Gwili Railway- Southern Extension.

Hello viewers, is there any new news about the Gwili Railway's southern extension towards Carmarthen?

 

Gwili Extension

I did look for the old thread but I think it got wiped out when the forum changed!

The latest news is that all the planned track bashes have been completed for this year. In the summer around 16 panels were laid and this comprised material recovered from the Swansea Vale Railway. This took the track to within 1/2 mile of the Carmarthen to Lampeter road bridge, and 3/4 mile from the far end of the proposed station site at Carmarthen.

Material from the Swansea Vale Railway is still arriving, including rail, sleepers, points and buffer stops.

The next stage of the extension comprises the following:

1. Insertion of a point at the railhead to allow for the construction of a siding to accomodate stock from the Swansea Vale Railway

2. The removal of a small bridge over a dried up leat, which will be infilled

Following this, the next major track bash will probably be after Easter 2010, as over the winter the P Way team will divert their attention to some track renewal on the existing operational railway. Although the railway now has all the trackwork required to complete the extension, it is unlikely that all the trackwork will be in place next year.

On the S and T side, the signal box at Bronwydd is temporarily closed to allow for adjustments and alterations to the locking in anticipation of the re-signalling of Bronwydd Station to allow trains to operate on the extension. Next year again it is planned that the signalling system at the Bronwydd end will be completed by September.

Alterations are also required at Bronwydd to change the current 4 gate system to a 2 gate system. Plans on this front are also being progressed.

The Railway sucessfully applied for renewal of it's Planning Permission relating to the access road, car park and Station at Carmarthen last year and discussions are ongoing with various bodies about possible funding avenues.

So, there is a fair bit happenning both on the ground and behind the scenes, these things do take time unfortunatley!

 

Thank You Matt78.

 

A picture of the present 'end of steel' looking back towards Bronwydd. The red van in the distance represents the point at which this year's tracklaying started, and the cleared land on the right will be used to lay a siding.

 

Are there any Gwili updates for us? Matt, if you had to put a rough timeframe on things do you think that the extension will be complete by next year and perhaps open to passengers by 2012 or is it not possible to say?

Also, rather more off-topic, but does the railway hope to find an ex-BR locomotive of their own at some point, once the extension is open to the public perhaps?

Thanks, and I realise those are questions which probably don't have an easy answer...

 

Yes you are right, there are no easy answers...at the moment the P Way gang are concentrating on some relaying on the operating section, which has just been completed. While we had a JCB in we were able to take the decking off the small bridge on the extension which I've mentioned above so that it can be removed and infilled.

Later this year more progress will be made with tracklaying and also the construction of a siding on the extension. Again at the moment some of the team are helping with the recovery of materials from the Swansea Vale Railway, such as pointwork. Other progress is being made with S and T work at Bronwydd for the extension.

The major expense in the extension (relativley speking) will not be the track, as we now have this to hand, but the construction of the station, car park, access road at Carmarthen etc. This will require some significant finance, and hence might take longer to come to fruition. So there is no date for the openning on this part, however I suspect there might be a growing lobby to consider openning the first mile or so for say DMU's like the DFR did previously to Whitecroft before Parkend. This is not an official policy ATM, but we would have to consider the pro's and con's of this very carefully. Openning of the last extension in 2001 was followed by a flury of visiting BR locos for a few years or so I do believe that by getting bigger the railway does become more appealing to loco owners and thereby answering your second point!

 

please visit the new website for all updates for the extention http://grcarmex.co.uk