to be any worse than how the DfT currently administer things I don't know, but recent finance/transport cock-ups above don't give me a lot of confidence!

Cutting the Cambrian services off from Birmingham and making passengers change at Shrewsbury would be bonkers, I'm sure there a loads of through passengers who would be inconvienced. Bangor and Rhyl to Birmingham isn't so clear cut, the through service travels via Wrexham and Shrewsbury so it can be quicker to change twice (at Chester and Crewe) to get from north Wales to Birmingham. However, I seem to recall there were major complaints when it was suggested that Wrexham might lose one of the through services to Birmingham to free up a 158 for the Cambrian. For that route, I would suggest a new regular through service from Bangor to Crewe, cutting one change off the direct route, and cutting the current Birmingham-Wrexham-Holyhead service back to just Birmingham-Wrexham or Birmingham-Wrexham-Chester. That would also mean the service between Chester and Bangor/Holyhead isn't reliant on the ERTMS-equipped 158s (the train from Holyhead to Birmingham forms the next service to the ERTMS-only Cambrian, and vice-versa).

That one should be broken up in my view. Between Swansea and Manchester it is very busy and needs longer trains, but if you made them long enough they would be quite empty west of Llanelli if not west of Swansea. Ideally, I would like the Wales&Borders franchise to keep the Swansea-Manchester service, but then I also think they need to make good use of electrification when it finally reaches Swansea, and retain through trains from Carmarthen to Cardiff (via the Swansea District Line, the time taken to go via Swansea makes the current through service pretty pointless in my view). Thus, west of Bridgend would have:

• hourly Swanline stoppers (electric)
• hourly London train (probably bi-mode sardine midgets, unfortunately)
• hourly Cardiff-Carmarthen express (DMU)
• hourly Swansea-Bristol (electric)
• hourly Swansea-Manchester (4-5-carriage diesel train)

Add that to the fact there are plans for Cardiff-Maesteg trains every half hour and the Cardiff-Bridgend stretch would be very full (7tph, of mixed speed, plus freight) such that I'm not sure its feesible to squeese it all in. If I had to drop one, I'm afraid it would have to be the Manchester (because it is the only service that can't make use of the wires other than the Carmarthen express which I consider essential, and because passenger flows are generally either north-south or east-west, so anything with a big kink in it like Swansea-Cardiff(east-west)-Manchester(north-south) is less important for through passengers), so that gets cut back to Cardiff-Manchester which makes it predominately an English service and might fit better with another franchise.

Apart from that, not much scope to transfer workings to English TOCs without making passengers change on seriously important flows or handing nearly everything except the south Wales routes to English TOCs. The only Welsh Government managed services north of Shrewsbury would be the Holyhead-Cardiff trains (which I'd cut to three each way per day, because it is another 'big kink' service (north-south from Cardiff to Chester, then east-west to Holyhead)).

Crewe to Shrewsbury is the obvious one to transfer, probably to LM. If I were to go full crayonista I'd suggest extending it to form a stopping service from Crewe to Hereford, enabling a more regular service at the Marches stations, and conversely speeding up a few of the long-distance Welsh services.

Yep, I suppose that would seem to make some sense. Make it hourly too (with alternate workings calling at all stations, the others at Nantwhich, Whitchurch and perhaps Wem) so that the Manchesters can all run non-stop Shrewsbury-Crewe. The only possible problem is all the bay platforms at Shrewsbury face south, meaning linking the Crewe service with the HOWL one might help with capacity through the station?

How regular do you envisage the marches services being? If the W&B franchise is going to remain largely intact I'd suggest hourly Cardiff-Wrexham-Chester services, serving all the current stations, plus the hourly Manchester (with some calls removed) and an hourly Cardiff/Ebbw Vale - Hereford service to take stops like Cwmbran off the Manchester working and an enhanced HOWL service calling at Craven Arms and Church Stretton.

HOWL = Heart Of Wales Line

Really, the minimum for Leominster-Church Stretton should be an hourly service to each of Hereford and Shrewsbury, supplemented in the peaks as required. At present there are some pretty nasty gaps in the timetable at Craven Arms and Church Stretton, while the skip-stop pattern complicates journeys between the local stations.

Heart of Wales services (obviously!) don't go to Hereford, so are better viewed as a pleasant extra for Craven Arms and Church Stretton rather than part of the core service. The danger of relying on HOWL services to provide key Church Stretton/Craven Arms trains was shown with the recent timetable recast, which has significantly worsened the morning service for these two stations.

So my suggestion of an hourly Cardiff-Wrexham/Chester serving them would do the trick for Church Stretton/Craven Arms then (Ludlow and Leominster are quite a bit bigger than Church Stretton/Craven Arms, and obviously can't be served by HOWL trains, so I might suggest the Manchesters call at those two to give them 2tph).

Good point, but an hourly Cardiff-Wrexham/Chester with HOWL services as 'pleasant extras' seems like a good level of service to me compared to much larger places which get only one train per 2 hours (eg. Haverfordwest and Aberystwyth (still some 2hr gaps despite claims of a hourly service being introduced for the latter recently)).

Variation of the story


Much more to put the comments into context at http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/welsh-rail-services-train-stations-10832810?

From the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-37733120):

Liverpool is presumably to North Wales via the re-instated Halton Curve. I wonder what they have in mind for Bristol? 

There has been a suggestion elsewhere that Swansea to Cardiff electrification is on hold indefinitely, I wonder if that has anything to do with it?

In view of the recent clarification, I've now updated the heading of this topic, for clarity.  CfN.  :)

Liverpool is presumably via the Halton Curve yes, the interesting question is whether that would be Holyhead, Bangor, Llandudno or Wrexham to Liverpool? As for Bristol, I think there has been alot of forum chatter about a Swansea-Bristol EMU service (but then the CDF-SWA wires slipped to CP6, where does this 'on hold indefinitely' come from?).

Thanks, came from a usually reliable poster on WNXX who was suggesting that the IET's would be using their diesel engines between Cardiff and Swansea for a very long time.

There will be uproar West of Cardiff then if that is the case 

As I see it NR are refusing to be pinned down on a date for Swansea because of all the problems they've had with slipped targets and cost overruns meaning whatever date they give is likely to be a bit of a guess until they've had chance to complete or nearly complete other areas of the electrification.  They've said CP6 which could be anywhere from 2019 to 2024.  It's clearly not going to be 2019 as Cardiff is only expected to be finished by December 2018, and I doubt it'll be as late as 2024, so I would imagine 2021/2 is most likely.

The Bi-Mode IET's should be quite happy on diesel engines west of Cardiff for those intervening years and will likely reduce the journey times of the current HST fleet on the section from Swansea to Cardiff, so why will there be uproar?

So Swansea electrification is still supposed to be CP6 then? If so, good, that's much more reassuring than 'postponed indefinately'.

Swansea-Cardiff was promissed infrustructure investment, if that investment is 'cancelled' then I would think uproar is understandable. Plus it isn't only the London trains, no wires means the Swansea-Cardiff stoppers (and possibly Maesteg line services depending on whether Cardiff-Bridgend is counted as part of the ValleyLines project or Cardiff-Swansea) will probably be stuck with 150s rather than getting EMUs (which given the Anglia fleet replacement might be modern Electrostars) as part of the Cardiff metro plans.

Agreed that if it's cancelled altogether it will be.  Though nobody has said it's cancelled.  Peter Hendy of NR has simply stated that the funding for CP6 has yet to be determined and so he can't guarantee it until it is.

Network Rail are currently grappling with the implications of a change in regulations regarding safe clearances on overhead line electrification. This has already substantially increased costs on the Edinburgh to Glasgow scheme.  So I can understand why they don't want to commit to any dates, and indeed the change could have an impact on the whole progress of electrification during CP6.

I doubt there will be uproar. I would have thought the dire need to increase rolling stock in the valleys is a more pressing issue that needs to be addressed.

I can see Network Rails point and I do still think wires would reach Swansea around 2020 ish  as I don't think anybody wants the political fallout if it was cut back to Cardiff.

Operationally I think the electric traction the better as it would make it  a little more easier to path trains especially between Bridgend and Cardiff Central and what with some plans to perhaps  re open the Pontyclun - Beddau line and have a 30 minutely Beddau - Cardiff service in addition to the proposed half hourly Maesteg - Cardiff service. Electric traction would also help services to serve more stations with less time penalties compared to a dmu which is one reason I have heard  why Network rail  have been against Brackla station.

An hourly swanline service as well would be great especially if the Cardiff - Swansea journey time can be reduced from the current 65 minutes to 60 minutes or less. Can sometimes have issues with a delayed swanline from Swansea to Cardff holding up the HST following behind. I have seen the swanline being looped before now to allow the hst to overtake.