Railwatch 087 - March 2001

South Wales (De Cymru)

By Julian Langston and Peter Clark peter@clark8.fsnet.co.uk

Campaign success! Our long-running campaign to get regular passenger trains running over the Vale of Glamorgan (Barry-Bridgend) line has paid off and funding is now in place for services to commence in late 2002 or 2003. The National Assembly for Wales included £11million for infrastructure works in its transport investment programme for the next five years, and the SRA announced an award from the Rail Passenger Partnership fund (the first in Wales) to allow services to start. They will be hourly on weekdays and two-hourly on Sundays and will run, serving new stations at Rhoose (for Cardiff International Airport) and Llantwit Major, between Cardiff and Bridgend. We are particularly pleased at the latter feature as earlier proposals for partial reopening envisaged an end-to-end service between Cardiff and Llantwit Major only. We argued in our book Rails to the Vale, published in 1997, that running to Bridgend would be essential, to provide easy access to the airport from the west. Indeed we would prefer to see Vale line trains extended west of Bridgend and east or north of Cardiff, and such developments could well come in the future, as part of service development by the new franchisee.

Valleys investment Also in the National Assembly's investment programme are various capacity enhancements on Valley Lines to allow increases in service frequencies, opening of a station at Llanharan and improved interchanges at Ammanford and Llandovery on the Heart of Wales line. We welcome all these developments, but they epitomise the limited powers of the assembly over rail. Thus extra capacity can be provided on Valley Lines but the operator cannot be compelled to make use of it (they have made very little use so far of the opportunities provided by the publicly funded resignalling of the lower Taff valley for example). It is essential to secure adequate provision for these developments in the franchise agreement for the new Wales and Borders operator. The shortlist of preferred bidders for this has just been announced and includes Arriva/Connex, First Group, National Express and Serco Rail.

Ebbw Vale-Newport Another long-running campaign is making less headway but the situation has changed significantly following the recent announcement that the Corus steelworks in Ebbw Vale is to close within two years. That the railway still exists at all in the Ebbw Valley is solely due to the steel traffic. We are taking every opportunity to emphasise that this unwelcome development makes the case for restoration of passenger trains even stronger, in order to assist urban regeneration in an area which already has high unemployment and social deprivation. We have urged the National Assembly to include the scheme in whatever economic aid package is developed for the area. We must also be prepared to campaign for retention of the track if there is no firm commitment to introduce passenger trains by the time the steelworks closes.

FA Cup Final A change of heart by Railtrack means that the Severn Tunnel will be open for this event on 12 May, and the branch can claim some credit. When it was first mooted that the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, was a probable venue for this major sporting fixture, we pointed out to Railtrack that it would take place on a date during the spring period of Severn Tunnel weekend closures. Railtrack refused to rearrange its maintenance work, but the issue was taken up by the press (following an article in Rail Wales) and eventually Railtrack capitulated. To its credit, this was before it was confirmed that the fixture would be held in Cardiff, but if Railtrack had not taken that action undoubtedly it would have received some of the flak if the Millennium Stadium had lost the event. Of course it will not be known until nearer the time which teams will be playing in the final, hence the need, as we stressed in our letter to Railtrack, to ensure that all routes to Cardiff are kept open on that weekend. It is understood that the signed deal provides for the Cup Final to take place in Cardiff for at least three years so with that amount of notice there will be no excuse for scheduling engineering blockades on those weekends in 2002 and 2003.

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