Thanks for the comments I was flying a kite a bit with the jungle drum version that's come out of ATW.
For 120 years a passenger or someone else could walk down the ramp or come off station road on the village side by the signal box and get in-between the closed gates track side (1891 being the box opening date) up until 1987 there was a passing loop there as well. Having grown up in the village, done work experience in the box and visited it regular I can never recall any incident.
13 Mk Ones and a pair of 37's were regular stoppers at the village until early 90's. Summer 85 was the gricer invasion as about 50 gricers spilled off a westbound loco hauled and waited 20 mins (if on time) for the next eastbound loco hauled- first summer after end of 25's - 37/0's short of work due to miners strike. Must have been urban dwellers as one Saturday they decided to have football match in nearby field as trains were chronically late- only trouble it had just been muck spread. Guard refused them onboard as they were "health hazard" - left village on DMU after going down river to wash clothes!
A lot of Cambrian platforms were short - Newtown, DOWN side at Machynlleth.
Footfall was 47000 in 2010/2011 on 8 trains a day, 6 on Sunday an average of about 9 per train.
Despite all the spin from ATW/WG Rail Unit et al, there remains, no extra capacity or extra services on the Cambrian. Its now beyond a joke.
This is what Mike Bagshaw Director of ATW told the Welsh Affairs Select Committee last Monday. This quote is lifted from Parliament Web Site.
Mike Bagshaw: All of those extra seats have been allocated to trains that were previously crowded. We looked at some of the most crowded trains on our network, we did an extensive review of our train plan, and we allocated trains accordingly. For example, on some of the most crowded trains on the Cambrian route from Aberystwyth, we have been able to put on additional carriages over the summer period.
One wonders his he aware of what we know when he spins Parliament. I am sure SARPA have made the Committee aware the extra coaches are not attached.