Why a 49-mile journey in Wales takes seven hours

[Irascible]

In the interests of a fair comparison how long would a helicopter journey take from Carmarthen to Aberystwyth, 20 minutes may be?.

It's 35nm, and a half decent helicopter can do 110kts or so ( call it 105 for ease of maths ), but it takes a few mins to start one & shut it off.

Also good lord the cost :P

 

[BayPaul]

It's 35nm, and a half decent helicopter can do 110kts or so ( call it 105 for ease of maths ), but it takes a few mins to start one & shut it off.

Also good lord the cost :P

Almost certainly cheaper per passenger than rebuilding the railway.

 

[Cambrian359]

The Cambrian solution in Beeching's day was to close the many minor stations of the main line from Shrewsbury to Aberystwyth and close all the branch lines.
The main line today has some decently fast stretches as a result.

I don’t know what the top speed of Machynlleth to Shrewsbury section is but even after 15 years of using it I’m still surprised at the speed you seem to get up to on it!

 

[Dai Corner]

How much would it cost to build a railway between Aberystwyth and Carmarthen?

More, or less, than £1bn, which is about the amounts being spent on the A465 Heads of the Valleys and on the Cardiff & Valleys railways?

How many journeys would each benefit?

 

[Bald Rick]

I think my point is that the BBC should sometimes air other views rather than starting from a position that Government policy is de facto right.

Yes, fair point.

In particular I suspect it gives poor value to "soft" benefits like "it just being nicer to walk around without cars zooming around or kicking fumes out into your lungs".

The socio ecomomic case certain guves value to these things. Of course, for such benefits the value is subjective and varies for different people. So government takes a standard value based on econometric assessment.

I am not convinced by this comparison.

VAT at 20% and changing from BST to GMT are in primary legislation. Any change would have to be approved by parliament.

Yes, BCR is in HM Treasury Guidance, but Ministers don't have to follow that. A good example of Ministers not following guidance is from just over a year ago, the Truss/Kwarteng so called mini budget, that did not include an OBR forecast.

Is there some clause of some act that stipulates that BCR must be used, that puts it on the same legislative footing as VAT or BST/GMT?

Poor examples on my part I guess. Perhaps a better example would be highway speed limits. Although having checked, whilst the rate of VAT is set in the Value Adde Tax Act 1994, it can actually be varied (within limits) without further legislation. And it has been!

No, the facts are that government policy says that the BCR is the correct measure to use. That does not make it fact that the BCR is the correct measure to use.

I think there is perhaps confusion here about the terminology of ‘correct‘. If you are developing a transport project, and want Governement funding for it, then it is absoltely correct to say that you need to demonstrate a BCR, calaculated using the methodology in Governement guidelines, that is ‘good enough’. That is fact. And, when it comes to decisions on whatbprojects tomproceed with, it doesnt matter what opinions people hold on whether that methodology could be improved or not (until such time thatthe methodology is changed).

‘When the facts change, i change my mind’ said somebody.

 

[A S Leib]

How much would it cost to build a railway between Aberystwyth and Carmarthen?

More, or less, than £1bn, which is about the amounts being spent on the A465 Heads of the Valleys and on the Cardiff & Valleys railways?

How many journeys would each benefit?

The population density of the Scottish Borders is 25 people / km²; for Ceredigion it's 40 and for Carmarthenshire it's 79. The 35 mile railway from Edinburgh to Tweedbank cost ~£350 mn in 2012; ~£480 mn now. I can't tell how long the original railway was but as the crow flies Carmarthen to Aberystwyth's ~40 miles, so my very non-expert guess would be that getting it done for under £600 mn would be overly optimistic.

As for how many journeys each would benefit, the combined population of Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, Swansea and Ceredigion is around 630,000. Rhondda Cynon Taf, Caerphilly, Torfaen, Blaenau Gwent and Merthyr Tydfil have 600,000 between them and I'd guess that rail demand from there's overwhelmingly to / from Cardiff, within the Valleys, or to places most logically reached from Cardiff (Bristol and London).

 

[Matt P]

The main value of the Carmarthen to Aberystwyth line was to serve the rural economy. The line remained open to Pont Llanio until 1970 (just over half way to Aberystwyth) and Lampeter for a few years after that for milk traffic, in the latter case nearly 9 years after passenger services were withdrawn. The area remains very rural. The expenditure on a new railway far outweighs the benefit it would derive. Unless of course the Welsh Government were minded to designate the area a growth area next time they update national planning policy.

 

[Bald Rick]

How much would it cost to build a railway between Aberystwyth and Carmarthen?

More, or less, than £1bn, which is about the amounts being spent on the A465 Heads of the Valleys and on the Cardiff & Valleys railways?

How many journeys would each benefit?

More than £1 bn. The 2018 inital Business case calculated it at £775m (2017 prices), and in my opinion that was rather optimistic for a 90km railway given there were new tunnels and viaducts to build, and lots of residential property required. (Current costs for new railways are at least £30m/km).

The initial busienss case in 2018 forecast annual demand generated trips of between 350-500,000 per year. Personally I think that‘s rather optimistic - that‘s more than use Aberystwyth station now.

The Heads of Valleys road gets that sort of number of journeys in a fortnight (between Hirwaun and Dowlais Top) assuming 1.5 people per vehicle.

 

[BayPaul]

More than £1 bn.

The initial busienss case in 2018 forecast annual demand generated trips of between 350-500,000 per year. Personally I think that‘s rather optimistic - that‘s more than use Aberystwyth station now.

The Heads of Valleys road gets that sort of number of journeys in a fortnight (between Hirwaun and Dowlais Top) assuming 1.5 people per vehicle.

Almost certainly cheaper per passenger than rebuilding the railway.

It's 35nm, and a half decent helicopter can do 110kts or so ( call it 105 for ease of maths ), but it takes a few mins to start one & shut it off.

Also good lord the cost :P

A bit of googling implied that a helicopter can be chartered for around £600 per hour. Assuming we'd want a somewhat larger helicopter, but that there would be savings for a long term contract, you're probably looking at around £12k per day, say £5M per year, for an 18 seat helicopter to run an hourly service. That could carry about half of the lower end of those forecast figures, so lets run a half hourly service for £10M PA

You could run that for 100 years and still have change from the building cost of the railway, before you even start to pay the operating costs.

When its that much cheaper to run a helicopter shuttle you do have to think that a railway may not be the optimal solution!

 

[Doctor Fegg]

When its that much cheaper to run a helicopter shuttle you do have to think that a railway may not be the optimal solution!

You are Rishi Sunak and I claim my five pounds…

 

[BayPaul]

You are Rishi Sunak and I claim my five pounds…

Just wait until he decides to divert HS2 to chequers!

 

[Bald Rick]

Assuming we'd want a somewhat larger helicopter, but that there would be savings for a long term contract, you're probably looking at around £12k per day, say £5M per year, for an 18 seat helicopter to run an hourly service.

Now whilst i have in the past done helicopter comparisons, for this one I think it’s a bit too far fetched

 

[bramling]

More by geography, surely?

And even on that score at least partly because of the Irish traffic, which was once rather more important than today?

Even if Carmarthen-Aberystwyth was still open now, I can’t see it being much more lively than the Central Wales now is, in other words a few 153s per day.

 

[davidknibb]

My Bradshaw from 1938 shows a journey time of about 2hrs30mins. And my old 1930s OS map shows how curvy the line was - following contours where possible. If a new railway followed the old track - then they'd need a diesel Pendolino to get up any speed and significantly reduce the journey time.

 

[Dai Corner]

And even on that score at least partly because of the Irish traffic, which was once rather more important than today?

Even if Carmarthen-Aberystwyth was still open now, I can’t see it being much more lively than the Central Wales now is, in other words a few 153s per day.

And it would probably make the bus even more unviable, meaning the users not within walking distance of a station might lose their service altogether.

There aren't that many transport corridors that justify two separate infrastructures.

 

[Bald Rick]

And it would probably make the bus even more unviable,

Thats a certainty! Spend a huge amount of taxpayers’ cash to build a line that then needs a huge amount of taxpayers cash just to operate it, which results in needing more taxpayers’ cash to subsidise the adjacent bus service that would lose most of its customers but need to remain as the only public transport to most of the locations on the route.

Whatever a ‘win win’ is, this is the complete opposite!

 

[quantinghome]

Has anyone asked the good people of Aberystwyth and Carmarthen what they'd prefer to spend £800m on?

 

[eldomtom2]

I think there is perhaps confusion here about the terminology of ‘correct‘. If you are developing a transport project, and want Governement funding for it, then it is absoltely correct to say that you need to demonstrate a BCR, calaculated using the methodology in Governement guidelines, that is ‘good enough’. That is fact. And, when it comes to decisions on whatbprojects tomproceed with, it doesnt matter what opinions people hold on whether that methodology could be improved or not (until such time thatthe methodology is changed).

This is all technically true, but I'm not sure what sort of point you think you're making here. No one's disputing that BCR is the current method used by government for determining what transit projects to fund.

 

[zwk500]

No one's disputing that BCR is the current method used by government for determining what transit projects to fund.

Which government?

 

[Bald Rick]

Has anyone asked the good people of Aberystwyth and Carmarthen what they'd prefer to spend £800m on?

Of course not! And the most popular answer is not going to be “a railway that doesnt get from Aberystwyth to Camarthen“

Because £800m won’t be enough by a long chalk.

This is all technically true, but I'm not sure what sort of point you think you're making here. No one's disputing that BCR is the current method used by government for determining what transit projects to fund.

as i said before,

That the BCR is the correct measure of assessing these things is fact, as set out in Government policy

 

[DynamicSpirit]

It's 35nm, and a half decent helicopter can do 110kts or so ( call it 105 for ease of maths ), but it takes a few mins to start one & shut it off.

I don't think you'd need either a railway or a helicopter for that distance - an electron microscope would work much better. And be a lot cheaper!

 

[Diedinium]

Would've thought there'd be a bit more enthusiasm for reopening key connections on the rail network on a place like this, from the tone of the posters here I'm starting to think we're actually a petrolhead car forum and not a rail forum after all.

I'm just going to point out that in almost every case of a rural line being reopened in recent history (Okehampton, Scottish borders railway) passenger numbers and revenue have exceeded expectations. It turns out there's a lot of pent up demand from people who would prefer not to drive if given the choice, or people that don't want to sit in the miserable "freedom" of traffic that cars (and indeed buses that get caught in the same traffic) provide.

The network effect of restoring lines can't be ignored either: sure, maybe in isolation the line might not have a good economic outlook - but what about when those passengers go on to travel longer distances on other routes? Or if they can access a much better paying job and are therefore contributing more to the economy. What about sustainability? Road transport is way less environmentally sustainable than rail, and will remain so even with electric cars/buses due to the heavy emissions from manufacturing, tyre pollution and road construction/maintenance (cars are absolutely the best mode of transport when it comes to destroying their own infrastructure). I don't know if people have noticed on this forum, but we are kind of in an environmental emergency and need to seriously think about how we get more people out of cars.

Also, if they rebuilt the rest of the coastal route in the north of Wales as well, I have no doubt it would have heavy leisure travel demand - and would provide an excellent option as a secondary more direct route from North to South Wales.

Anyway, sure, maybe this link in particular wouldn't be the right thing to focus on rebuilding and there are better gains to be had through reopening other routes - but in general we should be reopening a lot more lines that were closed, or opening entirely new ones based on modern demand, both for environmental reasons and for increasing the resilience of the network (more diversion routes etc).

 

[Irascible]

Has anyone asked the good people of Aberystwyth and Carmarthen what they'd prefer to spend £800m on?

Could probably get a few heliports for that... I mean, there's no reason not to stop on the way too, right?

You'd probably get several thousand answers though. I think you'd probably find a little more positivity asking the residents of South Wales if they want to go to the mid-west on the train, but given I doubt they'd be doing it regularily ( or vice-versa ) I can't see that propping the scheme up ( but who knows, maybe? it'd save people coming from the south of the island going to Shrewsbury ). I can't imagine the average speed of a journey from Cardiff to Holyhead via Carmarthen and then Afon Wen-Bangor, I suspect a catamaran from Fishguard would be a better choice there.

I don't think you'd need either a railway or a helicopter for that distance - an electron microscope would work much better. And be a lot cheaper!

:P fortunately nautical miles are outside the imperial/metric debate unless you really want to measure distances in the circumference of very small fractions of radians ( please don't! )

 

[Zontar]

I don't take this at face value. Forget the journey, it does give a grim insight into the rail network of Wales.

This is an example of many routes that the extremely poor network provides.

Look at Blaenau ffestiniog to Porthmadog. 12 miles, but a tfw journey of over 8 hours and at least 3 changes.

Then it talks about the cramped overcrowded trains. A daily reality for most people.

Whilst Cardiff is having money thrown at it and the govt have just increased its budget to tfw by 50% the divide to rural routes is only going to get worse.

They are trying to transform rail services in Wales, but the reality is, only if you live in South Wales.

 

[BayPaul]

I don't take this at face value. Forget the journey, it does give a grim insight into the rail network of Wales.

This is an example of many routes that the extremely poor network provides.

Look at Blaenau ffestiniog to Porthmadog. 12 miles, but a tfw journey of over 8 hours and at least 3 changes.

Then it talks about the cramped overcrowded trains. A daily reality for most people.

Whilst Cardiff is having money thrown at it and the govt have just increased its budget to tfw by 50% the divide to rural routes is only going to get worse.

They are trying to transform rail services in Wales, but the reality is, only if you live in South Wales.

Rail isn't good at dealing with rural routes. You could throw 40 billion at rural routes in Wales and you still wouldn't have a comprehensive and fully modernised network.

Barely anyone wants to travel from BF to Porthmadog, and those that do have a non-TfW railway, or a bus service to use. Heavy rail really isn't the answer here.

Rural routes are getting brand new trains, so you can't really say that nothing is being spent, a much bigger worry for me is that with so much extra cash going to rail that busses will be drained dry, and actual cheap usable and efficient public transport will cease to exist in rural areas.

I'm all for spending money on rail where it is the best tool for the job - new high speed links into Wales, metro systems in big cities, bring it on. But all the focus goes into reversing Beeching and schemes like this that achieve little, and just distract attention.

 

[Zontar]

Rail isn't good at dealing with rural routes. You could throw 40 billion at rural routes in Wales and you still wouldn't have a comprehensive and fully modernised network.

Barely anyone wants to travel from BF to Porthmadog, and those that do have a non-TfW railway, or a bus service to use. Heavy rail really isn't the answer here.

Rural routes are getting brand new trains, so you can't really say that nothing is being spent, a much bigger worry for me is that with so much extra cash going to rail that busses will be drained dry, and actual cheap usable and efficient public transport will cease to exist in rural areas.

I'm all for spending money on rail where it is the best tool for the job - new high speed links into Wales, metro systems in big cities, bring it on. But all the focus goes into reversing Beeching and schemes like this that achieve little, and just distract attention.

I didn't say it was worth billions being thrown at it. I just said it's a dire network, which it is.

 

[Bald Rick]

Road transport is way less environmentally sustainable than rail, and will remain so even with electric cars/buses due to the heavy emissions from manufacturing, tyre pollution and road construction/maintenance

But in this case, the road is already there.

Building 90km of new railway comes at a substantial environmental cost, including in carbon. It might be worth it if there were ongoing, substantial environmental benefits, but in this case there aren‘t - especially when there are electric buses already providing the public transport service between the two. Even if the railway was there, the environmental cost of running a multiple unit (of any flavour) once an hour would be more thsn that if the bus service.

I have not done the calcs, but I suspect that in this case the environmental damage caused by the electric buses over their lifetime is less than building 1% of this route.


I am, and always will be, a railwayman, and have been involved in making the case and building new lines. Railways have a strong case where they serve high volumes of passengers or freight. This example does not, and never will do absent a fundamental change to the structural economic make up of the region.

 

[mike57]

And it would probably make the bus even more unviable, meaning the users not within walking distance of a station might lose their service altogether.

Certainly that is our experience, once our train service went from 90-120min to hourly around 2019 the bus service to our village was decimated, the council massively reduced the support. Down to just two buses per day, from previous 8 (I think). Overall we are better off but I can see that for some areas it would result in a complete loss of service.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Look at Blaenau ffestiniog to Porthmadog. 12 miles, but a tfw journey of over 8 hours and at least 3 changes.

Of course, disregarding the Ffestiniog as it doesn't (any longer) really provide a public transport function, there is a bus service between the two, the 3B, which is approximately hourly but with some gaps. It runs from directly outside the railway station.

If that bus service was in the journey planners then people would see that and perhaps not say "that's ridiculous, well, *** it, we'll take the car". Though admittedly most people who would want to make that journey would be locals who would know about the bus anyway, at least from having seen a bus in Blaenau with Porthmadog on the front.

As I said, Wales's bitty rail network very strongly points to full integration as a significant improvement.

 

[Lost property]

More than £1 bn. The 2018 inital Business case calculated it at £775m (2017 prices), and in my opinion that was rather optimistic for a 90km railway given there were new tunnels and viaducts to build, and lots of residential property required. (Current costs for new railways are at least £30m/km).

The initial busienss case in 2018 forecast annual demand generated trips of between 350-500,000 per year. Personally I think that‘s rather optimistic - that‘s more than use Aberystwyth station now.

The Heads of Valleys road gets that sort of number of journeys in a fortnight (between Hirwaun and Dowlais Top) assuming 1.5 people per vehicle.

Intriguing to read the diverse views on here, ranging from the almost mandatory BBC antagonists, quite why I'll never know, through to the reinstatement of former lines by dewy eyed enthusiasts, to the hard nosed economic realities involved.

Nobody can claim rail services in Wales are by any means comprehensive, but, there is virtually no chance I suggest of lines being reinstated.

However, I would, and do, support the upgrades to the Heads of the Valleys road...after years of neglect and carnage. Even the RAF "strongly advised " not using it due to it's deserved reputation for increasing undertakers profits.