The Gwili Railway thread

And £3bn by the time of completion.

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Lets not forget that the last feasibility report showed that the Gwili Railway would have to close if the C-A line was reopened. They did suggest, I seem to remember, that the Gwili could locate to one of three branch lines, I can only count two and one of those is occupied by the Teifi Valley Railway. The Aberaeron branch north of Lampeter is, in my opinion, much too far from centres of population to be viable.

 

Possibly but it's part of the desire to have an ALL IN WALES line between north and south which in certainly something that, rightly or wrongly, the nationalists want.

 

The same goes for many things in life.

 

Will never happen, never was one built for that specific purpose in steam days, just as the Marches wasn't built for it. People in Wales move east<>west not north<>south.

 

Isn't on the agenda and if came on the agenda happen serious questions would be asked in this financial climate. The populations of Aberystwyth and Carmarthen combined are less than 1% of the country's population. The Traws Cymru T1 bus service is the beginning of the answer. The trouble is though both towns share the same health board and have an above average aged population.

 

It would be a different story if neither of the towns you meantioned where still connected to the network but the both are. Now imagine if that 750m actually existed what it could do to enchance journey times on the CWL, Cambrain and the West Wales mainline. All of which would deliver far more benfits than Carms-Aber.

Any to drag this conversation back on topic the contractors moved on site today to start prepartion work for laying the internal walkways in Dan Do.

 

You don't have DMUs in Sussex, do you? It isn't necessary to double your steam loco / carriage costs overnight just by going from 5 to say 6 or 7 miles... other options exist!
The other factor is that once you get above a certain length it's easier to keep people on site for the day, rather than half-day, which increases secondary spend. Combine your extension with a nice cafe at the far end and the model looks a bit different.

 

Wasn't that based on bypassing the Gwili section, including quite a bit of tunnelling, though?

 

It would be considerably cheaper to move the Welsh border east a bit. After all, it's only a line on a map...

 

You would also need to factor in the cost of the additional funny road signs.

 

No, the main cost would be bringing the roads up to a standard appropriate for putting 'Welsh Language' signs by...shocking how poor roads are across the border compared to Wales and silly that is seemingly acceptable!

 

It is on the political agenda, just look through the Senedd record of proceedings to see how often it is mentioned. Doesn't means it will happen but it's certainly going to be talked about. I can't see it ever being built as it will never add up but if there is a Political will then you never know.

 

How long was the loop and platforms at Conwil ? Looking longer term I wonder how long before a longer passing loop might be needed at Dan y Coed.

 

The big problem with this is "how many of the people who are proposing the reinstatement of the line will actually travel on it?"

I can't see that there will be many, as they'd have to get out of their cars and take the train instead - and they'd then complain that the services are not to their liking!

 

Yes it was but the report concluded that the tunnel options were much to expensive, hence the recommendation of "moving" the Gwili away from the C-A line.

 

Well you could certainly fit in the 6 coach trains that the Gwili currently operate. I doubt if there will ever be a crossing loop at Danycoed as it would be too close to Conwil to warrant one.

 

Lets be honest, nowhere on the route from Abergwili to Llanpumsaint can be called a "destination". Llanpumsaint has a pub but not much else so whilst the journey there would be longer, the scenery will be broadly similar to the latter stages of the current route and therefore unlikely to draw significant extra passengers outside the enthusiast community. I think developing Abergwili into something like Bo'ness, featuring a museum of Welsh railways with the current journey as an add on attraction is the way to go.

 

I would suggest you probably haven’t seen the section between Conwil and Llanpumsaint. The views are totally different from the rest of the line and are fairly unique with no signs of modernity and more akin to the step sided gorges southern France than Welsh valley.

 

Absolutely agree with almost everything in the first sentence. However, whilst a longer railway probably wouldn't attract non-enthusiast passengers, I DO think that the passengers who came would enjoy a longer journey even more, especially as it wouldn't make the timetable dramatically longer in time. As regards the second comment, as a Gwili member since 1977 and having in the past been a very regular volunteer for 25 years and having often visited the Bo'ness set up I would put the relevance the other way around - the journey being the MAIN attraction with the development of Abergwili, including the museum, being a VERY important add on.