New North-South Wales Proposal

[Cwmtwrch]

12 minutes ago, eastglosmog said:

long stretches of Offa's Dyke are now entirely in England (and vice versa)

Also, it varies considerably in height, is of lightweight construction, and has substantial gaps in places. A very enjoyable walk, though🙂.

[DenysW]

On 03/07/2024 at 21:08, eastglosmog said:

Unfortunately for that scheme, long stretches of Offa's Dyke are now entirely in England (and vice versa)!

That objection, being purely political, could be dealt with with some boundary reversions to the Offa-approved locations, and a lot of painting ARAF where it presently just says SLOW on roads. No, and sadly for the proposal, Offa went for a fortification instead of a ditch AND IT ISN'T REMOTELY CLOSE TO LEVEL. A massive problem for the canal, and a big one for the railway.

[The Stationmaster]

On 03/07/2024 at 14:17, mac1960 said:

I think the GC reopening up to Leicestershire area was definitely something which should have been looked at properly before HS2 was started if the capacity thing was /is an issue. There was a chunk of money spent looking at it. It would only operate for freight and therefore speed or at least high speed was not a major issue. 
An opportunity missed given the growth of distribution centres and inland ports in that area. 
As for the old Midland line above Matlock to Buxton reopening was that not I believe more to do with the stone traffic rather than passengers ?

 

As for reopening a route through Central Wales I think the Welsh Government will not have the financial clout to do this especially post Thursday as who ever is in power is going to have a big spending list an little money and I would suggest a railway from no where to no where will not be a schematic that will fly. 
 

However the old Waverley route extensions may well get traction as it appears to have been quite successful and extending into the Boarders or even Carlisle could possibly happen in the next day 20 years.

Cheers

I doubt the GC route has ever had the connectivity to many of the places between which freight on the WCML flows - no easy connection to any ports at the south end, no connection to Bormingham, and stopping the revived route at leaicester goes nowhere near the northern end destinnations of WCML freight.

 

The other thing is using the GC route, or parts of it, would only really make sense if takes off the WCML the type of trains which areat one extreme or the other of the speed differential and journey time equations which are responsible for a big part of the capacity problem on the WCML.  And in that respect the really obvious outlier is the non=stop passenger trains, which would also benefit a new route in amore economically efficient manner because it could potentially easily offer reduced journey times.   Shifting freight to a new rout wouldn't deliver the same economic benefits or anywhere near them.

Edited July 7 by The Stationmaster

[mac1960]

The issue for capacity was at the southern end not the northern end of the WCML and connecting for freight is easier than passengers as freight doesn’t care on the route. If you look at the distribution centres being built many if not the majority are sat on or around the GC route. 
Anyway it’s not going to happen and we have a political train set which looks like it’s going to run from nowhere to nowhere at great costs for a market which is arguably shrinking with improved IT. 
 

An expensive waste of time and money.

[Northmoor]

3 hours ago, mac1960 said:

The issue for capacity was at the southern end not the northern end of the WCML and connecting for freight is easier than passengers as freight doesn’t care on the route. If you look at the distribution centres being built many if not the majority are sat on or around the GC route. 
Anyway it’s not going to happen and we have a political train set which looks like it’s going to run from nowhere to nowhere at great costs for a market which is arguably shrinking with improved IT. 
 

An expensive waste of time and money.

I could debunk this argument but would simply suggest you refer to the last couple of hundred pages of the HS2 thread to educate yourself as to why your highlighted quote doesn't reflect reality.

[Jeremy Cumberland]

 

On 05/07/2024 at 15:26, DenysW said:

 

On 03/07/2024 at 21:08, eastglosmog said:

Unfortunately for that scheme, long stretches of Offa's Dyke are now entirely in England (and vice versa)!

That objection, being purely political, could be dealt with with some boundary reversions

Well, that shifts the perspective entirely. If the people of Wales want a railway line from Cardiff to Bangor that is entirely within Wales, simply extend Powys and Flintshire a little to the east.

[phil-b259]

On 03/07/2024 at 14:17, mac1960 said:

I think the GC reopening up to Leicestershire area was definitely something which should have been looked at properly before HS2 was started if the capacity thing was /is an issue. There was a chunk of money spent looking at it. It would only operate for freight and therefore speed or at least high speed was not a major issue. 

 

And what happens to your wonderful freight artery when it gets to Aylesbury?

 

This is where every single proposal to re-open the GC has floundered when the proponents have to start addressing this

 

There simply aren’t the paths available either via Amersham or via High Wycombe to accommodate lots of extra trains - particularly things like freights or express passenger services without slashing current service levels or decimating the amount of time available to engineers to maintain the route in a good condition.

 

That in turn means you still need lots of very expensive and disruptive railway construction either alongside existing tracks or, as per HS2 through the courts side (still requiring lots of tunnelling to pacify the NIMBYs to provide the access to your re-opened GC route.

 

 

[mac1960]

Personally I don’t know, but the guy I know who was involved indicated it was no big deal as they would run at none critical times, so I presume at night. However I would suggest that any relatively small local civils  work for a slow speed railway is very small beer in comparison with the extensive and expensive HS2 works which have and are being undertaken which is going to give us a railway with little purpose at the end. The project has been badly thought through and even worse managed, but that seems rather systematic of a lot of UK projects.

 

[Northmoor]

25 minutes ago, mac1960 said:

Personally I don’t know, but the guy I know who was involved indicated it was no big deal as they would run at none critical times, so I presume at night. However I would suggest that any relatively small local civils  work for a slow speed railway is very small beer in comparison with the extensive and expensive HS2 works which have and are being undertaken which is going to give us a railway with little purpose at the end. The project has been badly thought through and even worse managed, but that seems rather systematic of a lot of UK projects.

 

Two things:

1. At night there is already plenty of WCML capacity (largely because the no high speed services and virtually no semi-fasts are running) so no need for it to go via the duplicate route;

2. What if your customers don't want their freight to be delivered at a time necessitated by pathing at night?

 

Anyway, this isn't the HS2 thread, back to N-S Wales, for which the "HS" title certainly wouldn't apply.....

[philip-griffiths]

On 01/07/2024 at 12:56, KingEdwardII said:

Back to the original topic - if the Welsh government have a pile of money for transport burning a hole in their pockets, they would be wise to spend this money where the people of Wales are likely to need it.

 

One fairly obvious place is in the various populated valleys of South Wales where there once were railway tracks but now none. Places like the Sirhowy valley to Tredegar for example.

 

It does make sense to put the money into reviving what had become solely mineral lines, but these are declining in opportunities.  For example, the line to Cwmbargoed does not go anywhere with major populations, but maybe stations at Nelson and Treharris - though Quakers Yard station is nearby so maybe not.   

 

The Vale of Neath line is a maybe, but Glynneath is not a large settlement.  

 

The Sirhowy valley is sadly lost to rail unless roads are removed.  The line north of Risca is buried under the Risca By-pass. Then in Pontllanfraith the line has houses on it.   The old Halls Road is cut off around Newbridge by the Pontllanfraith bypass, and then the line was used up to Oakdale for the Blackwood bypass.  In Blackwood itself the line has been repurposed.   Finally in Tredegar, the line has been used for the by-pass.  

 

One route which could have been saved was the line to Bleanavon, but sadly it was allowed to be lost as well.  

 

Hindsight is always a wonderful gift.  If we had known how settlements were to grow, and how work commutes were to change, then maybe we would not have closed the lines and lost them to posterity…….

 

 Putting the money into increasing the density of services makes more sense to increase patronage on the lines which currently exist.

 

regards

[phil-b259]

1 hour ago, mac1960 said:

Personally I don’t know, but the guy I know who was involved indicated it was no big deal as they would run at none critical times, so I presume at night.

 

 

In case you hadn't noticed an awful lot of maintenance / inspection / renewal work has to happen overnight  - and what with the increasing number of services during the day preventing access for even the most trivial of tasks plus recent moves to remove traditional methods of working (e.g. with lookouts while trains are still running to line blockages backed up by additional time consuming safegaurds to prevent trains being accidentally routed into a line blockage* due to signaller error) following the Margam incident which saw 5 track workers die the brutal truth is the days of 'presuming' you can run lots of trains overnight has well and truly ended!

 

* yes, ITS HAPPENED TO ME and its not pleasant....

[The Stationmaster]

12 hours ago, mac1960 said:

Personally I don’t know, but the guy I know who was involved indicated it was no big deal as they would run at none critical times, so I presume at night. However I would suggest that any relatively small local civils  work for a slow speed railway is very small beer in comparison with the extensive and expensive HS2 works which have and are being undertaken which is going to give us a railway with little purpose at the end. The project has been badly thought through and even worse managed, but that seems rather systematic of a lot of UK projects.

 

Just to try and close this down I did a lot of work, on a  project c.2000/01, looking at capacity, traffic growth, and infrastructure life cycles on the WCML.  Clear conclusions of our study -

1. Traffic growth in terms of line capacity usage had outstripped even the most optimistic forecasts going back over 20 years which in turn suggested that future forecasts were going to undershoot actual demand (as they subsequently did).

2. To pick up your specific point the WCML is one of the country's principal freight routes and is the busiest for freight running to/from the London area.  Freight trains are spread throughout much of the day in order to meet end customer requirements and achieve most efficient use of resources

3. The intensity of traffic was making it increasingly difficult to obtain possessions to give the route the level of maintenance it needed and it was concluded that would only get worse as traffic continued to grow.  In turn this would impact infrastructure reliability leading to delays and train cancellations plus very expensive diversions (as has subsequently happened, and will inevitably get worse).

 

Our study was mainly about infrastructure life cycles but other, later, studies reached similar conclusions regarding traffic density.  And they came to the obvious conclusion that it would be necessary to try to remove from the existing infrastructure those trains which differed most in performance terms from the bulk of trains using the route.  And in turn that obviously meant the fastest, non-stop, passenger trains because - all else apart - they are, individually, the biggest consumers of line capacity.

 

 

Back to the Offa's Dyke expressway high speed line with due apologies for the diversion

[woodenhead]

13 hours ago, mac1960 said:

Personally I don’t know, but the guy I know who was involved indicated it was no big deal as they would run at none critical times, so I presume at night. However I would suggest that any relatively small local civils  work for a slow speed railway is very small beer in comparison with the extensive and expensive HS2 works which have and are being undertaken which is going to give us a railway with little purpose at the end. The project has been badly thought through and even worse managed, but that seems rather systematic of a lot of UK projects.

 

Have you seen the amount of effort being put into the East-West route from Bicester to Bletchley and that was a line that was still extent as it had been mothballed iirc.

 

No such thing as a simple low speed railway, even trams in Manchester was a massive undertaking.

[Ian Hargrave]

14 hours ago, Jeremy Cumberland said:

 

Well, that shifts the perspective entirely. If the people of Wales want a railway line from Cardiff to Bangor that is entirely within Wales, simply extend Powys and Flintshire a little to the east.

I really think the people of Wales in general couldn’t give a monkeys about a dream of a north-south rail link. There are more pressing issues at this time for concern. What should be viable ( in terms of real necessity ) is a safe,manageable improvement of the A 470. But where’s the capital for that  ? Dream on. And a prayer that Tata Steel will attempt some form of mitigation at Margam. 

[The Stationmaster]

53 minutes ago, Ian Hargrave said:

I really think the people of Wales in general couldn’t give a monkeys about a dream of a north-south rail link. There are more pressing issues at this time for concern. What should be viable ( in terms of real necessity ) is a safe,manageable improvement of the A 470. But where’s the capital for that  ? Dream on. And a prayer that Tata Steel will attempt some form of mitigation at Margam. 

I think that Tata will do whatever the politicos give them the money to do.  And that leaves said politicos on the horns of a dilemma because closing the hot end of the plant will cost thousands of jobs as will converting it to electric arc furnaces.  So is it jobs or is it 'green policy' washing that the Govt will go for after stating their commitment to both?

 

The A470 is really the South - North (and vice versa) Wales link that the majority of people are likely to want - even if only for local use - as it will be of much greater use to them than any railway route.   In Mid Wales it hardly merits the title of 'Trunk Road' and the same can no doubt be said of it elsewhere in the country.  Mind you the bit around Tongwynlais and Ponty is a  vast improvement on the road I was using in that area back in the days when the dual carriageway there was under construction.

[KingEdwardII]

1 hour ago, Ian Hargrave said:

a safe,manageable improvement of the A 470

A quick use of Google maps shows that Cardiff to Llandudno (start & end of the A470) has a quickest route via - guess where - England (Hereford, Shrewsbury, Wrexham, Chester...), which is remarkably similar to the current railway route. 4h 20m for the 192 miles involved.

 

Using the A470 gives you 4h 33m for 180 miles (Brecon, Builth, Rhayader, Dolgellau, Blaenau...) - it is a tortuous route through the mountains which also manages to miss some of the larger communities in mid Wales (Newtown, Aberystwyth, Machynlleth, etc). It would take a considerable amount of work to reduce the journey time - bypasses for the various towns and dual carriageway sections all over the shop. All in places that are likely to be sensitive with respect to major construction. (Wye Valley, Snowdonia Natl Park.etc).

 

I could argue that it would be better value and considerably easier to spend the money upgrading the route through England! There is a lot more traffic on those roads than on the A470 simply because they connect bigger communities. Some of the route is already motorway and the bigger towns already have bypasses (Hereford excepted)...

 

PS Current rail journey is as short as 3h 52m (Cardiff - Landudno Junction). There is opportunity to reduce this time by improving the track along the route, although since there are 16 stops, the short inter-stop distances make things harder. That is an argument for electrification with its much higher acceleration, although I doubt the route comes high on any list for that kind of investment. Even EWR didn't manage to get electrification...

 

Yours, Mike

[Mol_PMB]

3 minutes ago, KingEdwardII said:

A quick use of Google maps shows that Cardiff to Llandudno (start & end of the A470) has a quickest route via - guess where - England (Hereford, Shrewsbury, Wrexham, Chester...), which is remarkably similar to the current railway route. 4h 20m for the 192 miles involved.

 

Using the A470 gives you 4h 33m for 180 miles (Brecon, Builth, Rhayader, Dolgellau, Blaenau...) - it is a tortuous route through the mountains which also manages to miss some of the larger communities in mid Wales (Newtown, Aberystwyth, Machynlleth, etc). It would take a considerable amount of work to reduce the journey time - bypasses for the various towns and dual carriageway sections all over the shop. All in places that are likely to be sensitive with respect to major construction. (Wye Valley, Snowdonia Natl Park.etc).

 

I could argue that it would be better value and considerably easier to spend the money upgrading the route through England! There is a lot more traffic on those roads than on the A470 simply because they connect bigger communities. Some of the route is already motorway and the bigger towns already have bypasses (Hereford excepted)...

 

PS Current rail journey is as short as 3h 52m (Cardiff - Landudno Junction). There is opportunity to reduce this time by improving the track along the route, although since there are 16 stops, the short inter-stop distances make things harder. That is an argument for electrification with its much higher acceleration, although I doubt the route comes high on any list for that kind of investment. Even EWR didn't manage to get electrification...

 

Yours, Mike

Electrification of the North Wales Coast was on Sunak's list of projects to be funded from the spoils of cancelling HS2. That announcement came as a surprise to Network Rail and TfW, since there hadn't been any significant design work on it (GRIP stages etc) and the cost figure seemed to have been plucked out of the air. Well now we have a new government, so I'd better not get political.

[KingEdwardII]

1 minute ago, Mol_PMB said:

Electrification of the North Wales Coast

Well, that is a part of the route. The Cardiff - Newport section in South Wales is already electrified. It's the yawning gap between Newport and Chester that would be the problematic (& expensive!) part.

[Cwmtwrch]

1 hour ago, KingEdwardII said:

Cardiff to Llandudno (start & end of the A470) has a quickest route via - guess where - England (Hereford, Shrewsbury, Wrexham, Chester...)

Wrexham/Wrecsam is actually in Wales.

[ruggedpeak]

I think the bottom line is that questionable projects like this have almost zero chance. There are so many demands on the new Government and the Chancellor has announced today that there is no money, They need to deliver 'growth', vast numbers of new homes and deliver Net Zero whilst not collapsing much of British industry. So a railway without a clear growth impact beyond the construction is unlikely unless some failing politician needs a 'look squirrel' vanity scheme.

[KingEdwardII]

1 hour ago, Cwmtwrch said:

Wrexham/Wrecsam is actually in Wales

Yes indeed, but that is the recommended quickest route - in and then out of Wales again. I drove it myself when motoring home returning from a cruise which ended in Liverpool.

 

Yours, Mike

[mac1960]

Would that failing politician be like one of our previous PM ? Anyway I agree with you there is no money and there is not  chance of building that qty of new houses even in 10-15 years as we no longer have the workforce, and those we do have are expensive and or ageing. Incidentally I do work on large construction projects as a senior contracts director and have done some small rail projects in my time or at least the buildings surrounding them. As for this other railway through the heart of Wales dream on, too much money and too slow, and more importantly no people and no viable freight. 

As for the steelworks probably gone. Its an ageing workforce there with a lot of them wondering what sort of redundancy package they will get and with long service it could be quite large. I am sceptical about the new scrap furnace as well I am afraid too.    

[KingEdwardII]

15 minutes ago, mac1960 said:

I am sceptical about the new scrap furnace

It means Port Talbot is now a glorified recycling works. New iron & steel is no longer smelted in the UK.

 

Yours, Mike.

[mac1960]

Think last furnace shuts September new Green scrap furnace 3 years away circa. Got to go plane to catch.

[Northmoor]

3 hours ago, KingEdwardII said:

It means Port Talbot is now a glorified recycling works. New iron & steel is no longer smelted in the UK.

 

Which I believe makes the UK the only country in the G7 without the ability to make virgin steel.  (Some) people worry about not having a major "British-owned" car manufacturer, but I would argue that not being able to make steel is massively more important.  Those enthused about recycling steel from outside the industry need to learn how many applications and how many manufacturers will not accept it.