Great Western Coffee Shop

Milford Haven is on track to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the railway there ...

John Gale, from Hubberston, said "We are lucky today to have an excellent train service from Milford, but it is important to remember those who promoted the building of the line back in 1863."

In earlier days, Milford Haven was an outpost of the Great Western Railway - although these days it's server by the Wales, rather than the Great Western, franchise.  There are 11 departures a day (Monday to Friday numbers), with direct services to Swansea, Cardiff, and even Shrewsbury, Crewe and Manchester. With a population of around 13,000 people, Milford Haven is broadly comparable is size with Tavistock, Avonmouth and Minehead.   It has a significantly lower population than towns such as Falmouth, Melksham, Portishead and Newquay.

See http://www.milfordmercury.co.uk/news/10262976._/

I will have to visit Milford Haven sometime.

I would like to see the daily Carmarthen - London service extended to run to/from Milford Haven like it used to at one time.


There is talk that Milford Haven could soon be seeing regular Bio-mass trains so I think the branch will need to be upgraded including perhaps doubling the junction at Claberston Road

So your suggesting:
06:30 from Milford Haven, for 07:30 off Carmarthen, 11:33 Paddington
17:15 off Paddington, 21:30 off Carmarthen and 22:15 into Milford Haven?

Not sure how much extra traffic that would generate over / would it relieve overcrowding on current services:
06:00 from Milford Haven which connects through to 11:07 at Paddington
17:45 (Paddington) which connects through to 22:43

An extra 4 hours running for an HST each day.  Single line issues / Network Rail availabiity / Platform length ... ??  I can think of other more rewarding (I believe) use of 32 carriage hours per day - but if Milford Haven / Haverfordwest councils have a significant business case, perhaps the train just happens to be in the right place at the right time to do it.

I suspect the existing Carmarthen service will do well to survive IEP, as would mean positioning a bi-mode set at Swansea on what would otherwise be a completely electric only service from South Wales to London. A possible unfortunate consequence of the wires being continued to Swansea.

Given there's a good through service from West Wales as far as Newport, with reasonable quality of stock, the only passengers benefitting from the HST are those from west of Llanelli travelling into England. I doubt that will be a large number each day. Though politically there may be a bit of a fuss if the connection is lost.

The orignal line from Haverford West was to Neyland and was a Brunel line opened in 1856 and was intended to be the port for Ireland but superceded by Fishguard. So Haverford West is already 150 years old

Neyland engines were always a rare cop at Slough.

Historically, there have always been services from Milford Haven to Manchester.  Locally, the long-closed  Carmarthen to Aberystwyth line was known as the "M & M".  That's because the intention had been to drive the line over the Teifi watershed to Llangurig and then to Llanidloes and towards Moat Lane Junction, joining the Cambrian Line towards Shrewsbury and then on to Manchester.

For cost/engineering reasons, there was a change of plan and the line turned north at Strata Florida Station and went to Aberystwyth instead.

Here's a weblink (http://Here's a weblink) with some nice little 1960s video clips annexed.

weblink does not work

There was an HST worked Milford Haven to Paddington in the 80s and 90s and at one time a Sleeper service to and from Paddington.

Sorry, here's the weblink (http://tourism.ceredigion.gov.uk/saesneg/ystwythtrail3.htm).

The 07:30 off Carmarthen looks to me to be very usefully timed if you start work in Swansea at 9am or have a meeting to attend in Cardiff at 10am (not that I do either of those things, so I may be wrong). However, the evening service doesn't seem to be usefully timed. Personally, I'd much rather see through services from Carmarthen and Pembrokeshire to Paddington ditched than have Hitachi (or anyone) build bi-mode IEPs, but at least a 6-coach long LHCS train from Pembs/Carmarthen to Swansea/Cardiff(or Bristol might be useful) would probably be needed to cover for the loss of the capacity provided by the IC125. Regardless, going via Swansea is too slow a way to get from Carmarthen to Cardiff really, it is the capacity that is useful more than the fact it goes to London I would guess.

The documents published for the aborted/delayed GWML franchise competition show the Paddington - Carmarthen service as a service commitment. If I've done my estimates right, the number of 9-car psudo-electric IEP diagrams ordered is not sufficent to run all Bristol, Oxford, Cardiff and Swansea services anyway. If the DaFT plans go ahead as they seem to be laid out, there'll be several 5-car bi-mode diagrams entirely under the brand-new wires.

Interestingly, the same document that shows the Paddington-Carmarthen service is a contractual commitment also maintains a commitment for the Pembroke Dock - Paddington summer services (which cannot be worked by IEP as the line beyond Carmarthen is not included on the plans for IEP guage clearance).