Welsh valley lines rail electrification row is settled

[whole diary]

[chrisr_75]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

A deal has been struck to electrify railway lines in the south Wales valleys after a row between the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) and Welsh governments over who should pay.

The UK government will fund the upgrade of the Swansea-London mainline by 2018 at a cost of ^850m, and will put ^125m towards electrifying the Valley lines.

Reduced costs and increased revenues are expected to cover the rest of the project's predicted ^463m cost.

Full article:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-30128378

[anthony215]

I think many of us are thinking about bloody time this little argument was sorted out.

Still good new though

[John R]

Yes, very good news. It'll be interesting to see what timescales are now put on this.  With resignalling already in progress, and the wires due into Cardiff by 2017, I would have thought it is realistic to have at least some of the lines electrified by the end of the decade. This project will release a lot of rolling stock so its timing is significant for the dmu cascade plans.

As an aside, I've been slightly surprised that the resignalling wasn't used as an opportunity to upgrade the passing loop in the Rhondda to a dynamic one (as on the Merthyr and Ebbw branches) . I would have thought the reduction in journey times by not having to have a precise passing point and improved reliability would have made it an attractive idea, although I accept these things don't come cheap and there is a long list of infrastructure improvements in South Wales that needs to be prioritised.