Cardiff Bay Station branch

[whole diary]

[jamestheredengine]

Big changes being consulted on for the valley lines next summer.

All aberdare and merthyr services will loop clockwise or anticlockwise around the city centre via Radyr- Cathays -Central -Ninian Park-radyr and back up the valleys.

In addition all services from Rhymney  and Bargoed will run to Barry Island and Bridgend via VOG.

The Penarth branch will be served by a 2tph from Coryton abd a 2tph service to Caerphilly.

This gives 6tph between Cardiff and Caerphilly compared to 4tph now.

Cardiff  Bay line gets 4tph to queen Street  shuttle as well as a 2tph service to Pontypridd.  So Cathays to pontypridd still gets 6tph. Cardiff to pontypridd will increase from 5-6,tph to 8tph.

The cityline gains a Sunday service too so now only the Coryton branch has no trains on sundays

https://tfw.wales/sites/default/files/2023-12/TfW%20Rail%209th%20SA%20%28June%2024%29%20Form%20P.pdf

This is a silly service pattern. Cathays is Wales's 6th busiest station and the busiest station on the entire suburban network north of Queen Street. Cathays is overwhelmingly a south-facing station – the suburban network should be called the Vale of Glamorgan Lines. Very few Cathays passengers want Cardiff Bay. In general, they want Central, interchanges at Central, or stations Cogan to Llantwit Major/Barry Island. If we're messing with the Bay shuttle, it should go to Caerphilly/Coryton as the less busy branches.

[johnneyw]

A day out in Cardiff today took me eventually to Cardiff Bay.  Here's a photo taken from the station shelter showing work coming on for the second platform and line.
This compares to an up thread photo posted in mid December from the same spot.  A lot of the additional platform is already built and the foundations for the rest are being completed.
The intermediate new station on the way to Queen Street is looking even closer to completion.

[grahame]

This is a silly service pattern. Cathays is Wales's 6th busiest station and the busiest station on the entire suburban network north of Queen Street. Cathays is overwhelmingly a south-facing station – the suburban network should be called the Vale of Glamorgan Lines. Very few Cathays passengers want Cardiff Bay. In general, they want Central, interchanges at Central, or stations Cogan to Llantwit Major/Barry Island. If we're messing with the Bay shuttle, it should go to Caerphilly/Coryton as the less busy branches.

It's going to be hard to please everyone, especially when you have different train types coming on the electric and none-electric bits. Looking at Cathays as we were doing a couple of days back - http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/flows.html?stn=3820 - one of the dramatic things there's is how much the pattern has changed in the last five years.  And I would ask how much is the pattern effected by the routes offered - if there were (for impractical example)  Cathays to Bargoed direct services, would that flow come up the rankings too? 

[Hafren]

I think a lot of the pattern changes come down to the way train-trams are to be deployed. Perhaps joining the dots between the following:

• Cardiff Bay extension will be the first 'tram' destination.
• The train-tram depot is in Taffs Well. (Placed here for land availability or political reasons, and service pattern following from this, or located based on service pattern decision...?)
• RCT valleys the most likely (or at least vaguely possible) next 'tram' mode extensions? (Hirwain, Rhondda Fawr etc?)
• The eventual proposed plan (or at least one of them) would have 6tph to CDF^» (Cardiff - next trains) and 6tph to CBD from the RCT axis - so the CDB trains are all extras compared to existing pattern. (Again cause or effect? Already decided to run train-trams from CDB that way so extra services needed, or running to CDB because of desire for extra trains? Worth noting more trains needed in total because train-tram shorter than Sprinter.)