A perfectly good fast line could be built along the coast.
You think? Even if all the missing coastal lines between Bangor and Cardiff were reinstated (not likely as some of them have been built over) and new links were put in to remove the need for three reversals, the journey would still take far longer than the current route via Shrewsbury. If you then doubled the whole route (ignoring the fact that there's no room to do so for a lot of it as it's wedged between the sea and cliffs) you might achieve a similar journey time to the Shrewsbury route.
So you'd be spending billions of pounds and fundamentally rearranging the geography of a quite nice bit of coastline just for the sake of avoiding the need for Bangor - Cardiff travellers to briefly venture onto the hated English soil. Seems a bit silly to me.
I'm sure the Welsh would appreciate the wisdom of your profound knowledge of the geography and railways of Wales.
Well, they might, if what you said was actually correct.
In fact it isn't. As with many other people who talk about Wales with only a tangential understanding of the issues, you lump places together and ignore real issues.
Take West Wales, for example. There is no way that a train from Cardiff to Aberystwyth via Shrewbury is quicker than driving.
Or take North West Wales. There is no way that a train from Cardiff via Shrewsbury is quicker than driving to Pwllheli. Between Machynlleth and Pwllheli it is probably quicker to walk than take the train.
There is also the issue of how Welsh-speaking areas in the South and South-West of Wales are isolated from the North and North-West because there is no viable train route. The further you go west from Cardiff, the more ridiculous the journey becomes to get to Pwllheli, nearly 8 hours from Llanelli.
I don't even live in Wales, but from where I am in SW England, I could catch a train and be in Scotland in that time.
The Carmarthen-Aberystwyth railway would cost money, but how much really would it be compared to HS2?
And if Welsh taxes are being used to pay for HS2, why are they not allowed to say "no, we would rather spend our contribution on our own railway"?
'Appen you're right with Cardiff, but I'm sure a continuous coast line could improve the 10hr + you would regularly see going from the SW to the NW.
It's an artefact of two things - the historical origins of the railway system, with main lines starting in London, and the loss of the branch lines that linked those main lines. Someone mentioned Bedford to Northampton above - that was easy before Beeching closed the line designed for that very journey.
If HS2 just succeeds in enabling London commuters to live a little further away from London then it will not really achieve very much for the rest of the country. This is my concern, Wales diversions aside; there are so many rail journeys where the sort of speed, capacity and regularity already enjoyed between Birmingham and London would seem an absolute luxury. And it's not just back of beyond to back of beyond - it's these links between major northern cities.
Railways in England have always been seen as multi-purpose, for industry, commuting and pleasure.
In Wales they were only ever for industry, usually for getting stuff out to England as quickly as possible.
When Wales became less useful as a reserve of coal, slate, iron etc, the railways became largely redundant.
And that's why what remains in Wales is incredibly disjointed. Nobody ever really contemplated that a Welsh person might want to go anywhere that wasn't either extremely close or in England.
I do share my Welsh brethren's pain. The rail transport in SW England has a lot to be desired and the Great Western line is said, I believe, to be one of the most expensive to use.
But it is still much better than in Wales. You can still get from Bristol to anywhere in Wales more quickly than half of Wales can get to the other half.
I do share my Welsh brethren's pain. The rail transport in SW England has a lot to be desired and the Great Western line is said, I believe, to be one of the most expensive to use.
But it is still much better than in Wales. You can still get from Bristol to anywhere in Wales more quickly than half of Wales can get to the other half.
I grew up in a town in the west country with nominally two railway stations. Unfortunately they were on different lines, neither was in the town nor were they near each other. Utter farce.
Yes, and farewell to the Tory vote in the newly conquered North, where the electorate was expecting a great revival of industrial employment.
I don't think they give a single shit.
And that's part if the tragedy of our age; the chancers, liars, spivs and free-marketer weirdos have been able to persuade the largely forgotten urban poor to vote against their own interests.
Cynically as well, because they never had any intention of lifting a finger to help. This was always only ever about "winning" a battle about trade liberalisation and to hell with any negative externalities.
I disagree. They will be wanting to win the next election as well.
But the last few years has shown that winning elections has very little to do with what you actually do and far more to do with what the media claim you did.
Exactly. The Tories will say all kinds of blatant stupidity, and morons like @telford will believe it and regurgitate it.
He never claimed to have believed it In any case blatant stupidity is never a good move.
Apologies: the belief part was courtesy, as a possibility of not being a troll. Thanks for clearing that up.
The regurgitating blatant stupidity part is a factual matter of record on this thread.
As a modest and humble person I refuse to take the credit
That very statement exhibits considerable vanity.
I am shocked at this because I have, on numerous occasions felt obliged to nominate myself for humility awards.
Yes, and farewell to the Tory vote in the newly conquered North, where the electorate was expecting a great revival of industrial employment.
I don't think they give a single shit.
And that's part if the tragedy of our age; the chancers, liars, spivs and free-marketer weirdos have been able to persuade the largely forgotten urban poor to vote against their own interests.
Cynically as well, because they never had any intention of lifting a finger to help. This was always only ever about "winning" a battle about trade liberalisation and to hell with any negative externalities.
I disagree. They will be wanting to win the next election as well.
But the last few years has shown that winning elections has very little to do with what you actually do and far more to do with what the media claim you did.
Exactly. The Tories will say all kinds of blatant stupidity, and morons like @telford will believe it and regurgitate it.
He never claimed to have believed it In any case blatant stupidity is never a good move.
Apologies: the belief part was courtesy, as a possibility of not being a troll. Thanks for clearing that up.
The regurgitating blatant stupidity part is a factual matter of record on this thread.
As a modest and humble person I refuse to take the credit
That very statement exhibits considerable vanity.
I am shocked at this because I have, on numerous occasions felt obliged to nominate myself for humility awards.
I get the Valley’s line from Llantwit Major to Cardiff and back every day. It is mostly late. There are always problems. That wouldn’t be too bad if the the trains were more than one an hour.
Many years ago, I visited my aunt and uncle, on my way to Porthmadog (then Portmadoc). Said my aunt, 'I don't know why you want to go to the North, where the people are so peculiar.' (The reason was, of course, the restoration of the Ffestiniog Railway>)
I get the Valley’s line from Llantwit Major to Cardiff and back every day. It is mostly late. There are always problems. That wouldn’t be too bad if the the trains were more than one an hour.
You should know that Cardiff is a "Snooker station", ie, you have to get a red first. Oh, and the trains are crap. Underpowered, poorly built oh, the list goes on. If they were any worse they wouldn't exist, which is all we can be grateful for.
I guess the issue with a Welsh west coast mainline is that, given population density, you can either:
1. Run an express service between a handful of larger towns, in which case you haven't connected the north and the south, just a few specific points in the north to a few in the south; or:
2. Stop everywhere, in which case it's not a mainline any more.
Politicians like railways because they are big shiny projects that people in London can understand. A better question would be whether other forms of public transport would be more appropriate, such as long distance coaches.
I get the Valley’s line from Llantwit Major to Cardiff and back every day. It is mostly late. There are always problems. That wouldn’t be too bad if the the trains were more than one an hour.
You should know that Cardiff is a "Snooker station", ie, you have to get a red first. Oh, and the trains are crap. Underpowered, poorly built oh, the list goes on. If they were any worse they wouldn't exist, which is all we can be grateful for.
I guess the issue with a Welsh west coast mainline is that, given population density, you can either:
1. Run an express service between a handful of larger towns, in which case you haven't connected the north and the south, just a few specific points in the north to a few in the south; or:
2. Stop everywhere, in which case it's not a mainline any more.
Politicians like railways because they are big shiny projects that people in London can understand. A better question would be whether other forms of public transport would be more appropriate, such as long distance coaches.
Wales has long distance coaches, on the weekend they are free.
The thing that amazes me is how often people ask bloody stupid questions to people in Wales that they would never think to ask in England.
What the actual fuck is meant by "how many people want to go from North Wales to South Wales? Since devolution, the government, parliament and most of the civil servants are in South East Wales. Unsurprisingly, a large number of people from North Wales live in Cardiff or Swansea. Aberystwyth has a fairly large university, as does Bangor.
How many people do you think might want to travel more easily between these places?
The West Coast line in England goes all the way from SW England to Newcastle and beyond into Scotland.
It is relatively simple to get a train from Bristol to Birmingham and Manchester, as well as to smaller towns and cities between. And even nuch smaller places by stopping train.
There are also coaches.
Can you really imagine someone in Bristol being asked how many people want to go to Birmingam, because currently you have to go via Reading?
Also even though I'm in England, I have the misfortune of having to mostly travel on the Welsh trains. As far as I understand it, they are trying to replace the really old trains they have. They have just introduced "new" trains on some of the lines. Which are actually simply repainted rejects from another English franchise.
They are talking with excitement about the new "new" trains to be built in Newport. But it turns out they're not new either but will be reconditioned London tube trains.
It is possible to run express and slow services on the same line. They do it on the Hope Valley line for starters.
I know that. My point is that if you chose just a handful of places to run an express service between - say, Fishguard, Aberystwyth, Caernarfon, Holyhead - then I doubt the demand would be sufficient to justify the expense of constructing the line, and the more stations you add, the less express it becomes.
Running a mixture of slow and fast trains doesn't really change that, because you are building an express-class railway (presumably with quadruple track in some places) just to run about three express trains a day.
Also even though I'm in England, I have the misfortune of having to mostly travel on the Welsh trains. As far as I understand it, they are trying to replace the really old trains they have. They have just introduced "new" trains on some of the lines. Which are actually simply repainted rejects from another English franchise.
They are talking with excitement about the new "new" trains to be built in Newport. But it turns out they're not new either but will be reconditioned London tube trains.
You couldn't make it up.
ScotRail also has introduced "new trains" which have been running for years on lines in England. But, all you need is a paint job to change the colour. Also works on passports.
It is possible to run express and slow services on the same line. They do it on the Hope Valley line for starters.
I know that. My point is that if you chose just a handful of places to run an express service between - say, Fishguard, Aberystwyth, Caernarfon, Holyhead - then I doubt the demand would be sufficient to justify the expense of constructing the line, and the more stations you add, the less express it becomes.
Running a mixture of slow and fast trains doesn't really change that, because you are building an express-class railway (presumably with quadruple track in some places) just to run about three express trains a day.
And here it is again. No, you can't have a decent train service between parts of Wales because it would be too expensive. No, you can't want North-South links in Wales because nobody would use it. No, you can't want a direct train because it is perfectly acceptable to go via Shrewsbury.
Maybe leave the Welsh Assembly and Welsh Government to make their own spending decisions with their own taxes instead of insisting on spending it on a Highspeed train line in England.
One of the things we've discovered on Tyneside is that people moved to be near a Metro station, and there is no a 'Metro premium' on house prices. While it's obviously a shame that the whole system is sclerotic and failing due to lack of investment, it does show that if you build an urban light-rail system, people will use it, no matter how terrible it is.
It is possible to run express and slow services on the same line. They do it on the Hope Valley line for starters.
I know that. My point is that if you chose just a handful of places to run an express service between - say, Fishguard, Aberystwyth, Caernarfon, Holyhead - then I doubt the demand would be sufficient to justify the expense of constructing the line, and the more stations you add, the less express it becomes.
Running a mixture of slow and fast trains doesn't really change that, because you are building an express-class railway (presumably with quadruple track in some places) just to run about three express trains a day.
And here it is again. No, you can't have a decent train service between parts of Wales because it would be too expensive. No, you can't want North-South links in Wales because nobody would use it. No, you can't want a direct train because it is perfectly acceptable to go via Shrewsbury.
Maybe leave the Welsh Assembly and Welsh Government to make their own spending decisions with their own taxes instead of insisting on spending it on a Highspeed train line in England.
Why is that such an unreasonable idea?
Do you have any evidence that the Welsh Assembly even wants a railway along the west coast? Or are you just another Englishman telling the world what would be good for Wales?
It is possible to run express and slow services on the same line. They do it on the Hope Valley line for starters.
I know that. My point is that if you chose just a handful of places to run an express service between - say, Fishguard, Aberystwyth, Caernarfon, Holyhead - then I doubt the demand would be sufficient to justify the expense of constructing the line, and the more stations you add, the less express it becomes.
Running a mixture of slow and fast trains doesn't really change that, because you are building an express-class railway (presumably with quadruple track in some places) just to run about three express trains a day.
And here it is again. No, you can't have a decent train service between parts of Wales because it would be too expensive. No, you can't want North-South links in Wales because nobody would use it. No, you can't want a direct train because it is perfectly acceptable to go via Shrewsbury.
Maybe leave the Welsh Assembly and Welsh Government to make their own spending decisions with their own taxes instead of insisting on spending it on a Highspeed train line in England.
Why is that such an unreasonable idea?
Do you have any evidence that the Welsh Assembly even wants a railway along the west coast? Or are you just another Englishman telling the world what would be good for Wales?
Life would be so much easier if you bothered to do your own homework.
Erm as someone who has traveled the English West Coast line often I can safely say it doesn’t go to Newcastle. That would be the East Coast line. It goes through the Lake District.
It is possible to run express and slow services on the same line. They do it on the Hope Valley line for starters.
I know that. My point is that if you chose just a handful of places to run an express service between - say, Fishguard, Aberystwyth, Caernarfon, Holyhead - then I doubt the demand would be sufficient to justify the expense of constructing the line, and the more stations you add, the less express it becomes.
Running a mixture of slow and fast trains doesn't really change that, because you are building an express-class railway (presumably with quadruple track in some places) just to run about three express trains a day.
And here it is again. No, you can't have a decent train service between parts of Wales because it would be too expensive. No, you can't want North-South links in Wales because nobody would use it. No, you can't want a direct train because it is perfectly acceptable to go via Shrewsbury.
Maybe leave the Welsh Assembly and Welsh Government to make their own spending decisions with their own taxes instead of insisting on spending it on a Highspeed train line in England.
Why is that such an unreasonable idea?
Do you have any evidence that the Welsh Assembly even wants a railway along the west coast? Or are you just another Englishman telling the world what would be good for Wales?
Life would be so much easier if you bothered to do your own homework.
I did. Traws Link Cymru is not the Welsh Government. The Welsh Government doesn't list a Carmarthen-Aberystwyth link on the list of priorities in the document "The Rail Network in Wales: the Case for Investment", which I can't link to, but which you can probably Google.
I don't know why you are picking a fight with me anyway. I happen to agree with you that the Welsh Assembly should have more autonomy over public transport. I just don't think a Welsh west coast mainline is a good example of why, and I have given practical reasons for my opinion.
It is possible to run express and slow services on the same line. They do it on the Hope Valley line for starters.
I know that. My point is that if you chose just a handful of places to run an express service between - say, Fishguard, Aberystwyth, Caernarfon, Holyhead - then I doubt the demand would be sufficient to justify the expense of constructing the line, and the more stations you add, the less express it becomes.
Running a mixture of slow and fast trains doesn't really change that, because you are building an express-class railway (presumably with quadruple track in some places) just to run about three express trains a day.
And here it is again. No, you can't have a decent train service between parts of Wales because it would be too expensive. No, you can't want North-South links in Wales because nobody would use it. No, you can't want a direct train because it is perfectly acceptable to go via Shrewsbury.
Maybe leave the Welsh Assembly and Welsh Government to make their own spending decisions with their own taxes instead of insisting on spending it on a Highspeed train line in England.
Why is that such an unreasonable idea?
Do you have any evidence that the Welsh Assembly even wants a railway along the west coast? Or are you just another Englishman telling the world what would be good for Wales?
Life would be so much easier if you bothered to do your own homework.
I did. Traws Link Cymru is not the Welsh Government. The Welsh Government doesn't list a Carmarthen-Aberystwyth link on the list of priorities in the document "The Rail Network in Wales: the Case for Investment", which I can't link to, but which you can probably Google.
I don't know why you are picking a fight with me anyway. I happen to agree with you that the Welsh Assembly should have more autonomy over public transport. I just don't think a Welsh west coast mainline is a good example of why, and I have given practical reasons for my opinion.
You didn't say Welsh Government, you said Welsh Assembly.
As the BBC link states, the feasibility study was paid for by the Welsh government.
The £300,000, two-year study found it could be brought back into use at a cost of £775m to rebuild.
The original line stopped at more than 20 stations, but was shut in 1965.
Traws Link Cymru, which launched its campaign three years ago to re-establish the 90-minute route, welcomed the Welsh Government's report.
And it is a policy of at least one of the parties in the Welsh Assembly to support the reopening of the line.
There are different opinions in the Welsh Assembly, informed by this feasibility study and community pressure.
But thankfully not from English people who cannot use google.
Erm as someone who has traveled the English West Coast line often I can safely say it doesn’t go to Newcastle. That would be the East Coast line. It goes through the Lake District.
It also doesn't go through the south west. It actually goes from London through the midlands and doesn't get in sight of the west coast until it's well past Manchester. Perhaps the point being made was that you can get a direct train all the way from the south west to Newcastle without taking huge detours, true. You can start in Penzance and get to Newcastle 9 hours later.
Erm as someone who has traveled the English West Coast line often I can safely say it doesn’t go to Newcastle. That would be the East Coast line. It goes through the Lake District.
It also doesn't go through the south west. It actually goes from London through the midlands and doesn't get in sight of the west coast until it's well past Manchester. Perhaps the point being made was that you can get a direct train all the way from the south west to Newcastle without taking huge detours, true. You can start in Penzance and get to Newcastle 9 hours later.
Which is ironically how long it takes to get from one end of Wales to the other, despite its being rather smaller.
Yes, sorry I got my East and West mixed up. I was attempting to highlight how far one could get on a direct train in SW England compared to the time it takes to get from SW Wales to NW Wales.
It is possible to run express and slow services on the same line. They do it on the Hope Valley line for starters.
I know that. My point is that if you chose just a handful of places to run an express service between - say, Fishguard, Aberystwyth, Caernarfon, Holyhead - then I doubt the demand would be sufficient to justify the expense of constructing the line, and the more stations you add, the less express it becomes.
Running a mixture of slow and fast trains doesn't really change that, because you are building an express-class railway (presumably with quadruple track in some places) just to run about three express trains a day.
And here it is again. No, you can't have a decent train service between parts of Wales because it would be too expensive. No, you can't want North-South links in Wales because nobody would use it. No, you can't want a direct train because it is perfectly acceptable to go via Shrewsbury.
Maybe leave the Welsh Assembly and Welsh Government to make their own spending decisions with their own taxes instead of insisting on spending it on a Highspeed train line in England.
Why is that such an unreasonable idea?
Do you have any evidence that the Welsh Assembly even wants a railway along the west coast? Or are you just another Englishman telling the world what would be good for Wales?
Life would be so much easier if you bothered to do your own homework.
I did. Traws Link Cymru is not the Welsh Government. The Welsh Government doesn't list a Carmarthen-Aberystwyth link on the list of priorities in the document "The Rail Network in Wales: the Case for Investment", which I can't link to, but which you can probably Google.
I don't know why you are picking a fight with me anyway. I happen to agree with you that the Welsh Assembly should have more autonomy over public transport. I just don't think a Welsh west coast mainline is a good example of why, and I have given practical reasons for my opinion.
You didn't say Welsh Government, you said Welsh Assembly.
As the BBC link states, the feasibility study was paid for by the Welsh government.
The £300,000, two-year study found it could be brought back into use at a cost of £775m to rebuild.
The original line stopped at more than 20 stations, but was shut in 1965.
Traws Link Cymru, which launched its campaign three years ago to re-establish the 90-minute route, welcomed the Welsh Government's report.
And it is a policy of at least one of the parties in the Welsh Assembly to support the reopening of the line.
There are different opinions in the Welsh Assembly, informed by this feasibility study and community pressure.
But thankfully not from English people who cannot use google.
Party in the Assembly wants =/= the Assembly wants. Otherwise you would have to say the Westminster parliament wants Scottish independence.
Funding a feasibility study =/= wanting to do something. The point of a feasibility study is to help decide whether you want to do it or not.
Still don't understand why you are trying to pick a fight on this.
A perfectly good fast line could be built along the coast.
You think? Even if all the missing coastal lines between Bangor and Cardiff were reinstated (not likely as some of them have been built over) and new links were put in to remove the need for three reversals, the journey would still take far longer than the current route via Shrewsbury. If you then doubled the whole route (ignoring the fact that there's no room to do so for a lot of it as it's wedged between the sea and cliffs) you might achieve a similar journey time to the Shrewsbury route.
So you'd be spending billions of pounds and fundamentally rearranging the geography of a quite nice bit of coastline just for the sake of avoiding the need for Bangor - Cardiff travellers to briefly venture onto the hated English soil. Seems a bit silly to me.
I'm sure the Welsh would appreciate the wisdom of your profound knowledge of the geography and railways of Wales.
Well, they might, if what you said was actually correct.
In fact it isn't. As with many other people who talk about Wales with only a tangential understanding of the issues, you lump places together and ignore real issues.
Could you even point to Afon Wen on a map, never mind explain its significance within Welsh railway history? Does the name "Gorseddau Junction" mean anything to you? Don't presume to lecture me about Welsh railways, kiddo.
Take West Wales, for example. There is no way that a train from Cardiff to Aberystwyth via Shrewbury is quicker than driving.
Or take North West Wales. There is no way that a train from Cardiff via Shrewsbury is quicker than driving to Pwllheli. Between Machynlleth and Pwllheli it is probably quicker to walk than take the train.
The journey under discussion was Bangor-Cardiff. There are always going to be journeys that are quicker by car than by rail, wherever you are in the country.
Furthermore, sparsely-populated areas and small towns have always been less interconnected by public transport systems than larger towns and cities. Pwllheli, with a population of just over 4,000, is actually served pretty well by the railways compared to similar-sized English towns such as Waverton, Coxheath and Hextable.
There is also the issue of how Welsh-speaking areas in the South and South-West of Wales are isolated from the North and North-West because there is no viable train route. The further you go west from Cardiff, the more ridiculous the journey becomes to get to Pwllheli, nearly 8 hours from Llanelli.
I don't even live in Wales, but from where I am in SW England, I could catch a train and be in Scotland in that time.
The Carmarthen-Aberystwyth railway would cost money, but how much really would it be compared to HS2?
The key unanswered question here is, of course, how many people actually want or need to make the journey. Do people in Milford Haven have a pressing need to get to Porthmadoc?
Railways exist to cater for significant travel flows that can justify the expense of building, running and maintaining them - they're not there to cater for every possible journey anyone might want to make regardless of how often that journey needs to be made. HS2, if and when it ever gets built, will carry ten times more people per day than live in Carmarthen and Aberystwyth combined.
And if Welsh taxes are being used to pay for HS2, why are they not allowed to say "no, we would rather spend our contribution on our own railway"?
Because they're not an independent country, with all the pros and cons that come with that fact. Should they ever decide to seriously press for independence then I will say good luck to them, and should they succeed they will be free to spend their own money on whatever they want.
Two minutes ago you didn't even know it was an issue under discussion at the Assembly. Which you mixed up with the Welsh Government. Which understandably does not include policies that it has no power to enforce in their transport policy.
With so much ignorance, one might think you might stop. But no, you double down.
Two minutes ago you didn't even know it was an issue under discussion at the Assembly. Which you mixed up with the Welsh Government. Which understandably does not include policies that it has no power to enforce in their transport policy.
With so much ignorance, one might think you might stop. But no, you double down.
Gosh. Getting a little cheesed off, are we, mister?
[
Furthermore, sparsely-populated areas and small towns have always been less interconnected by public transport systems than larger towns and cities. Pwllheli, with a population of just over 4,000, is actually served pretty well by the railways compared to similar-sized English towns such as Waverton, Coxheath and Hextable.
would that be due to people heading there for holidays ?
[
Furthermore, sparsely-populated areas and small towns have always been less interconnected by public transport systems than larger towns and cities. Pwllheli, with a population of just over 4,000, is actually served pretty well by the railways compared to similar-sized English towns such as Waverton, Coxheath and Hextable.
would that be due to people heading there for holidays ?
Possibly, but when the line was proposed and authorised Pwllheli wasn't actually the intended terminus - the original target was Porthdinllaen, possibly with an eye to developing a port there and tapping into the Dublin ferry trade.
Holiday trade was certainly a big part of the historic use of the lines into the town once they were built though.
The thing that amazes me is how often people ask bloody stupid questions to people in Wales that they would never think to ask in England.
What the actual fuck is meant by "how many people want to go from North Wales to South Wales? Since devolution, the government, parliament and most of the civil servants are in South East Wales. Unsurprisingly, a large number of people from North Wales live in Cardiff or Swansea. Aberystwyth has a fairly large university, as does Bangor.
How many people do you think might want to travel more easily between these places?
What is meant by the question is pretty clear, I would have thought. How many people want to do that journey? How many people would do the journey if the facility was there? Would the cost of the journey have an impact? It's pretty obvious to me that there is no point planning anything without assessing the demand first. Unless the magical money tree suddenly blooms and gives fruit.
Bloody stupid question? I don't think so and it should be asked anywhere.
All this anguish about railways makes me wonder whether our Esteemed Leader will send those Horrid Foreign Railway Companies packing, post-Brexshit, so that Our Railways can be reclaimed for The People.
Mussolini (it is said) caused the Italian railways of the 1930s to keep to the timetables, so The Mad Mophead may (I repeat, may ) do as well, or even better.
Just think! All those lovely new (or freshly repainted) trains, being operated by True Englishmen! What could possibly go wrong?
The thing that amazes me is how often people ask bloody stupid questions to people in Wales that they would never think to ask in England.
What the actual fuck is meant by "how many people want to go from North Wales to South Wales? Since devolution, the government, parliament and most of the civil servants are in South East Wales. Unsurprisingly, a large number of people from North Wales live in Cardiff or Swansea. Aberystwyth has a fairly large university, as does Bangor.
How many people do you think might want to travel more easily between these places?
What is meant by the question is pretty clear, I would have thought. How many people want to do that journey? How many people would do the journey if the facility was there? Would the cost of the journey have an impact? It's pretty obvious to me that there is no point planning anything without assessing the demand first. Unless the magical money tree suddenly blooms and gives fruit.
Bloody stupid question? I don't think so and it should be asked anywhere.
Part of the issue is that hypothetical questions rarely produce sensible answers, particularly absent other information. Does the new link enable you to get to a major hospital faster? Is it fast enough that you can commute to Cardiff for work? Is the route sufficiently picturesque that it supports tourist use in its own right, like the Snowdon Sherpa bus routes do?
There is an element of build it and they will come. The valley’s line is now used in decent numbers. Not massive but good enough. If that is anything to go by it will be ok
Why do you feel the need to insult other posters ?
I hope you choke to death on the logs of shit that come out of your mouth.
I've been a member of the ship since 2001 and recently re added to the new ship after catching up with old ship friends in the summer.
I understand the rules of hell and used to avoid it like the plague. I get that people have different opinions and hell is a place of swearing and insulting and general ranting about big and small things.
What I struggle to read though is that an established poster can tell another new poster that because he disagrees with his point of view he wishes him to 'choke to death'. I'm not sure how this doesn't seem just a tad overdramatic even for hell and doesn't just come over as hiding behind a keyboard and childish and how it possibly doesn't hit a grey line of behind what is excepable.
The thing that amazes me is how often people ask bloody stupid questions to people in Wales that they would never think to ask in England.
What the actual fuck is meant by "how many people want to go from North Wales to South Wales? Since devolution, the government, parliament and most of the civil servants are in South East Wales. Unsurprisingly, a large number of people from North Wales live in Cardiff or Swansea. Aberystwyth has a fairly large university, as does Bangor.
How many people do you think might want to travel more easily between these places?
What is meant by the question is pretty clear, I would have thought. How many people want to do that journey? How many people would do the journey if the facility was there? Would the cost of the journey have an impact? It's pretty obvious to me that there is no point planning anything without assessing the demand first. Unless the magical money tree suddenly blooms and gives fruit.
Bloody stupid question? I don't think so and it should be asked anywhere.
Part of the issue is that hypothetical questions rarely produce sensible answers, particularly absent other information. Does the new link enable you to get to a major hospital faster? Is it fast enough that you can commute to Cardiff for work? Is the route sufficiently picturesque that it supports tourist use in its own right, like the Snowdon Sherpa bus routes do?
The problem is that Blahblah is arguing not just that a rail link is desirable - he's arguing that the only reason it doesn't happen is because the Welsh Government doesn't have enough power. Which requires him to show that all of the other suggested reasons why it hasn't happened are false - but in reality, faced with the practical objections raised by Marvin and others, all he can do is shout about English ignorance.
I'm not sure exactly what BlahBlah's point is, but for my money (ha ha) and indeed from what I hear from Welsh friends on t'interwebs, is that there's a certain amount of resentment in paying for a line to get people from Birmingham to London a little bit quicker, when the Welsh rail system is in desperate need of development. It just about works around Caerdydd, but Caerfyrddin, Caernarfon, Bangor, Aberystwyth, Abergwaun, Penfro - these are significant destinations but they're damned hard to get from one to the other of. The linking branches are missing.
Similar resentment is shared in my neck of the woods. Hearing that they might only build the southern bit of HS2 makes the thing completely pointless to most of us. Indeed; it always did have limited utility - we can get to Leeds, Sheffield, London, Birmingham, York, Newcastle (if we're on the right side of the Pennines - Manchester, Preston, Carlisle if you're on the wrong side) quite easily and quickly enough already. What's missing is getting across the Pennines quicker than you could bloody cycle it. I exaggerate only slightly.
Oh, yeah, Bradford could do with being treated as something more than a stop along a branch line with crappy slow rattlers as well.
Comments
I'm sure the Welsh would appreciate the wisdom of your profound knowledge of the geography and railways of Wales.
Well, they might, if what you said was actually correct.
In fact it isn't. As with many other people who talk about Wales with only a tangential understanding of the issues, you lump places together and ignore real issues.
Take West Wales, for example. There is no way that a train from Cardiff to Aberystwyth via Shrewbury is quicker than driving.
Or take North West Wales. There is no way that a train from Cardiff via Shrewsbury is quicker than driving to Pwllheli. Between Machynlleth and Pwllheli it is probably quicker to walk than take the train.
There is also the issue of how Welsh-speaking areas in the South and South-West of Wales are isolated from the North and North-West because there is no viable train route. The further you go west from Cardiff, the more ridiculous the journey becomes to get to Pwllheli, nearly 8 hours from Llanelli.
I don't even live in Wales, but from where I am in SW England, I could catch a train and be in Scotland in that time.
The Carmarthen-Aberystwyth railway would cost money, but how much really would it be compared to HS2?
And if Welsh taxes are being used to pay for HS2, why are they not allowed to say "no, we would rather spend our contribution on our own railway"?
Railways in England have always been seen as multi-purpose, for industry, commuting and pleasure.
In Wales they were only ever for industry, usually for getting stuff out to England as quickly as possible.
When Wales became less useful as a reserve of coal, slate, iron etc, the railways became largely redundant.
And that's why what remains in Wales is incredibly disjointed. Nobody ever really contemplated that a Welsh person might want to go anywhere that wasn't either extremely close or in England.
But it is still much better than in Wales. You can still get from Bristol to anywhere in Wales more quickly than half of Wales can get to the other half.
I grew up in a town in the west country with nominally two railway stations. Unfortunately they were on different lines, neither was in the town nor were they near each other. Utter farce.
I am shocked at this because I have, on numerous occasions felt obliged to nominate myself for humility awards.
*clip clop clip clop*
Just a light hearted attempt at humour. No offence meant or sought.
You should know that Cardiff is a "Snooker station", ie, you have to get a red first. Oh, and the trains are crap. Underpowered, poorly built oh, the list goes on. If they were any worse they wouldn't exist, which is all we can be grateful for.
1. Run an express service between a handful of larger towns, in which case you haven't connected the north and the south, just a few specific points in the north to a few in the south; or:
2. Stop everywhere, in which case it's not a mainline any more.
Politicians like railways because they are big shiny projects that people in London can understand. A better question would be whether other forms of public transport would be more appropriate, such as long distance coaches.
And on the west coast mainline. In fact, anywhere Northern shares track with another train operator has two different speeds of service.
I am beginning to understand that.
Wales has long distance coaches, on the weekend they are free.
The thing that amazes me is how often people ask bloody stupid questions to people in Wales that they would never think to ask in England.
What the actual fuck is meant by "how many people want to go from North Wales to South Wales? Since devolution, the government, parliament and most of the civil servants are in South East Wales. Unsurprisingly, a large number of people from North Wales live in Cardiff or Swansea. Aberystwyth has a fairly large university, as does Bangor.
How many people do you think might want to travel more easily between these places?
The West Coast line in England goes all the way from SW England to Newcastle and beyond into Scotland.
It is relatively simple to get a train from Bristol to Birmingham and Manchester, as well as to smaller towns and cities between. And even nuch smaller places by stopping train.
There are also coaches.
Can you really imagine someone in Bristol being asked how many people want to go to Birmingam, because currently you have to go via Reading?
It's absurd. No wonder the Welsh hate us.
Funnily enough more people might do it more regularly if it didn't take hours to go a relatively short distance.
They are talking with excitement about the new "new" trains to be built in Newport. But it turns out they're not new either but will be reconditioned London tube trains.
You couldn't make it up.
I know that. My point is that if you chose just a handful of places to run an express service between - say, Fishguard, Aberystwyth, Caernarfon, Holyhead - then I doubt the demand would be sufficient to justify the expense of constructing the line, and the more stations you add, the less express it becomes.
Running a mixture of slow and fast trains doesn't really change that, because you are building an express-class railway (presumably with quadruple track in some places) just to run about three express trains a day.
I find your remarks to be nasty, unjustified and pathetic.
And here it is again. No, you can't have a decent train service between parts of Wales because it would be too expensive. No, you can't want North-South links in Wales because nobody would use it. No, you can't want a direct train because it is perfectly acceptable to go via Shrewsbury.
Maybe leave the Welsh Assembly and Welsh Government to make their own spending decisions with their own taxes instead of insisting on spending it on a Highspeed train line in England.
Why is that such an unreasonable idea?
Do you have any evidence that the Welsh Assembly even wants a railway along the west coast? Or are you just another Englishman telling the world what would be good for Wales?
The stupid. It burns.
I find your posts to be a horrifying santorum of idiocy and masturbation.
Life would be so much easier if you bothered to do your own homework.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-45957283
I did. Traws Link Cymru is not the Welsh Government. The Welsh Government doesn't list a Carmarthen-Aberystwyth link on the list of priorities in the document "The Rail Network in Wales: the Case for Investment", which I can't link to, but which you can probably Google.
I don't know why you are picking a fight with me anyway. I happen to agree with you that the Welsh Assembly should have more autonomy over public transport. I just don't think a Welsh west coast mainline is a good example of why, and I have given practical reasons for my opinion.
You didn't say Welsh Government, you said Welsh Assembly.
As the BBC link states, the feasibility study was paid for by the Welsh government.
And it is a policy of at least one of the parties in the Welsh Assembly to support the reopening of the line.
There are different opinions in the Welsh Assembly, informed by this feasibility study and community pressure.
But thankfully not from English people who cannot use google.
It also doesn't go through the south west. It actually goes from London through the midlands and doesn't get in sight of the west coast until it's well past Manchester. Perhaps the point being made was that you can get a direct train all the way from the south west to Newcastle without taking huge detours, true. You can start in Penzance and get to Newcastle 9 hours later.
Which is ironically how long it takes to get from one end of Wales to the other, despite its being rather smaller.
Party in the Assembly wants =/= the Assembly wants. Otherwise you would have to say the Westminster parliament wants Scottish independence.
Funding a feasibility study =/= wanting to do something. The point of a feasibility study is to help decide whether you want to do it or not.
Still don't understand why you are trying to pick a fight on this.
Could you even point to Afon Wen on a map, never mind explain its significance within Welsh railway history? Does the name "Gorseddau Junction" mean anything to you? Don't presume to lecture me about Welsh railways, kiddo.
The journey under discussion was Bangor-Cardiff. There are always going to be journeys that are quicker by car than by rail, wherever you are in the country.
Furthermore, sparsely-populated areas and small towns have always been less interconnected by public transport systems than larger towns and cities. Pwllheli, with a population of just over 4,000, is actually served pretty well by the railways compared to similar-sized English towns such as Waverton, Coxheath and Hextable.
The key unanswered question here is, of course, how many people actually want or need to make the journey. Do people in Milford Haven have a pressing need to get to Porthmadoc?
Railways exist to cater for significant travel flows that can justify the expense of building, running and maintaining them - they're not there to cater for every possible journey anyone might want to make regardless of how often that journey needs to be made. HS2, if and when it ever gets built, will carry ten times more people per day than live in Carmarthen and Aberystwyth combined.
Because they're not an independent country, with all the pros and cons that come with that fact. Should they ever decide to seriously press for independence then I will say good luck to them, and should they succeed they will be free to spend their own money on whatever they want.
With so much ignorance, one might think you might stop. But no, you double down.
Gosh. Getting a little cheesed off, are we, mister?
would that be due to people heading there for holidays ?
Possibly, but when the line was proposed and authorised Pwllheli wasn't actually the intended terminus - the original target was Porthdinllaen, possibly with an eye to developing a port there and tapping into the Dublin ferry trade.
Holiday trade was certainly a big part of the historic use of the lines into the town once they were built though.
What is meant by the question is pretty clear, I would have thought. How many people want to do that journey? How many people would do the journey if the facility was there? Would the cost of the journey have an impact? It's pretty obvious to me that there is no point planning anything without assessing the demand first. Unless the magical money tree suddenly blooms and gives fruit.
Bloody stupid question? I don't think so and it should be asked anywhere.
Mussolini (it is said) caused the Italian railways of the 1930s to keep to the timetables, so The Mad Mophead may (I repeat, may ) do as well, or even better.
Just think! All those lovely new (or freshly repainted) trains, being operated by True Englishmen! What could possibly go wrong?
Part of the issue is that hypothetical questions rarely produce sensible answers, particularly absent other information. Does the new link enable you to get to a major hospital faster? Is it fast enough that you can commute to Cardiff for work? Is the route sufficiently picturesque that it supports tourist use in its own right, like the Snowdon Sherpa bus routes do?
I understand the rules of hell and used to avoid it like the plague. I get that people have different opinions and hell is a place of swearing and insulting and general ranting about big and small things.
What I struggle to read though is that an established poster can tell another new poster that because he disagrees with his point of view he wishes him to 'choke to death'. I'm not sure how this doesn't seem just a tad overdramatic even for hell and doesn't just come over as hiding behind a keyboard and childish and how it possibly doesn't hit a grey line of behind what is excepable.
The problem is that Blahblah is arguing not just that a rail link is desirable - he's arguing that the only reason it doesn't happen is because the Welsh Government doesn't have enough power. Which requires him to show that all of the other suggested reasons why it hasn't happened are false - but in reality, faced with the practical objections raised by Marvin and others, all he can do is shout about English ignorance.
Similar resentment is shared in my neck of the woods. Hearing that they might only build the southern bit of HS2 makes the thing completely pointless to most of us. Indeed; it always did have limited utility - we can get to Leeds, Sheffield, London, Birmingham, York, Newcastle (if we're on the right side of the Pennines - Manchester, Preston, Carlisle if you're on the wrong side) quite easily and quickly enough already. What's missing is getting across the Pennines quicker than you could bloody cycle it. I exaggerate only slightly.
Oh, yeah, Bradford could do with being treated as something more than a stop along a branch line with crappy slow rattlers as well.