Gareth Marston
Established Member
Absolutely - I think there's a strong case for an hourly stopper from Hereford to Crewe (and have posted that here before).
That way, Ludlow and Leominster would be served by this stopper and a few additional stops in the express services; Craven Arms and Church Stretton by this stopper and the occasional HOWL.
I'm not particularly familiar with the line south of Hereford (I've used it to Abergavenny a few times, but not regularly) so won't pronounce on what you do south of there, but if a stopper were to run there then absolutely, it would make sense to combine the two.
Abergavenny and Ludlow are quite prosperous areas that generate a lot of revenue rich long distance traffic. Abergavenny is on the outer fringe of the Cardiff and Bristol Travel to Work area as well. Ludlow sees a large number of schoolchildren commute to the Private Blue Coat school in Hereford - were talking serious £ per term. Leominster is more skewed toward commuting into Hereford for the Bluecoat school and also the FE college. However it has to be born in mind that the paucity of direct trains to London from Hereford mean that a lot of London traffic from the Marches goes via Newport hence why having a Regional Express stop at Ludlow and Leominster is important for London connections.
Abergavenny should be the outer terminus for Metro services to Cardiff. South of it lies the depressed UA of Torfaen despite having a large new town Cwmbran (pop c45k) and purpose built dual carriageways linking it to the M4. Cwmbran station has a lower footfall than Abergavenny but with 3 trains per 2 hours has the poorest service of any similar size town linked to Cardiff of a similar distance (18 miles). Pontypool & New Inn is proof that Beeching's rail heading assumptions were wrong - it was the junction for the cross Valleys line to Neath but despite Pontypool and a depressed valley up to Abersychan being a few miles away hardly anyone uses it. Caerleon has about 9K population and needs to have its station reopened its only 14 miles from Cardiff.