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Swansea District line
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edwin_m
Veteran Member
Something like this has been suggested in the past, but rejected on the grounds that it leaves very little service between Swansea and Llanelli - just the Pembroke Dock every two hours and the HOWLs.
Also if this was likely I don't think all that money would have been spent re-doubling the section that would mostly be bypassed.
Also if this was likely I don't think all that money would have been spent re-doubling the section that would mostly be bypassed.
I think you are wearing your enthusiasts glasses.
The standing passengers from Neath on some off peak Arriva trains would suggest otherwise.I can't get this to load. It says 'not available'. Any other way to it perhaps?
swcovas
Member
swcovas
Member
Perfectly
Good! It's interesting reading though it is 8 years old now.
Luckily I discovered that by going to Youtube and just searching on 'Swansea district line' the video by Rhydgaled came up (he uses the same name there). Hope that helps.
Incidentally we seem to have a duplicate thread here???
Were you refering to my post, just above yours? If so, was I really that unclear?
My proposal is:
Through express trains from the west to Cardiff provided as express services (with class 158s) over the SDL
AND
2tph class 156s from the west to Swansea (where all would terminate).
That's more trains between Carmarthen/Llanelli and Swansea than now, but not as many as the old SWWITCH rail study proposed (which was 3tph between Carmarthen and Swansea).
Link should now be fixed on this thread. I dug up two threads on the SDL (this and one other) and posted the link on both, I'll go and see if it needs fixing there too. Perhaps the two topics should be merged.
merlodlliw
Established Member
Excellent video, the opening scenes remind me of the Llangollen Railway and the river Dee at Berwyn station/
Bob
PHILIPE
Veteran Member
I'm a little baffled here. There are now two threads running on the same topic. Perhaps a Moderator could merge.
edwin_m
Veteran Member
Your previous post didn't mention that you were proposing extra trains rather than just re-routeing the existing ones.
The topics appear to have been merged, so what was my 'previous post' is now at the bottom of page two. I didn't explicity state I was proposing extra trains, but did say:
Not the openning shots (the first shots, featuring Nunny Castle and a class 47, are at Fishguard) but Berwyn station is indeed featured. I believe I explained my use of shots from the Llangollen in the video's description.
Unfortunately, whichever way you cut it, extra services over the District must come at the expense of trains for Swansea. There simply isn't enough space further up the line. Four tracks east of Port Talbot should do it, but I don't see anyone paying for that any time soon.
swcovas
Member
Great video!
Forum members should note that with the Royal Welsh Show in Builth there is the rare opportunity to travel by "service train" on the north curve of Hendy Jn from the SDL on to the Central Wales Line. This year the show is from the 22nd to 25th of July and ATW have confirmed they are running the special train from Cardiff as in previous years. At the moment timetabled dept from Cardiff is at 0741. In previous years my experience is that the stock on the special is a pair of 150s though other services during Royal Welsh week on the line throw up various combinations of 153s and 150s.
Run more of the frieght traffic at night? There's a diversionary route from Bridgend to Cardiff so one of those could still be closed for overnight engineering works while frieght uses the other.
I've read on here in the past that headways between Cardiff and Swansea are four minutes. 15x4 = 60 so that's 15tph in theroy! Of course different services run at different speeds, so you wouldn't get that, but surely it's possible to squease the following in, especially with EMUs cutting journey times on the eastbound services from Swansea:
- 1tph Swansea - London (semi-fast)
- 1tph Swansea - Bristol (semi-fast plus Pyle)
- 1tph Swansea - Ebbw Vale (all stations)
- 1tph Carmarthen - SDL - Cardiff/Portsmouth (Fast)
Yes, I'm sure the residents of Pontlliw, Cwmrhydyceirw and Ynysforgan would appreciate that.
The difference between theory and practice is that in theory there isn't one.
What? You mean you're going to waste the time gains by adding more stops?
... and for some bizarre reason putting the fast service on the station with fewer passengers?
So, you're up to 4 tph, but you've downgraded the Swansea-London services, and for some reason put in a fast service from Carmarthen to Portsmouth. Let's ignore the issues of diagramming, and that you're potentially introducing a lot of interchanges. So, now you've got fast trains mingling with slow trains. Your fast train from Carmarthen is going to catch up to your all-stations slow train, so while it was 20 minutes behind at BF it'll be 4 minutes behind by Pontyclun. When does freight get to run? The increased frequency we're going to see on the Vale is going to cause a problem diverting it that way. Bit of signalling work and there's plenty of room west of Swansea, but since the line by-passes it you need extra paths to the east as well.
The extra train to Carmarthen would be a waste of a path. You'd have two paths to the east of Swansea and two to the west in order to provide one through train. Under the current arrangement, and with the prospective split when the wires come, you can do the same with one path each side, or go for two paths and two trains, goodness knows Swansea and Neath need more capacity, and more trains at the Swanline stations can't be a bad thing. There are certainly more passengers to and from Swansea in either direction than there are passengers travelling straight through, which makes the waste of a path even worse.
Yeah, no. Portion working isn't really a good idea here. You don't want to go having trains depend on joining up if you don't have to. There's a reason it's not as prevalent on the Southern as it used to be.
It seems that your idea is more focused on having trains on the District for the sake of it, rather than the bigger picture. The main reason it doesn't have more passenger trains at the moment is that it simply doesn't make sense to run them that way.
Gareth Marston
Established Member
Whilst terminating dmu west Wales services at Swansea is the obvious operational solution after wiring the political angle will see demand for through trains to Cardiff.
It's how this is managed is the question, the current Welsh Government undoubtedly wants to spend £ billions on the M4 but does not have the resources to do so nor will Westminster cough up or give Wales borrowing powers it seems. Therefore it's competing transport corridor the South Wales main line looks like it will be massively upgraded without any significant "improvements" taking place on the m4. A strategy needs to be in place before 2018 for west Wales passengers. It's right to have the debate about SDL future, something unless someone knows different appears to be absent. The DfT have suggested it needs to upgraded to allow IEP to run over it as Diversionary route, if we're spending to do that then it seems crackers not to run regular passenger trains over it.
It's how this is managed is the question, the current Welsh Government undoubtedly wants to spend £ billions on the M4 but does not have the resources to do so nor will Westminster cough up or give Wales borrowing powers it seems. Therefore it's competing transport corridor the South Wales main line looks like it will be massively upgraded without any significant "improvements" taking place on the m4. A strategy needs to be in place before 2018 for west Wales passengers. It's right to have the debate about SDL future, something unless someone knows different appears to be absent. The DfT have suggested it needs to upgraded to allow IEP to run over it as Diversionary route, if we're spending to do that then it seems crackers not to run regular passenger trains over it.
Sorry, I should have defined what I meant by 'semi-fast'. In the case of Swansea - Cardiff, I consider the current calling pattern for London trains (Swansea, Neath, Port Talbot, Bridgend, Cardiff) to be semi-fast, so the London trains would have the exact same calling pattern (at least west of Cardiff) as at present.
The cheif object of using the district line for services from Carmarthen to Cardiff is to try and make rail competitive with road by partly compensating for the current geographic disadvantage. If you don't make it as fast as possible you may as well run all trains from S.W.Wales into Swansea and terminate them there, forgeting through trains further east entirely.
My proposed calling pattern for the SDL fast service would be Carmarthen, Llanelli, Port Talbot Parkway and Cardiff, plus either Bridgend or a new SDL station.
Hence why one of the 4tph I suggested is an all stations Swansea - Ebbw Vale service, giving Swanline stations an increase from 2-hourly to hourly service.
There is more demand for travel from north Pembrokeshire to Cardiff and England than from north Pembrokeshire to Swansea, and this trend probably extends to more of S.W.Wales than just North Pembs. My proposed SDL fast service is an attempt to capture this market, the M4 is presently much faster than the tedious journey via Swansea.
Maybe not, but you were just saying there aren't enough paths. If there are enough paths you don't need the portion working, if paths are limited why not use portion working to provide through trains that you otherwise couldn't? Do you think the Swanline service should be Swansea - Port Talbot only?
It makes less sense to run through trains at Swansea High Street. The geographical disadvantage makes it uncompetitive and the low population of S.W.Wales probably contributes to the rather short trains on the Manchester - Swansea route (if that is to continue after electrification it should be at least four coaches, at almost all times). The other problem of course is lack of rolling stock. The bigger picture is that there is demand from S.W.Wales to points west of Swansea, particularly Cardiff and electrification is coming.
I would hope that Network Rail and Welsh Government would not to allow petty local politics to interfere with the sound investment of vast sums of public money. Direct services to Cardiff by-passing 200,000+ people doesn't seem like a sensible strategy for developing the economy in the west.
They'd have to rebuild it for that. Physically it's well-suited to long, fast trains, but the flows aren't in the right direction to justify it.
It is not meerly politics, demand in the west is higher for travel to Cardiff than to Swansea.
I forgot to mention before, but you know what Arriva Buses Wales did when they decided to have a shot at running what used to be the TrawsCambria Aberystwyth - Cardiff X40 service commertially? They bypassed Swansea, that's what, and the number 20 service is timetabled at just 1hr 24mins for Carmarthen - Cardiff, with a stop at Bridgend. By rail via Swansea it's 1hr 40mins (my SDL fast service should be able to do it in under 1hr 25mins if it can be pathed, and that's without improving linespeeds on the SDL).
Arriva cut the through Aberystwyth - Swansea back to just Fridays and Sundays during university term time only, and apparently even this will stop on 28 July.
You might be alone in that assessment.
Right, good point. In fact, why not just drop all the stops altogether? I'm sure you'd get Fishguard to Cardiff in under two hours if you took out pesky stops in Whitland and Llanelli, not to mention the time saved from not reversing at Carmarthen. After all, we need to make it as fast as possible :roll:
Right, but you're going to have to choose between that and your fast service, because you won't fit them in.
Source? How does this compare to the demand further along the line? How does it compare to the demand east of Swansea that will be compromised by the extra services?
You have a problem. You think to yourself "I know, we could try portion working". You now have two problems.
Not out here in the real world it doesn't. If there were enough demand there to make it worth diverting capacity away from the main line (which is what you'd be doing - oh, yes it is), we'd be doing it already. Quite simply it's not possible to run the extra services without compromising the service elsewhere. There are moves to go to 2tph to Maesteg, and there are hopes for more trains to Swansea when the wires arrive. You could probably just about make both of those things happen, and between them they will address a larger demand than a fast train to Fishguard that doesn't stop at Swansea.
You seem to have hit upon a solution in search of a problem.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
No, it is just politics. They already have trains to Cardiff. They go all the way to Manchester, don't you know.
I suspect that had more to do with the plentiful links between Carmarthen and Swansea than some lack of demand for travel to Swansea.
The Bridgend stop is at the Designer outlet adjacent to Junction 36 of the M4 2.5 miles outside the town centre. Bus services into town are available.
Your assertion is at odds with my experience when visiting Swansea when the numbers making an onward connection are less than a quarter of those going through the barriers. This does exclude Carmarthen Bay/Kiln Park (Other holiday accommodation is available) changeover days.
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anthony263
Established Member
Not actually a bad idea if the Coryton branch got extended to Radyr with some new stations and an increase in the frequency of services.
With the proposed Cardiff Metro idea's which I have my doubts since I think there are issue's pathing trams between freight services on the relief lines (heavy rail units would be easy to path).
Uk railways magazine had an article which looked at the future of the Wales and Borders franchise which did have a mention of the line to Milford Haven being wired which may not exactly be a bad thing since it would allow through trains between west wales and Cardiff without needing extra paths east of Swansea.
As for the SDL the best I can see is something like the Gospel Oak - Barking line with a regular shuttle service operating between Llanelli and Port Talbot Parkway connecting with the frequent mainline services at either end of the route as well as serving existing area's of Trostre, Morriston as well as the new developments at Felindre, Tircoed and Coed-Darcy
The current island platform at Port Talbot Parkway is wide enough to have a bay platform installed at the western end perhaps this option could be looked at or platforms installed on the loops at Port Talbot Parkway when the station is rebuilt
You will need to define the west in order for me to be convinced that this is true.
Yes, a lot of people use the train to get from England to places like Tenby, but these are not time sensitive journeys in most cases.
A sI have said before, a journey by rail from Carmarthen station to Cardiff Bay could be made more competitive with road, time wise.
However, most people do not want to travel from the railway station, they want to travel from their home to a final destination that is most likely not near a railway station. Ar epeople who want to arrive as soon a spossible really going to drive to Whitlan/Carmarthen/wherever, park the car, wait for the train, and then travel on to their destination by taxi or bus at the other end? It all sounds rather unlikely to me.
Add to that the fact that speed is becoming less important, particularly as the time spent sitting on a train is more productive time than sitting a car ( especially if you are driving it), as you cannot read, answer emails or have a snack and a drink like you can on the train.
I am afraid that in my opinion ther eis little necessity in spending money to reduce rail journey times between Carmarthen (and points west) and Cardiff.
That said, there is a good case for through trains to Cardiff and beyond via Swansea as now, as this will serve both markets. I'm not sure how that can be achieved without running diesels under the wires.
I suppose dual-power units could do it, but then we're back to same problem as four-tracking west of Cardiff - where's the money coming from? Part of the economic case for the electrification in Wales is that it can take advantage of stock cascades from the LSE network - chains topped by 319s off TL and Turbos off the GW locals (hopefully resulting in the Pacers being scrapped - hopefully).
A key piece of information we don't have is the perceived value in that part of the world of a direct train, or that of a seat. That is to say how long people are willing to wait for a train they don't have to get off, or how long they're willing to wait for a train they can get a seat on. I figure these values are lower than somewhere like London, given the lower service frequency and the rarity of trains being full west of Llanelli, let alone standing.
Why not? Because we could capture more passegers, from Carmarthen, Whitland and Llanelli, if the train calls at those stops. It is the same idea as the orriganal Gerald (aka WAG Express) picking up along the north Wales coast then running fast to Newport/Cardiff.
Four trains per hour out of a theoretical capcity of 15tph and you still don't think it will all fit?
Initial source are these 2004 survey results from the north Pembrokeshire Transport Forum regarding Fishguard services. Interestingly, as many passengers wanted to go to Bristol as Carmarthen and demand for Cardiff is marginally more than demand for Carmarthen and Swansea put together.
More recently, the forum ran a questionaire on use of the new Fishguard services, results from which were published in their December 2012 news briefing, with the relevant information reading:
Interestingly this puts Carmarthen on a level with Swansea.
Two problems? Why? If portion working is a problem, you still only have one problem assuming it solves the first, which I believe it probably would.
Yes I know, and there isn't much point in it in my opinion. If it is done purely for operational conveniance and a Manchester - Swansea service would still be only 2/3 coaches if it didn't run through to S.W.Wales then fair enough but going from Carmarthen to Manchester via Cardiff is hugely indirect, as is going from Carmarthen to Cardiff via Swansea. As a through service goes it's pointless, any time-sensitive passengers are already lost so they might as well run connecting services instead.
As far as the evidence above is concerned, that statement applies to north Pembrokeshire. However, I surmise that the same would be true of other Pembrokeshire branches, since I suspect all three are largely beyond commuting distance of Swansea.
Arriva cutting Swansea from the Aberystwyth service however suggests the trend might extend even more widely. There is no evidence I am aware of to prove this either way however.
Maybe. In which case maybe that goes to show that Arriva felt the links between Carmarthen and Cardiff were lacking, whereas links to Swansea were not.
Sounds unlikely maybe, but if modal shift from cars to public transport is the aim it is something that needs to be solved. There are pepole who drive to Port Talbot Parkway to cut their journey time, can't we get them to drive a shorter distance (or, better yet, get a bus) to Whitland or Carmarthen? Examples here, here (a comment near the bottom) and maybe even a former MP for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (though I don't know where he drove to Port Talbot from).
Getting a seat as actually another important factor here. While you probably wouldn't fill more than two or three coaches west of Swansea, a train of that length is not enough between Cardiff and Swansea. Having nearly all through trains from S.W. Wales to Cardiff avoid Swansea means passengers for S.W.Wales have a better chance of getting a seat on the train out of Cardiff, rather than finding it full of passengers for Bridgend, Neath and Swansea (it'd still have Port Talbot passengers on it though, as it'd need to call at Port Talbot to pick up passengers from Bridgend wanting to go to S.W.Wales).
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