South Wales 'Metro' updates

Envoy said:

Yes, it is ridiculous that nothing is being done at Chepstow for 5 years - especially in view of the massive traffic jams that the town is now having to endure. They should nab that wasteland now in order to make a station car parking area - which might attract more people to switch to rail. The good news is that the TfW Class 170’s are now coming into service on the stoppers between Cheltenham & Cardiff/ Maesteg. The bad news is that anyone wishing to change trains at Severn Tunnel Junction to/from the Chepstow/Lydney route does not have a good match with services going through the Severn Tunnel.

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The land between the station and the river is to have 450 houses built there by Barratt, the Mabey Bridge project
The former industrial site closed in 2015.

codfish said:

The land between the station and the river is to have 450 houses built there by Barratt, the Mabey Bridge project
The former industrial site closed in 2015.

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So, they would rather flog off land for housing that do what would be for the greater good by making part of the area a P&R car park to stop people driving further afield - such as to Cardiff.

Envoy said:

So, they would rather flog off land for housing that do what would be for the greater good by making part of the area a P&R car park to stop people driving further afield - such as to Cardiff.

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Not clear who 'they' is. Are you suggesting that this is another St Athan-esque Network Rail land sale?

Dr Hoo said:

Not clear who 'they' is. Are you suggesting that this is another St Athan-esque Network Rail land sale?

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No, as far as I know this was former industrial land next to the river & did not belong to Network Rail. ’They’ must be the local authority planning department along with the democratically elected councillors who are too blind to see that provision should have been made for parking near the rail station. Furthermore, those planning the south Wales Metro & the Welsh Government should also shoulder some responsibility for not identifying with local authorities land that is near to stations that could be used for car parking. They clearly did not do this at St. Athan and possibly Caerleon and goodness knows where else? Many of the commuters passing through Chepstow come from outlying estates and villages where the only viable way to reach the station is by car. Clearly, Chepstow station has a lack of car parking space. Therefore, commuters won’t use it and will simply be driving further to places of employment such as Newport & Cardiff or up to Gloucester.

I thought that Mark Drakeford had recently had some committee trying to figure out how to reduce traffic on the M4 at Newport as they did not want to build a new M4 to the south. All this committee could come up with is to increase the length of the 50mph limits on the M4 - giving it ‘B’ road like speeds which will make the tailbacks - & hence pollution, even worse. Perhaps they should have looked at parking provision at stations in order to induce commuters to use the trains!

This has just popped up on Media Wales regarding the problems at Chepstow with traffic:>https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/chepstow-traffic-jams-roads-congestion-17566158

As a result what should be a short 20-minute journey becomes a hair-tearingly frustrating snarl-up of an hour or more as, once past the pinchpoint that is the mid-town Tesco traffic lights, drivers then face a long steep crawl up the busy drag that is Hardwick Hill.

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Envoy said:

All this committee could come up with is to increase the length of the 50mph limits on the M4 - giving it ‘B’ road like speeds

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Worse than that! The national speed limit on single-carriageway B roads is 60mph!

So many missed opportunities with the Metro project -

Towns that could have been reconnected by the tram-trains or new spurs (Abertillery, Machen, Creigiau, North of Pontyclun (Talbot Green, Beddau, Church Village etc)
New stations on existing lines (Magor, Hirwaun, Nelson, Bedlinog, Trelewis).
Extra car parking for locals to P&R into the cities (Chepstow, Severn Tunnel Junction).

To name a few.

At least the AM's will get their photo-op with 100m of street-running in Cardiff Bay.

Cardiff is clearly facing a crises as the roads are jammed and the local rail system is still pretty much as it was in Arriva days. Looks like Network Rail have still not handed over the core valley lines to Transport for Wales and it appears that the only real work that has been done is the demolition & land clearance for the Taff’s Well depot. I understand that equipment & workforce that did the electrification of the GWR mainline from London to Cardiff are now being laid off - even though Oxford & Bristol / Bath have still to be done. It would surely be a good idea if TfW / Keolis/Amey were to get these people now before they wander off to other things? Of course, it would have been ideal of they could have continued the electrification through to Swansea - which would also have allowed the local stoppers to go electric in addition to the GWR 800’s. It would be a great shame if TfW are now placing orders for new diesel trains when electrics or hybrids would have been chosen if they knew NOW that Cardiff to Swansea was going to be wired.

This appeared on the BBC website on 12 January 2020:>
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-51040075

Thousands of workers are moving to developments such as Central Square.

But with the South Wales Metro still years away from becoming a reality, the Centre for Cities said other short-term transport solutions are needed.

It has called for a congestion charge in Cardiff, with money ploughed into better and cheaper bus services.

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Cardiff Council have released their White Paper for Transport over the next ten years. They claim they will deliver a Radyr to Cardiff Bay via the City Line and Callaghan Square service in 2024.

Would be interesting to know if KeolisAmey are onboard with this considering the council has put a date on it. One would assume new tram platforms instead of 6&7 Could end up with 300+ meters of tram tracks.

https://www.cardiff.gov.uk/ENG/resi...lans/transport-white-paper/Pages/default.aspx

Few other bits include a potential circa £2 congestion charge for non residents and the previously released Cardiff Crossrail, Circle and BRT lines.

I have just had a quick look at the Cardiff Council Document on the future of transport in the city. Very pleased to see the steps being taken to address the transport/pollution issues. However, it is disappointing to read that they don’t envisage the City Line being a complete circuit until as late as 2028. Neither do they see a new station opening at Victoria Park until 2028 - despite the line already being in place and the fact that the recently built Ely Mill development is compounding road congestion in the area. (Through traffic can’t go through the development but the planners seem to think it is OK to force the new residents onto the present road network - such as Lansdowne Road & Cowbridge Road).

I thought that under the original Metro plans that the trains from the Taff Valley & tributaries would no longer go down to the coast but but go down the present line to Central and then use the City Line via Fairwater to get back to Radyr and up to the valleys - looping through Cardiff in either direction. These new maps do not seem to show that - presumably meaning that the trains from the Taff Valley (& tributaries) would converge on Central where they would terminate before going back to the valleys via Llandaff North. Surely that would not work?

I am also concerned about how the tram-trains on the new line from Cregiau would use the so called Crossrail route to get off the present network into Callaghan Square & down to the Bay and onto Splott via Pier Head Street. With the present segregated system, trains can normally run to the minute. If we are going to have tram-trains running on the streets of south Cardiff for a relatively short distance compared to the network, surely they could get stuck in traffic and therefore screw up the whole network schedules? Would it not be simply better to have electric buses running from Central down to the Bay following the route of the present number 6? It would be a darn sight cheaper. So, concerns about what happens in Cardiff affecting the whole network and the ones who would suffer the most are probably those in the upper valleys where the frequencies will be less. It is really an advantage to stop the through services from Merthyr, Aberdare and Treherbert down to Barry and Rhoose in order that a through service can operate from Cregiau to Splott via Central & the Bay?

Although on the border of Cardiff with the Vale of Glamorgan. it is regrettable that no mention is made of creating some kind of walkway between Cogan station and the Pont-Y-Werin footbridge. (This would provide a viable relatively short walk from Cogan station to the Whit Water Centre, Swimming Pool & Ice Rink - at little cost & be a quick win). At present, anybody trying to get from the trains to the footbridge must take their life in their hands & cross the main road by the mini roundabout.

I can’t see the £2 congestion charge being much of a deterrent to car usage. Presumably they have pitched in at that figure so as not to cause an outburst of hate against the Council? Presumably it will be like the 5p bag tax - and we now all know what happened to that!

The £2 charge won't be a deterrent, the charge needs to be at least £5 to make any difference. I suspect it's only £2 because there are council elections in 2022. As with any measures designed to directly tackle traffic congestion and pollution, the politicians are afraid of the voters.

Plus Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan really need to be one single council area, as it was under the old South Glamorgan county council before the 1996 re-organisation. It makes no sense for both local authorities to be making transport and planning decisions in isolation.

£2 charge being not a lot means it is more likely to happen without being heavily opposed.
You can always raise it later...

Envoy said:

So, they would rather flog off land for housing that do what would be for the greater good by making part of the area a P&R car park to stop people driving further afield - such as to Cardiff.

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Well, we are told at regular intervals how desperately short of housing we are. So, housing for 1,000+ people vs a car park.....

Cardiff123 said:

Plus Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan really need to be one single council area, as it was under the old South Glamorgan county council before the 1996 re-organisation. It makes no sense for both local authorities to be making transport and planning decisions in isolation.

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I rather like the idea of all those Penarth people, who've insisted for decades that the place isn't a part of Cardiff, being charged to cross the Ely. There's some poetic justice involved.

I suspect it will never happen though. The plans have to be approved by the Welsh Government. With Plaid already describing the charge as the 'Valleys Tax' and Assembly elections next year I think the idea is dead on arrival.

Tomos y Tanc said:

I rather like the idea of all those Penarth people, who've insisted for decades that the place isn't a part of Cardiff, being charged to cross the Ely. There's some poetic justice involved.

I suspect it will never happen though. The plans have to be approved by the Welsh Government. With Plaid already describing the charge as the 'Valleys Tax' and Assembly elections next year I think the idea is dead on arrival.

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Where have Plaid called it a 'Valleys tax'? That's just pathetic.

Robertj21a said:

Well, we are told at regular intervals how desperately short of housing we are. So, housing for 1,000+ people vs a car park.....

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and land adjacent to a station is particularly valuable, so ‘the railway’ or local authorities may not have been able to afford to buy it at market rates. Development around stations means people don’t have to drive there, at least in theory. Unfortunately not everyone using the station wants to move to the adjacent housing and not everyone in the adjacent housing wants to use the station.

Post from LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/andr...ortforwales-activity-6625075487242764288-SS17

Andromeda Engineering said:

Andromeda have commenced work alongside Amey Consultancy on behalf of Trafnidiaeth Cymru – Gwasanaethau Trên / Transport for Wales Rail Services. This new contract will see us deliver detailed design (Stage E) for overhead line equipment on the Pontypridd to Aberdare line as part of the South Wales Metro transformation programme. We’re delighted to have started this exciting new project in Wales. Our engineers were out surveying the route over the weekend.

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Well they do need to get a move on, there's only about 2.5 years to get all the infrastructure work done on the lines via Pontypridd or TfW lose the EU funding element (which we are getting, despite Brexit, before anyone asks)

It was announced about 1 year ago that a station at Ely Mill/Victoria Park - on The City Line - was going to be fast tracked. Last week, a report from Cardiff City Council said that this station would not now be built until 2028. Does anybody know the reason for this as obviously the line is already in place? Is it because they might have to raise the City Line in order to clear the main line in the event that Cardiff to Swansea is electrified? (They surely can’t lower the main line as it is on the flood plain of the River Ely). Would they be able to insulate the underside of the City Line bridge in the same way that they did the valleys lines bridge just east of Cardiff Central? I also understand that a developer wants to put flats on the site just west of the present postal depot - which is just north of the main line. (Goodness knows why anybody would want to live in such a terrible place with a busy road & 2 railway lines out the back)? It has been suggested that parking for the postal vans currently on the site would have to move to vacant land east of the footbridge over the main line - opposite Lloyds Bank. I thought that a new modern footbridge - with space of overhead wires - was going to replace the old one over the main line. Looks like that has gone belly up as well. So, we have increased population with new development on the site of the former Ely Paper Mill yet no sign of a rail station on the City Line to help reduce traffic congestion. Indeed, the new road through the development will not take through traffic - thus imposing traffic generated by the new residents onto Lansdowne Road.

The location I am talking about is here:>https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.4834178,-3.2239511,262m/data=!3m1!1e3!5m1!1e1

Latest issue of RAIL magazine is reporting that the Core Valley Lines handover date from NR to TfW will now be 31st March.

Interesting tweet, with a map apparently showing (in blue) the updated plans for electrified track:

https://twitter.com/foxy_michael/status/1225127604526686209

Electrification extended from ystrad mynach to Bargoed now

The full image.

Now that is pretty interesting! From my pov on the Rhondda line, extending the main double track section from Porth to Dinas (and looking like putting back the 2nd platform there too), extending the double track section at Ystrad Rhondda a bit more towards Ton Pentre, double tracking Treherbert to just between Ynyswen and Treorchy (and putting a 2nd platform at Treherbert and Ynyswen), adding toilets at Tonypandy and Treherbert, the electrification totally skipping Queen Street and Central stations, double tracking the Cardiff Bay branch, along with other stuff. Seems like an awful lot to do, so I do worry about the amount of disruption!

Looking at the map, TfW seem to be keen to avoid any work interfacing with major structures e.g. Caerphilly Tunnel, Cardiff University Students' Union (built over the line just south of Cathays), the viaduct on the approach to Merthyr Tydfil, the retaining wall near the A4058 on the approach to Pontypridd, the bus interchange at Bargoed (built over the line just south of the station) and the myriad viaducts on the line north of there...

Although why Taff's Well isn't due to be electrified when the depot is due to be right next door is a mystery to me!

To add to the map above, section 3.2.2. of the CVL (Core Valley Lines) network statement states the following:

Core Valley Lines Network Statement said:

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This explains further why Cardiff Queen Street, Cardiff Central & Ninian Park aren't shown as being electrified on the map; after the CVL asset transfer, NR will still own those routes, plus the lines to Penarth, Barry Island and the VoG.

59CosG95 said:

To add to the map above, section 3.2.2. of the CVL (Core Valley Lines) network statement states the following:

This explains further why Cardiff Queen Street, Cardiff Central & Ninian Park aren't shown as being electrified on the map; after the CVL asset transfer, NR will still own those routes, plus the lines to Penarth, Barry Island and the VoG.

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The boundary with NR is at Intersection Bridge where the Central - Queen St line crosses over the mainline, so Queen St and the Cardiff Bay branch are definitely wholly within the area being transferred. It may be that Queen St station electrification is being omitted because:
1. it is possible within the battery range constraints of the vehicles and
2. to avoid the complexity of wiring through the junctions

MarkyT said:

The boundary with NR is at Intersection Bridge where the Central - Queen St line crosses over the mainline, so Queen St and the Cardiff Bay branch are definitely wholly within the area being transferred. It may be that Queen St station electrification is being omitted because:
1. it is possible within the battery range constraints of the vehicles and
2. to avoid the complexity of wiring through the junctions

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I can definitely see why the Cardiff Bay branch isn't being wired - the metro vehicles are using 25kV, and that would be pretty dangerous to use at street level (with the whole 9ft touch potential). And as it stands, the junctions around Queen Street are mind-bendingly complex, and would probably require a solution similar to that used at Crewe (3 wires over 1 track, for instance).

Longer-term, however, I think the best thing for Queen Street would be to replace the existing bridge over the A4161 with a 4-track equivalent to separate Merthyr & Rhymney traffic north of the station.

59CosG95 said:

I can definitely see why the Cardiff Bay branch isn't being wired - the metro vehicles are using 25kV, and that would be pretty dangerous to use at street level (with the whole 9ft touch potential). And as it stands, the junctions around Queen Street are mind-bendingly complex, and would probably require a solution similar to that used at Crewe (3 wires over 1 track, for instance).

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So? If that's the best answer then just do it! I'm sure the engineers could find a way.
If it's too complex to be worth doing then maybe it's a good reason to separate out some of the tracks to give a low-voltage DC tram side to the station and transfer some lines, but that (street running) is the only reason I would happily surrender heavy rail lines. Manchester has gone too far in my opinion, driven mainly by a short-sighted need to avoid renewing heavy-rail infrastructure.

AndrewE said:

So? If that's the best answer then just do it! I'm sure the engineers could find a way.
If it's too complex to be worth doing then maybe it's a good reason to separate out some of the tracks to give a low-voltage DC tram side to the station and transfer some lines, but that (street running) is the only reason I would happily surrender heavy rail lines. Manchester has gone too far in my opinion, driven mainly by a short-sighted need to avoid renewing heavy-rail infrastructure.

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The engineers (traction and civil) could undoubtedly offer a solution, but the politicians hold the purse strings and get the final say.

Dai Corner said:

The engineers (traction and civil) could undoubtedly offer a solution, but the politicians hold the purse strings and get the final say.

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Indeed, which brings me back to my point in post #2904 - I believe that TfW (or more likely the Treasury in the Senedd), thinking with the coffers in mind, are keen to avoid expensive civils works where they can be avoided. The cynic in me thinks that this might come to haunt TfW later, if a tram-train loses all battery power on an unelectrified section...

I'm sure that, as legacy structures reach the end of their lives (e.g. the footbridge at Penrhiwceiber), they'll be replaced with structures with better electrical clearance, thus removing the need for Permanently Earthed Sections.