The Welsh Could Be Having A Lot Of Fun Playing Trains In The Cardiff Valleys
After my trip to Ebbw Vale Town yesterday, I started searching the Internet to see what projects might be in the pipeline for rail lines in the Valleys up from Cardiff.
There are a lot of routes spreading out from Cardiff, to places all over South Wales.
Currently, all lines are operated by a mixture of various types of diesel multiple unit, but David Cameron announced that the lines will be electrified in this report on the Government web site, published in November 2014. He said this.
I am delighted to announce today that we are going to press ahead with the electrification of the Valley Lines. After years of neglect, this part of Wales will finally get the infrastructure it needs with faster, more modern, more efficient trains and the impact will be huge.
Spreading the employment opportunities from Cardiff and out to the Valleys and helping hardworking people from all parts of this great nation to get on. This has only been possible because of the UK government and shows our long-term economic plan in action and working for the people of Wales.
It would be assumed that this will go ahead and it will be overhead electrification. The trains could be refurbished Class 315 electric multiple units, if this statement on their future on Wikipedia proves to be true.
On 31 May 2015, the fleet will again be divided with 44 (315818-315861) moving to TfL Rail (MTR Crossrail) with the Shenfield Metro services and the other 17 (315801-315817) to London Overground with the Lea Valley services. As most duties of the 315s will be taken over by new Class 345 Aventra trains once Crossrail is built, it has been suggested that the 315s could be cascaded to the Wales and Borders passenger franchise to be used on Valley Lines services in the Cardiff area following electrification
They may be nearly forty years old, but they aren’t bad trains and perhaps more importantly sixty-one trains will start to come available from London local services as the electrification is completed. In January, In January, I posted an article entitled Transport for London Get The Cleaners, Painters And Engineers Ready For The Shenfield Metro, so I would envisage that they will be cascaded in the best condition London could manage.
These trains are also all four carriages, so there would be more seats on the lines, if the electrics worked a similar timetable to the current diesels.
It is interesting to read this article on Wales On Line entitled Could electrification herald an expansion of the Valleys Lines trains? This is said for a start.
John Rogers, chairman of Railfuture’s South Wales branch, said: “The Welsh Government has a statutory duty to be an ecological government. Electrification brings lower maintenance costs and faster acceleration of trains. There’s historical evidence that electric trains are very popular and lead to increased patronage.
“It doesn’t make sense to electrify to a certain point and then say later, ‘We’re going to add another two or three miles. Can you come back and electrify it?’”
Don’t I just know it that when electric trains prove popular as here in East London, it is a non-stop struggle to increase the capacity to keep up with demand, by continually lengthening the Class 378 Trains on the London Overground.
So for a start, the Cardiff Valley Lines will probably eventually need all of those sixty-one trains, which can work in eight-carriage units on the busier lines if necessary.
They’ll also probably need to increase the car parking and bus frequencies at the outlying stations.
The Class 315s biggest advantage over the current diesels other than ecological and passenger comfort and space ones are that they possess better acceleration and Braking performance, although they have nominally the same top speed.
In the same article on Wales On Line this is said about the proposed extension to Hirwaun.
In February 2011, Network Rail delivered a report which the WG had commissioned into extending the Aberdare service to Hirwaun along a track now used only for occasional freight trains. The report estimated the infrastructure cost at £17m, which would include a loop line at Aberdare.
There is only one track for trains in both directions between Abercynon and Aberdare, with trains using a loop line at Mountain Ash to pass each other.
The loop is positioned to allow trains to leave each station along the line at the same minutes past each half hour.
A diesel train could not run from Mountain Ash to Hirwaun and back in time for the next service to follow 30 minutes later. Therefore an extra train would be needed for the Hirwaun extension, along with a new loop and extra signalling equipment for trains to pass each other at Aberdare.
The only scenario explored in Network Rail’s report was a service operated by today’s Sprinter and Pacer diesel trains, which date from the 1980s. However, modern electric trains would accelerate and brake faster for each station call, and promise to cut many minutes from journey times in the Valleys.
So electrification could deliver other benefits.
The article also suggests that the line I used to Ebbw Vale Town could be simpler if it were electrified.
A study by consultants for Network Rail in 2010 said the planned extension northwards from Ebbw Vale Parkway might involve constructing two tracks at the future Ebbw Vale Town station. This would incur the costs of building two station platforms and installing signalling equipment. Diesel trains would then be able to depart from the new station every 30 minutes, alternately to Cardiff and Newport.
In June 2011 Network Rail delivered a report on the Ebbw Vale line to the WG, again based ,on the service being provided by Sprinters, which said two platforms might be needed at Ebbw Vale Town. It seems likely, however, that only one track and one platform would be needed for electric trains.
I think they’ve started to create some of the new infrastructure, so the doubling of platform and stations might happen anyway.
The article finishes by listing several places, where lines could be extended.
3. Treherbert to Blaenrhondda or Blaencwm
Other sources talk about.
1. Reinstating a service to Abertillery.
2. Llantrissant to Beddau
3. St Fagans to Creigau
4. Routes out of Brigend via Tondu.
There’s certainly a lot of disused railway lines for the Welsh to speculate on. But then there were an awful lot of collieries.
So it looks like the Welsh are going to have fun in the Valleys.
In some ways it reminds me of the buzz that was felt where I grew up in Enfield in North London, when they electrified and extended the Lea Valley Lines in the 1960s.
It does all illustrate how electrification of rail lines isn’t as simple as you think, as it seems to give opportunities for more services and generate addition passenger traffic, that have other consequences.
I think the only thing we can say with any certainty, is that if the electrification goes ahead and the Class 315 trains are cascaded, then transport in and around the Welsh capital will be vastly improved.
The Anonymous Widower 
[…] The Welsh are also keen to create a South Wales Metro for some time. I wrote about my observations on the trains in the area in The Welsh Could Be Having A Lot Of Fun Playing Trains In The Cardiff Valleys. […]
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