Traws Link Cymru - threat to the Gwili?

A lot of it is steeply sloping bedrock with an embamkment for the railway and then the river on the other side! All the valley sides are steep, hence all the tight curves.

It would be interesting to see how they would double one section on the Abergwili extension. Looking north, on the left side you have a 2 in 1 (yes, that is the right way round!) bedrock slope down to track level, then a 1 metre ditch, 4 metres of trackbed, 1 1/2 metres of 45 degree (down) embankment and finally a 3 metre vertical (ish) drop into the river! Perhaps they could fit a mezzanine level track? It would be easy to tell which was the 'up or 'down' lines then!

 

Mention of TRAWS Link in Barrie Hughs' blog (including link to a regional newspaper report) is why I put this here, as there's - unusually - not a massive ammount on the WHR this time round.
http://isengard.co.uk/#News

Perhaps TRAWS will grow legs and warrant it's own thread, but I remain sceptical about it's value. The Bangor-Afon Wen section seems viable enough, given tourism in and around Snowdonia, less so the southern option where potential traffic from the intermediate catchment on the old Mid-Wales Rly (Newtown to Brecon) and onto the valleys network, far exceeds anything the southern link (Aberystwyth to Carmarthen) may offer. It puts a major Welsh town (Brecon) back on the network, there's way more potential for bulk freight and .... re-opening the Mid Wales line would put the best railway junction name ever back on the map!

 

I still remember the shock that I felt as an 11 year old when all the lines to Brecon were so ruthlessly closed in 1962 - even before the Beeching Report. Western region were very keen on closing lines.

John

 

For anyone interested the Welsh Government have now published their feasibility study into the re-opening of the Aberystwyth- Carmarthen line.

https://beta.gov.wales/aberystwyth-...FiBYtveZbp4Nx2xoIHq8DB09luMEPDuwsxcq-FWanLaiA

 

Hmmm. So there is a need for another study.....

Regards

Matt

 

Well that study says lets close the Gwili steam railway down and use the trackbead to reopen the railway for commuter trains.

 

Just had a more detailed read. It is certainly heavy going.

Apart from the Gwili conclusions there are some serious caveats in the report. Closing the road bridge over the river Towy in Carmarthen is going to generate some serious opposition I think. The report also dodges the wider “social” argument for the line after concluding that the reinstatement isn’t economically viable. Some big concerns also regarding the reinstatement through Tregaron area and the SSI, seems to imply that it is a huge can of worms.

I guess those that want to see it happen will cling to the statement that it is “technically feasible” though.

Who knows what will happen next though, I guess very little will happen now until after March 2019 and we know where we are heading with Bexit.

Regards

Matt

 

No, the study says that if you want a viable railway from Camarthen to Aberystwyth, your only half way viable route is over the Gwili trackbed. Having glanced through it, my conclusion is that it says that it will cost £775m to build a railway that will deliver, having dug very deep to find all possible sources of benefit, a mere £333m of economic value.

The answer to whether it will be built, and what would happen to those in the way - including the Gwili railway - if it does progress, lie in the world of politics, not economics. I cannot see a reasonable case for this railway to be built at such vast cost, when it would clearly be of borderline economic value without that infrastructure investment. Reopening raises major issues for ecology, history, economics, tourism - everything.

 

Per year? We know most studies do undershoot.

Mind if the Welsh government wants to Chuck a few hundred million to the gwili...

 

The more interesting conclusion is, arguably, that it sets a precedent for the idea of main line and heritage railways sharing a route to be unfeasible.

 

I only skimmed the report. I suspect the gap is over a number of years.


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Closing the Cambrian to Shrewsbury would free up subsidy and increase passenger numbers.

 

That is heavy going. The main point I noted was the best case benefits gap (the gap between the economic costs and the benefits) is £442 million !

No wonder the summing up says:-
"Where the above demonstrates the absence of any realistic prospect of either improving the economic benefits of the scheme, or reducing its overall cost, it is readily apparent that the scheme does not present a positive economic case.
As such the scheme is only likely to be progressed in regard to wider societal needs, and strategic aims, the consideration of which is beyond the scope of this study. Low local population levels (and levels of business, leisure, tourism activity, etc.) impose the key constraint on realistic demand levels, and thus achievable economic benefit."
I think the dozen or so people who commute by bus from Lampeter to Carmarthen each weekday morning (So few I can count them as the bus passes my house ) will still be using the bus for a long while yet.

 

A report written by a realist!

 

In the main I agree with this but there is a stark warning in the report about the Tregaron “bog” issue. This is the only technical issue that the report doesn’t definitively answer. It certainly implies that this could be a show stopper despite the political sound bites hailing the report as a “breakthrough”

Regards

Matt

 

I think its a great shame that this report doesn't seem likely to kill off this project. The whole thing is a folly which fails to take in to account the natural flows of people and money being East to West rather than North to South.

Just imagine the benifits a fraction of that sum could do to improve journey times on the Cambrain and HOWL both of which would yield far more beinfits than the Carmarthen - Aber

 

There's a lot of talk of flooding and river scour in the report. Here's a picture from the weekend before last that might give you some idea of what can happen. Friday night this was a green valley with the river meandering through it. Saturday morning this was the scene:-

The river is (normally!) in the tree line just behind the fence. The railway embankment has been removed here but the alignment is from left to right just on the camera side of the fence - where the lower sheep are grazing.

 

Aberystywth promotes its university which provides the major income source for the town internationally by its rail links with air travel through Birmingham with which it has direct rail access, it has a single change access to London through Wolverhampton or Birmingham, the latter has quicker access for shopping than travel to the inferior Cardiff would ever have, the only purpose for a S Wales rail link would be political, failing to accept that Mid Wales links to England not to S Wales, just as N Wales values its rail access to Manchester rather than any notion that Cardiff matters.