Great Western Coffee Shop

Just had this link pointed out to me which includes the prime minister saying the go ahead has been given to electrify some of the Cardiff Valley Lines network.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17619922

Great to see some good news now hopefully we will see the wires get extended to Swansea.

Doesn't sound very final, just that they seem to be nearly ready to say they will electrify. If it was final, I'm sure it would justify an article of its own rather than being tagged on to the bottom of an article about NHS and schools.

If Maesteg is included in the Valleys scheme, then it would be even more daft not to wire to Swansea, but sadly the wording of the article doesn't sound like Swansea is included. Swansea - Cardiff really should have a much more frequent service, in my opinion 4tph constisting of:

• 1tph to London Paddington (Neath, Port Talbot & Bridgend stops)
• 1tph to Manchester (Neath, Port Talbot & Bridgend stops)
  
• 1tph to Bristol Temple Meads (Neath, Port Talbot, Pyle, Bridgend and Brackla stops)
• 1tph Swanline (ideally to Cheltenham Spa, but maybe just Cardiff) (Llansamlet, Skewen, Neath, Briton Ferry, Baglan, Port Talbot Parkway, Pyle, Bridgend, Pencoed and Pontyclun)

Only the Manchester would have to be diesel if the wires get to Swansea, which should make the case for Swansea - Cardiff wires alot stronger than it is, even more so if the hourly Maesteg service (calling at Bridgend, Pencoed, Llanharan, & Pontyclun) is included.

Unfortunatly, when trying to make up a timetable based on that 'wish list' (which also includes an hourly class 158 service between Cardiff/Portsmouth and Carmarthen/Pembrokeshire which uses the Swansea District Line and makes stops at Port Talbot and Bridgend) it doesn't look like there's room for enough freight paths (and the ones that I have managed to squeese in need to be looped at Port Talbot AND Pencoed).

Dont forget you can loop at Stormy Down as well.

But would that really be justified? I travel out to west Wales fairly frequently and (except perhaps for occasional trains in the height of rush-hour) capacity between Swansea and Cardiff is never much of an issue. I think it would be a very difficult business case to make.

One of the many things I mentioned in my responce to the GW franchise consultation, inspector_blakey, was that SWWITCH (South West Wales Intergrated Transport Consortium) had an assperation for 3tph from Swansea to Gowerton, Llanelli and Carmarthen. I also pointed out that the combined population of those three places (approaching 66,000) is much lower than the combined population of Neath, Port Talbot and Bridgend (approaching 121,000). Neither figure includes the huge population of Cardiff and Swansea themselves. The point I was making: If SWWITCH think 3tph is desirable west of Swansea then a higher frequency should be worthwhile in the more-densely populated area to the east of Swansea.

Personally I think 3Tph between Swansea & Cardiff in addition to an hourly Maesteg - Cardiff/Ebbw Vale service and a possible express service via the Swansea district line should be more than enough

But the population figures are fairly meaningless if they're not reflected in passenger counts. As I have said, except in the event of disruption or brief periods during the peaks, the amount of capacity provided between Cardiff and Swansea appears to be more than adequate for current passenger volumes.

Referendum on EU, Fuel Price Regulator, Health service safe in our hands - I could go on.   David Cameron's broken promises so don't rely on his statement re electrification today.

Couple of points. (No pun intended).

The intention is to re-dual the five miles of single track west of Gowerton and to have a new two-track bridge across the Llwchwr (or Loughor if you prefer) estuary to Llanelli.  That will have the effect of removing a bottleneck west of Swansea which currently reduces the number of tph possible.  Work to complete in 2013.

The point of wires to Swansea is that all the FGW services go to Swansea and it would make little sense to have to change motive power for the last 45 miles or so. 

Valley lines electrification.  Now there's a thing, coupled with the Cardiff Central to Queen Street improvements.  We'd love that.  A network well suited to electrification with end to end journeys of no more than 120 minutes and a stop about every 5 minutes.  And the Pacers could go in the crusher.

Because the Valley Lines loop through the Vale of Glamorgan and rejoin the main line at Bridgend, it would make sense to have wires as far as there to allow for diversions - HSTs are able to use the line through the Vale.

Amey have the contract for Pad to Cardiff.  They could do the rest at the same time with their instant electrification machine.

There is a motorway most of the way between the two... Perhaps providing a higher frequency, plus the sparks effect, could generate lots of modal shift? I suppose I can't really answer that without knowing where the demand from the place on route is headed.