Reply With QuoteWhoever it is one of the first actions should be to stop automatically prosecuting people with ridiculous amounts in fines for not having a ticket
Show a bit of humanity occasionally
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It's decision time on who is going to be the next rail franchise, MTR and Keolis are the two remaining bidders.
The whole project sounds exciting for Cardiff and the wider region but I don't know much about either bidder, who is the preferred? They both seem like they have excellent services elsewhere but that is where the infrastructure already exists?
Both turnover £4billion a year
Whoever it is one of the first actions should be to stop automatically prosecuting people with ridiculous amounts in fines for not having a ticket
Show a bit of humanity occasionally
I can't understand why there wasn't a state bidder
Nationalize the network
Invest millions upon millions of public money in upgrades to track and trains and facilities
Sell for a pittance to Virgin after 3 years
Update and modernise. That’s all I ask. More trains to the smaller stations. Make getting the train easy not hard work like it is now.
Electrify, with some trains that don't belong in a museum.
Would also like to see a park and ride station at st Mellons
A station IN the terminal building at Cardiff airport.
Pricing that includes the bus and trains in a single journey like in London, all contactless.
I think the northern valleys aberdare/merthyr could benefit from a rail link to Swansea, thee isn't a big section of track that would be needed and it would mean that they would have 2 cities to be able to commute to .
Hang on, you think there will be significant investment in the UK outside of London?Originally Posted by Rjk
All our money goes to improve their already good transport links.
The metro all comes under the Cardiff Capital Region city deal so no desire to do Swansea Bay Region city deal's job for it
It would benefit the Cardiff region if more jobs were accessable to people in merthyr and aberdare (assuming there were any jobs in Swansea).
Things like that help develop the local economy. The transport infrastructure we have in south Wales has basically grown out of a system that was designed to extract (mineral) wealth and get it out of the country as quickly as possible. Other parts of the world with a similar transport infrastructure (several examples in south America I think) are often economically worse off than their neighbours. Anything that makes our transport infrastructure not look like that would probably help.
It is similar in North Wales too.
Public transport links from the valleys to Swansea are absolutely atrocious. Years ago, a bus went from Treorchy over the Rhigos to Swansea. There have been direct buses from Aberdare and there is currently a shite bus service from Merthyr.
Every attempt to create links with the land of the unclean and the valleys usually dies off rather quickly. Not enough people use the services and so they're not remotely profitable. Train links only work if the service is regular enough and the commute from stations at either end is relatively painless - no point using a train if you work in Amazon for example.
I'm all for your idea, I think it's great and needed, but it would cost a fortune and never be profitable.
This link shows there's a freight line that could possibly be upgraded, but yeah it would cost a fortune.
http://www.systemed.net/carto/New_Ad...lway_Atlas.pdf
Imagine the metro system that we could have been talking about if the Tories hadn't decimated the railways in the 60s, practically every town had a station on that map
The problem with what you say is that Beeching was actually affiliated to the Labour party and most of his recommendations were implemented by a Labour government who had strong ties (and probably large amounts of funding) from the road transport unions, who wanted to replace railways with bigger road networks and therefore benefit their own members at the expense of railway staff. The Conservatives did commission the reports from Beeching in the first place, due to the vast amounts of money being lost every year but to solely blame them for the current situation is way wide of the mark.
Yes there were some dodgy practices going on at the time too trying to force freight onto the roads away from the rails. Lorries mysteriously breaking down on level crossings and blocking the tracks for hours.
On paper it looked like it.made sense, but so many of the assumptions were flawed.
Prior to the Beeching axe in the 1960's, Wales had more miles of railway than it had people. Almost every town or village was connected by rail, with tunnels between the valleys which meant easy travel between them.
I remember that as a kid in the early sixties we lived in Neath, and used to travel to Maesteg to visit family by train, from Neath, changing at Cymmer Afan then through a tunnel into Maesteg. It was all closed down in the 60's. It was possible to travel from Swansea to the Rhondda by rail then, without going anywhere near Bridgend or Cardiff - through to Cymmer Afan, then Blaengwynfi and a tunnel to the Rhondda. Some of the rail beds are still there, but many have now been built over or converted into mountain bikes trails/ nature walks.
That's a fascinating map. Often wondered if such a thing existed.
It looks more feasible than I thought to implement a line, but I can't see passenger usage sustaining it :-(
Beeching's brief was provided by Harold MacMillan in 1960. There is a dispute as to whether Beeching was sacked by Harold Wilson in 1965, or left of his own accord, each side publicising their own story. As the NUR was one of the most powerful unions at the time, your assertion that the Road Transport Union could out manoeuvre the NUR is way off the mark.
As the Tories were in power from 1960 - 1964, and Beeching left in 1965, all the decisions would have been made by the Tories, who's interest in privately owned Road Transport companies rather than a Nationalised Rail System was far greater.
Yeah it is a really interesting map, several stations in Cardiff I'd never heard of too.
Sadly now it's just a record of what could have been.
Funny though isn't it that the Victorians could build railways and libraries but we can't any more?
Why did ynys y bwl need so many stations though?
More opportunities to get out of there?
And we're still relying on much of that infrastructure now.
And yet the road journey from the Rhondda to Swansea/Neath is a quicker one than the one from Rhondda to Cardiff because of the far better quality of the roads for much of the time.
I live about two hundred yards from the old Blaenrhondda station apparently - I wonder why the decision was taken to close the last half a mile or so on the Rhondda line when the rest of it was kept in place?
It'll be the Hong Kong lot
That is surprising how much railway we actually had! More than the majority of the UK combined.
Saw that the new contract will include minimum service standards and any excess profit will be re-invested, otherwise they won't be paid? Surely this is a good step if they can actually implement it!
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-wales-...anchise-holder
Royal Mail used to train masses of mail ,built there sorting offices alongside stations ,how eco friendly is that.
But you were at left at the fate of British Rail , which had a poor service ,and a heavy unionised body .
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