I am talking about a seperate brand name (sorry should have made that clearer in my earlier post) especially since it did prove popular when the Valley lines were a seperate brand in the past. This will include the Maesteg & Ebbw Vale services as well.
One problem with a ValleyLines brand for me is that I wouldn't stop at that. I'd lump together most (if not all) all-stations services in south-east Wales (and into England):
- Cardiff Valleys
- Ebbw Vale & Maesteg
- Vale Of Glamorgan Lines
- Swansea valleys (new services on frieght lines, Aberdare - Neath - Swansea / Swansea - Amanford etc.)
- Swansea - Cardiff and Cardiff - Cheltenham stoppers
- Cardiff - Abergavenny/Hereford local services (new services, if they can be pathed)
Big difference is that ScotRail don't operate any services wholly within England (and there are virtually no services by "English" TOCs wholly within Scotland, apart from a couple of placing journeys to get Craigentinny based stock to Aberdeen).
The existance of England-only services in the franchise can be fixed, if we ignore rolling stock constraints anyway. Crewe - Shrewsbury could become part of the HOWL service, or a new service between Cardiff and Crewe could be introduced to take over that route. Shrewsbury - Woverhampton is Sundays only anyway, give LM the job since they do it during the week anyhow. That leaves Crewe-Chester, which I think should be combined into the Llandudno service, with the Manchesters going to Holyhead instead of Llandudno.
compare the obsession with Holyhead - Cardiff with the stagnation in service provision from Chester to Manchester.
Chester to Manchester I don't think is as badly off as Shrewsbury/Swansea/Cardiff to Manchester. While I think the Llandudno/Chester to Manchester services are nearly all 175/1 (3-car), the south Wales - Manchesters have several 175/0 (2-car) diagrams. Friday 8th March's 15:30 Manchester departure (to Pembroke Dock) was full, and standing (not just in the vestubles) when we reached Shrewsbury (can't remember at what point it got that bad, but judging by the number waiting to board the suituation wasn't looking like getting any better for a while).
Come on ATW, get together some rakes of those mrk2s you have tucked away, hire some 37s to stick on each end (ATW's mrk2s are through-wired for top&tail 37 multiple working I believe) and get them on some Manchesters, hopefully ensuring all Manchesters are either LHCS or 3-car 175s.
If "Trenau Cymru"* becomes a ScotRail-type for Wales, then there will be many a unit freed up from Northern Wales for the rest of England, and that'll be good news for Northern Rail.
Why would Wales taking over the franchise release stock? The Welsh franchise needs more 158s (and some 156s), not less. Also, I think Rheilffordd Cymru (assuming it is pronounced Railforrreth) has a better ring to it than Trenau Cymru.
On a much less bitter note the livery and name for the new operator would be interesting. two I think are most possible to be chosen are Trenau Cymru (Welsh Trains) and Rheilffyrdd Cymru (Welsh Railways) and for the livery I could see an updated Valley Lines one being used. Although the 67 + Carriages would look good in a livery of black and gold if we use the colours of the St David cross
Certainly for local services, a livery based on the ValleyLines one would be good. To save repainting though, the 158s and Gerald could just have the lighter semi-circles that give away Arriva's involvment vyinaled over to match the dark teal of the rest of the set.
I've attached a number of photoshoped images illustratrating ideas for liveries (the base images, in most cases, are lifted from wikipedia rather than taken my be, but I did the photoshoping)
Manchester-Shrewsbury and Manchester-Chester are neglected
In what way is Manchester-Chester neglected? As I said above, they seem to use 3-car 175s for most Llandudno - Manchesters. Admittedly, even a 3-car 175 is probably insufficent, but not as bad as 2-car 175s on the Manchester - Swansea section. There's not much more ATW could do is there? Only their mrk2s and perhaps a 150 or two are spare, and you'd probably only get two 5-car diagrams (with a third 5-car rake spare) out of the mrk2 fleet, which would help and should be done but there's not alot else they could do I think. I do wonder whether the Chester - Cardiff portion of Holyhead - Cardiff services ever need more than a 2-car 175 though, so if you seperated that from the Chester - Holyhead leg they might be able to diagram 3-car 175s to the busier sections/services more effectively.
There's hundreds of miles of lines served by ATW trains in England. How would these be catered for under a Welsh controlled franchise? Would, for instance, Manchester to South Wales be worked by CrossCountry or London Midland between Manchester and Hereford with a change of operator there?
Manchester - Swansea could work with either the Wales franchise or CrossCountry in charge I suppose. London Midland is an all-suburban franchise at the moment, but even if you gave them some regional express stock Manchester - Swansea is a bit out of their area.
In a few years time, once we've had electrification of the Valley Lines and out to Swansea, there's an argument (from an operational perspective) of giving the (mainly electrified) South Wales routes to the Greater Western franchise (plus a handful of DMUs for Swansea - Pembroke/ Fishguard/ Milford/ HOWL) - that would encourage EMUs along the M4 corridor (Swansea to Bristol etc).
You'd then have a diesel TOC running the remainder of Welsh services, or maybe split them into the current Northern/ LM/ XC services. However, the politicians wouldn't like that.
I think making the mainline services in south Wales (and local services west of Swansea) part of the Great Western franchise could be a good idea, geographicly it seems to make sense. I wouldn't include the HOWL though, the Wales (& Borders) franchise can keep that provided a shared depot for class 156 DMUs can be established at Swansea for the use of both operators. Similarly, I think the Wales (& Borders) should keep most of the ValleyLines services. How about giving the Great Western Franchise the following:
- Pembrokeshire/Carmarthen to Swansea (156s, maybe 150s on shuttles between Swansea - Carmarthen and Pembroke Dock/Fishguard - Whitland/Carmarthen if there are any such shuttles)
- Pembrokeshire/Carmarthen to Portsmouth and Cardiff (158s)
- Swansea to London (electric)
- Cardiff to Cheltenham Spa (165s perhaps, but electrification would be better)
There's a multi-million pound consultancy and design fee going for someone able to makle "WB/CG" into a viable logo.....
I've already had a stab myself (see one of the attached images, although my Welsh spelling is no good and needs fixing), they can have the design at no charge if they want provided they stop using 150s (and any other suburban-style units we may get) for long-distance or express services and use 158s or mrk2/mrk3 LHCS instead.
The only change has been Welsh Assembly Government becoming Welsh Government, which necessitated a change of vinyls on the refurbed 158s.
They hadn't actually put the old WAG vinyls on many units when they stopped, leaving a blank space on the side of the units until the new vinyls appeared.
It seems to me from reading many threads on this site about Welsh railways that people are more concerned about cross border services than internal services!
The way the network is laid out since the heavy cuts is primarily extractive. Most lines flow east-west, leading to England, and with the exception of south west Wales the large settlements at the eastern end of these flows (Shrewsbury and Chester) are over the border in England. I'm not sure whether the layout of the rail network has really contributed to the fact the highest demand is for cross-border travel or whether that would be just as much the case if we actually had a rail network that could supply internal Welsh services.
