Heart of Wales Line

Heart of Wales Line
(Central Wales Line)
Overview
Type Heavy Rail
System National Rail
Locale South West Wales
Mid Wales
Shropshire
Termini Llanelli
Craven Arms
Stations 29
Operation
Opening 1868
Owner Network Rail
Operator(s) Arriva Trains Wales
Technical
No. of tracks Mainly single track
Track gauge 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Heart of Wales Line
Legend
Welsh Marches Line
to Shrewsbury
Craven Arms
to Hereford
Broome
 Hopton Heath
 Bucknell
 Knighton
England
Wales

border

 Knucklas
 Knucklas viaduct
Llangynllo
 Llanbister Road
 Dolau
Pen-y-Bont
 Llandrindod
Mid-Wales Railway
to Brecon
Builth Road
Mid-Wales Railway
to Welshpool
Cilmeri
 Garth
 Llangammarch
 Llanwrtyd
 Sugar Loaf
 Cynghordy
 Llandovery
 Llanwrda
 Llangadog
 Llandeilo
Carmarthen
West Wales Line
 Ffairfach
 Llandybie
 Ammanford
Amman Valley Railway

GCG Colliery
Pantyffynnon
 Pontarddulais
Hendy Junction/Morlais Junction:
Swansea District Line (goods line)

 Llangennech
 Bynea
to Carmarthen
Llanelli

West Wales Line
to Swansea

The Heart of Wales Line (Welsh: Rheilffordd Calon Cymru) is a railway line running from Craven Arms in Shropshire to Llanelli in South Wales. It runs, as the name suggests, through some of the heartlands of Wales. It serves a number of rural centres en route, including several once-fashionable spa towns, including Llandrindod Wells. At Builth Road, two miles (3.3 km) from the town of Builth Wells, the line formerly crossed the route of the earlier Mid Wales Railway, which closed in the 1960s.

History

The start of the line at Craven Arms, where it diverges from the Welsh Marches Line
Pantyffynnon railway station

Historically, the line was known as the Central Wales Line (Welsh: Rheilffordd Canol Cymru)[nb 1] and also included routes through Gowerton, where the railway crossed the West Wales Line and ran through Dunvant and Killay then down through the Clyne Valley to Blackpill, and then along the sea wall to Swansea Bay station, (near the former slip bridge) before finally reaching Swansea Victoria. This section, originally built by the Llanelly Railway and Dock Company to compete with the Great Western Railway and break the monopoly they held on Swansea Dock, closed in 1964. Nationalisation of the railways had removed the need for competing routes, and the running down and closure of Swansea North Dock ended the need for freight services on this section. Trains now use the original LR main line to reach the West Wales Line at Llandeilo Junction and thence Llanelli and (after a reversal) Swansea.

North of Llandovery, the route was opened in stages between 1861 and 1868 by a number of different companies (all backed by the LNWR) - the Knighton Railway, the Central Wales Railway and Central Wales Extension Railway.

The 1963 Beeching Report proposed the remainder of the Heart of Wales line for closure. As a rural branch line, it survived the Beeching Axe since it carried freight traffic, serving the steelworks at Bynea and industrial areas such as Ammanford and Pontarddulais, linking them with the docks at Llanelli. It also passed through six marginal constituencies. During engineering work, the line is still occasionally used as a diversionary freight route. The basic service over the line since the seventies has remained more or less constant, with four or five trains per day in each direction on weekdays and two or three on Sundays (although the latter ran in summer only until quite recently).

The line is single track throughout (except for a few miles at the southern end shared with the Swansea District Line) and has been operated under a Light Railway Order since 1972.[1] There are five passing loops, at Llandeilo, Llandovery, Llanwrtyd, Llandrindod and Knighton. Unless "Out of Course" working occurs the Llanwrtyd passing loop is in used on two of the Monday - Saturday services and the Llandrindod passing loop is in use on the other two and also on the Sunday services. The signalling was modernised in 1986,[2] when a system known as No Signalman Token Remote working was introduced. This is overseen by the signaller at Pantyffynnon, with the token instruments at the aforementioned five passing loops being operated by the train crew (the surviving signal boxes at each station having been closed as part of the modernisation scheme and the points converted to automatic operation).

For more than two years only two of the loops (Llandrindod and Llanwrtyd) were operational as Network Rail were unable to source spare parts for the points mechanisms used at all five: the design used is now obsolete. Parts had to be taken from the three decommissioned loops to keep the other two operational.[3] In 2009 NR stated their intention to install new conventional electric point machines at all five loops and restore the three out-of-service ones to full working order (after being heavily criticised by the chairman of the South Wales branch of Railfuture at the organisation's recent Annual General Meeting)[4] but were unable to give a timescale for this to be carried out as design work on the new equipment was still ongoing. NR began the replacement works for the points after first installing the system on the line to Pembroke Dock, at the Tenby loop, on 7 December 2009 and then making minor alterations in Feb 2010. Llandeilo was the first on the line to be modernised, the rest followed. The £5 million project was completed in October 2010.[5]

In 2014 Network Rail added exit indicators at the trailing end of each loop to aid in the reversing of services: a decision taken so that all moves have an active indication of the status of the motor points.

In 1987 tragedy struck the line near Llandeilo when the Glanrhyd Bridge collapsed following heavy flooding, and an early morning northbound train plunged into the swollen River Towy, killing four people. For a while the future of the line was in doubt (the equally rural Carmarthen - Aberystwyth line had been closed in 1965 following serious flood damage as the cost of repairs was deemed unacceptable) but political forces of all sides rallied to ensure the line's survival.

Services today

Train on Cynghordy Viaduct

Passenger Services

As of 2013, there are four trains per day in each direction on weekdays and two on Sundays. Trains are one or two carriages each, with a small team of staff. A buffet trolley service runs occasionally. The Heart of Wales line proper runs between Llanelli and Craven Arms, however train services normally terminate at Shrewsbury and Swansea. One train a day originates at Cardiff Central and two southbound weekday trains travel onwards from Swansea to Cardiff. Most stations are request stops.

At Craven Arms, the line joins the Welsh Marches Line to Church Stretton and Shrewsbury.

Passenger services are operated by Arriva Trains Wales using Class 150 or Class 153 diesel multiple units, although Class 175s have been used on rare occasions. The continued use of Class 153 DMUs has received criticism, notably from Kirsty Williams AM, who says:

“ The 153 units have a poor reliability record, can carry few bicycles, little bulky luggage, and offer poor visibility, and this on a line that is supposedly promoted as scenic[6] ”

The line has also been used for exceptional train movements, including:

GW/WR Pannier Tank in sidings of Tirydail Colliery, near Ammanford in 1962

Freight Services

Although no regular scheduled Freight Services use this line, the route is maintained to W5 standard to accommodate the occasional EWS diversions for Margam and Llanwern traffic when the south Wales route is closed.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Heart of Wales Line.

Notes

  1. ↑ Network Rail still use the name for the line, in an infrastructure sense.

References

  1. ↑ Central Wales Railway Light Railway (Amendment) Order 1990 www.opsi.gov.uk; Retrieved 2003-03-02
  2. ↑ NSTR Signalling www.railsigns.co.uk; retrieved 2009-02-27
  3. ↑ News Article in RAIL Magazine, Issue 614, p.15
  4. ↑ Heart of Wales Line In Danger Wales Online; Retrieved 2009-03-28
  5. ↑ News Article in RAIL Magazine, Issue 656, p.19
  6. ↑ , Developing the Heart of Wales Line

External links