Note the bold I have added to the quote above and then see...

Has somebody looked at the ScotRail photograph and confused 153s with 156s? The configuration of the ScotRail class 153s has a large part of the vehicle dedicated to bicycle storage (so very few seats are provided) and, if I understand correctly, toilets which are not wheelchair-friendly. A fleet made up entirely of ScotRail-specification class 153s would therefore be unworkable for passenger services - you would probably have insufficient seating capacity and you would not meet PRM^▸ (Persons with Reduced Mobility) regulations unless you locked the toilets out of use and provided a toilet-less service.

(PRM = Persons of Reduced Mobility)

Highways in Wales are, I believe, the responsibility of the Welsh Government. However, from a quick look at the article, I see that the Rhondda Tunnel is disused rail infrastructure so belongs to Highways England (AKA^▸ (also known as) National Highways) despite being in Wales. What a bizarre suituation; things would probably make more sense if the British Rail Board (Residuary) hadn't been abolished.

Smeg. My idea doesn't work by those rules.

Currently* there are two 'fast' trains in the 'standard hour' between Cardiff and Swansea calling at Bridgend, Port Talbot Parkway and Neath. One of these is the the hourly GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) Paddington service, the other a TfW service to/from Manchester.

Eastbound, the two services appear to provide a nice, neat, half-hourly pattern. As a result running a second GWR service would potentially just be duplicating the existing TfW. Westbound however, the TfW service could be following just six minutes behind the GWR, with a 54 minute gap before the next train on a section of route with 2tph.

I believe the timings of the TfW service are constrained in Manchester and by needing to cross the West Coast Main Line on the flat at Crewe. So, I thought the thing to do would be to keep the eastbound timetable but cut the current westbound GWR Swansea trains back to Cardiff and extend the current Cardiff terminaters through to Swansea in their place. Problem being you then only have around 20 minutes to turnaround in Swansea, less than the required 25.

* well, pre-COVID

Short term isn't there a shortage of IETs due to the cracks issue and longer-term perhaps the super fasts will be wanted again (although by then, one hopes, maybe there will be wires to Oxford and Bristol allowing a new fleet of EMUs^▸ (Electric Multiple Unit) to be built to cover that requirement)?

As for your left-field suggestion, the TfW Manchester-Swansea service should in my view be a Regional Express serving 15 stations (Manchester Piccadilly, Stockport, Wilmslow, Crewe, Shrewsbury, Ludlow, Leominster, Hereford, Abergavenny, Newport, Cardiff Central, Bridgend, Port Talbot Parkway, Neath and Swansea). You propose an IET service serving 13 (or 15 if Miskin and Brackla are openned) in south Wales alone (Newport, Cardiff Central, Pencoed, Llanharran, Pontyclun, Pyle, Port Talbot Parkway, Baglan, Briton Ferry, Neath, Skewen, Llansamlet, Swansea). It's an interesting point to raise, but KeolisAmey (who by the way I think were completely wrong in this regard) saw fit to order a suburban train, optimised for short dwell times with wide doors, lots of standing room, few toilets etc. for the former while your suggestion would see an Intercity train performing the local stopper duties.

Sorry, I don't think my knowledge is sufficient to provide a helpful answer (although when did Bristol to Cardiff/Southampton lose the 158s? you might be able to spin that as loss of facilities if you count interior doors to keep draughts out of the passenger saloon as a facility). However, "key flows in the Severnside area" sounds alot like "key flows within the Severnside area" which may or may not change the meaning of the question. Within Severnside you might want to add Severn Beach, consider the Portsmouth services only as far as Bath or Westbury, the Birmingham services as far as Cheltenham/Gloucester and lose the Paddington services from the discussion?

No connection with "wholesale rail closures" specifically, but "compulsory voter identification" is predicted by some organisations to effectively disenfranchise fewer Conservative Party voters than voters who favour other parties. Not everyone holds an acceptable form of ID, for example I don't have a driving license and for a good few years my Passport was invalid (it had expired and I hadn't had sufficient reason to renew it). If those people who have ID are those more inclined to vote Conservative...

Thus, the introduction of compulsory voter identification would increase the likelyhood of the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) Government being able to "get away with" controversial actions in general.

Isn't that what Network Rail have done with the TDNS^▸ (Traction Decarbonisation Network Strategy)? As I said, I've not read it cover-to-cover but the point of it seems to be an analysis of decarbonisation methods (electrification, battery and hydrogen) to determine which is optimal for each route.
 
I agree, and it would appear (with some scope for argument over what constitutes a 'main line') that Network Rail does too as the TDNS has electrification as the solution for the vast majority of the network.

I think there might be a bit of that at play in the TDNS; I cannot think why they would be proposing to electrify the Fishguard branch otherwise, unless this was a rather high-level analysis and everything west of Carmarthen was considered as a whole.

The peice in Modern Railways casts doubt on that too (note that W-SP refers to the Williams-Shap Plan):

It then refers to the next item, which includes the following (PSCs are Passenger Service Contracts):
Bold added by me. Towards the end of that item, the author writes "I wonder what other heavyweight duties it " (a PSC) "will acquire as reality sets in?"

But 'vegetation' in general is not a problem is it? Trees, specifically, are as they are tall which means they could block the line if they fall and there may also be more 'leverage' in play in high winds which could make them more likely to fall over. The only thing you'd want to use weedkiller on is invasive species like Japanese Knotweed. My view is that any trees far enough away that they can't fall on the line should be left alone, but I can see a case for felling trees that could fall on the line. Once the risky trees are gone, allow brambles, hedging plants etc. to grow back on the linesides and keep and eye out for anything growing too tall and cut it back or root it out to ensure it can't fall on the line. Removing tall trees near the line but allowing short hedges eliminates the risk of falling trees and may reduce leaves on the line (falling from a lower height means they have less time airborne to reach the track) while still providing a (different) wildlife habitat, unlike bare soil or short, frequently mowed, grass. Unlike a tree, which could destablise earthworks if it falls, a hedge might also help secure earthworks but I'm no expert.

Not just Barrow Haven, the two 'Fishguard' stations have lost both their morning and evening 'commuter hour' services to COVID. I'm sure they aren't the only other stations to have lost their commuter-time services.


On the Fishguard branch, I've been told that the full pre-COVID service will be restored in the May 2022 timetable, but I've since been told that even then it will be six trains per day (back in 2011 it was increased from 2 to 7 trains per day, so there's still a cut although I think the overnight 'train', latterly advertised as a replacement bus I think, was probably useless and may have gone before COVID). In fact, it doesn't look like there will be any AM services at Fishguard at all until well into 2022, between 23:00 and noon the next day there is currently nothing, although the evening commuter service looks like it's being restored in the Dec 2021 timetable change the morning remains empty.

You go on to use election results as evidence to support your point. I would suggest that stronger evidence for your argument is that the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) Government have cut Air Passenger Duty, don't appear to be following Wales in looking into cancelling major road building projects and haven't given a clear signal that they are going to implement Network Rail's recommendations on rail decarbonisation (the TDNS^▸ (Traction Decarbonisation Network Strategy)). The Climate Emergency is clearly not all that close to the top of the UK Government's agenda.

"What western developed country could possibly get away with wholesale rail closures"? I would answer that question 'None of them', but I think you asked the wrong question. Now, if you asked "What Government could possibly get away with wholesale rail closures"? then, electorally speaking, the current UK Government might very well get away with it, especially if they manage to bring in measures such as compulsory voter ID.

The Network Rail plan is called the Traction Decarbonisation Network Strategy (TDNS^▸ (Traction Decarbonisation Network Strategy)) and can be found here (9 page summary version) or, if you have a few spare hours, here (full 257 page version). In fact, this is the TDNS 'Interim Programme Business Case', I'm not sure when we can expect the final version, which I think I read somewhere is supposed to include a suggested sequence for the programme.

The TDNS might contain calls for research into batteries, hydrogen, or things not yet invented (I don't know, I haven't read it through, not even the short version) but I doubt it largely consists of such calls based on the parts I have read which make very clear that lots and lots of new OHLE is recommended. For example, in the case of the Cotswolds line, the prefered option is electrification for the entire route (although the last bit from Worcester to Hereford is considered to be only marginally in favour of electrification).

Even if the Government accepts these recommendations, which they may not have done, there is a big problem in terms of when you implement it. The report strongly advises against ordering any new diesel-only trains, but diesel fleets already in-existance or on-order before it was published have a life expectancy stretching beyond 2050 and are potentially in sufficient numbers to run ALL the services Network Rail see as suitable for battery and hydrogen trains combined.

My bold - really? Short-term franchises will I understand become short-term concessions, but reading the latest 'Modern Railways' there is a suggestion that the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) will still be responsible for train procurement. I doubt I'll be surprised if the new Passenger Service Contracts turn out to be very similar to the pre-COVID Franchise Contracts in terms of who does what, save for the fact that GBR^▸ (Great British Railways) will take the revenue risk (and perhaps specify livery).

Being devolved nations doesn't seem to have helped Wales and Scotland much is this regard. Holyhead, Swansea and Edinburgh will in a few years all have Hitachi class 80x units running their INTERCITY services to London, just as Cornwall does (albeit that Holyhead's will I believe have Transcal rather than Fainsa seats fitted).

Unlike steam and locos, I don't think that last dogma has actually been introduced by the rail industry. While we have seen standardisation across LNER^» (London North Eastern Railway - about) and GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) with the Intercity Express Programme (IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.)), the same doesn't seem to apply elsewhere. I'm not sure whether the class 196 and 197 Civity DMUs^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) are inter-operable and have certainly read that they are NOT inter-operable with class 195 DMUs despite the class 197 design appearing very similar to the class 195s except for the addition of unit-end gangways on the 197s. I'm not sure if the Hitachi class 385s at ScotRail are inter-operable with anything else either.

Mostly https://tickets.gwr.com/gw/en/journeyplanning/mixingdeck and https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/detailed/ with occasional use of other sites. In the increasingly rare event I actually make a booking GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) is probably the main one though I'm more likely to use other websites for booking (eg. if the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) has an offer/feature on their own site such as being able to select a specific seat to reserve) than for just looking up train times.

While the general point is valid, the specific example is not; services cannot be increased to Aberystwyth, regardless of capacity east of Wolverhampton, because of long single track sections, shortage of rolling stock and possibly lack of train crew.

Also, I'm not sure how many (if any) services between Wolverhampton and Birmingham are likely to transfer to HS2 - in many cases it seems it would be useful to keep the current Pendolino/Voyager services just with more calls at stations like Milton Keynes added. I hope some capacity is freed up along that stretch though and used to allow the current indirect slow Birmingham-Holyhead services to be split into Birmingham-Wrexham/Chester and faster Birmingham-Stafford-Crewe-Chester N.Wales services.


I thought that, as well as reinstating the MML^» (Midland Main Line. - about) electrification, the Integrated Rail Plan also stated an intent to electrify between Stalybridge and Huddersfield.