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News ItemsUpdated 8th July 2008 |
| Up and Down the Line Other News The World Turned Upside Down Steam News |
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| On Tuesday March 18th, Class 66 locomotive, No. 66 114 with a driver training special waits for the 1527 ex Aberystwyth to arrive
at Machynlleth. The crew training was being carried out in preparation for the extensive engineering works this year. Photo:- Gareth Marston |
Up and Down the Line
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| Shrewsbury Has been listed as one of the few stations to get an upgrade in the latest list from central government. Of course no sign of it happening has taken place yet. According to Network Rail's Wales Route Utilisation Study, Aberystwyth bound departures will in future all use Platform 3 once it's been upgraded. If (when) an hourly service is started it envisaged that additional 2 car Aberystwyth trains will join/detach from a Holyhead - Birmingham International service (an expansion of the current New St to Chester two hourly services) at Shrewsbury. There's also talk of acquiring a small number of extra Class 158's for the franchise - but where from is not identified. Welshpool At least some enlightened thinking has returned to the Town, with the Town Council actively looking at bringing the Light Railway back through the town centre. It's now universally acknowledged to have been a mistake banishing it to the town edge. Unfortunately the mainline station is still stuck in its less than favourable spot, with no local public transport links. Vandals recently broke the glass in the end of the platform shelter and several weeks later it had not been replaced. The seats in the shelter have also been bent downwards to the extent that about half of them are unusable. Station adoption at Welshpool does not seem to have been an unqualified success, with little action from Arriva in response to matters raised by adopters. Since the scheme began, we are led to believe that two of the team have left in disgust at Arriva's attitude. We have reported before regarding the dearth of bus services which serve the railway station at Welshpool. Despite efforts by the new town clerk, there has been no change. A new "Heritage" town bus service will be operating during the summer, however and the good news is that it will actually call at the station, serving both the Welshpool & Llanfair Railway and Powis Castle, as well as the town itself. The Bad News is that it misses the main line trains by about half an hour on every occasion, so it will not be a great deal of use, with the possible exception of the 40% or so of instances when the Arriva rail service turns up late! As regards, proper integrated connections between bus and rail, it seems that further moon landings would appear more likely as these rely on the simple and easy to understand discipline of Rocket Science. Newtown Premises near the station in the Old Kerry Road were the centre of national media interest in May following arrests into fund raising activities on behalf of the alleged Terrorist/ Freedom Fighting (dependent on your views) Tamil Tigers. The Station Grill is closed. We seem to recall that the original business plan for Cafe Loco assumed an hourly service and trade being around in the daytime. Whatever happened to that? It might have made more sense, however if the various propietors of this venue had felt a little more benign to rail travellers. The platform door at "Station Grill" was for some time locked shut and access was only from the street side. Caersws Somewhat peeved at a recent story claiming that Rhayader had the most pubs per head of population in the UK, villagers recall a Guinness book of records entry for the village from the 1950's claiming them the champions. A lot of villagers worked at Moat Lane Junction in those days of course, and tales of legendary drinking sessions at the old Junction refreshments rooms have been retold. A tale of a young Llanidloes fireman's 18th birthday resulting in him sleeping "on the cushions" back to Llani whilst the driver drove and fired have been told. Apparently the passengers didn't mind as they were all inebriated too. The train was over an hour late due to more drink being consumed! Talerddig The station house greenhouse was a casualty of high winds in April. The free range chickens in the hen coop have been observed wandering the tracks on occasions. Machynlleth The long siding at the Talerddig end is covered in 18 inch tall grass and rammed wooden blocks instead of clips and missing bolts can still be seen on joins between rails - reported by SARPA 2 years ago. This will be used to stable the West Coast stock for the steam specials. Dyfi Junction Work continued on the platform rising long after the 9 day possession in April. The photo below, by Adrian Vaughan shows 7803 at Dovey Junction, as it was then named and complete with passing loop in the early 1960s. |
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Aberystwyth Has been listed as one of the few stations to get an upgrade in the latest list from central government. Of course no sign of it happening has taken place yet. The Relative Importance of Cambrian Line Stations For a full view of passenger numbers using stations on the Cambrian lines, see the website of the Office of Rail Regulation and click on the link for Station Usage Excel sheet. These figures are a listing of all stations in Great Britain, ranked in order of importance, based on the number of people using them. They exclude journeys made using Travel Passes, Rover tickets bought off the line, as well as staff travel passes. There is a clear growth in use for stations on the Cambrian Main Line Back to Top |
The World Turned Upside Down
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| From the Australian Track & Signal Magazine Australia appears to have a vibrant rail industry, with a viable rolling stock manufacturing sector, which contrasts with some of the disappointments here over the past 12 years or so since privatisation. Naturally, we think that the UK could do better with rail transport, being the 4th or 5th biggest economy, depending on who you talk to. We bring you some highlights from down under. Perth Mandura Railway The Australians have opened another railway! Not a marathon route across the bush this time but a suburban railway in Western Australia, which runs from central Perth to Mandurah, 70 kilometres away. Thousands cheered on the Mandurah Station platform as the first train on the Perth-to-Mandurah railway line pulled in on 25th December last. 1500 lucky West Australians, including politicians, media and those who won seats in a public ballot, got to take the inaugural 48-minute ride from Perth to Mandurah that morning. Hundreds more crammed into the Perth Underground Train Station at William Street to experience part of WA public transport history. Planning and Infrastructure Minister Alannah MacTiernan, Premier Alan Carpenter and former Premier Geoff Gallop were all on board to take part in the festivities. But for Ms MacTiernan, it was a day to breathe a sigh of relief to see the project come to fruition after many cost blowouts and delays in construction. "I feel very pleased that we've been able to deliver this project. It has been a tough project. So it's a feeling of satisfaction that we've been able to deliver, to the people of Western Australia, what we'd pledged we would do," Ms MacTiernan said. Mandurah locals gave Ms MacTiernan a rock star reception and full credit for her efforts in making the long-awaited project come to life. "It's a great asset to the city, to the state, to the people who live here now and all the generations to come. It's a magnificent project…this project will forever be associated with Alannah. It's a huge achievement," Premier Carpenter said. The railway line has reduced travelling time dramatically for those using the Kwinana Freeway, while providing a huge boost for the environment. Projections show there'll be more than 50,000 boardings each day on the 72 km, double track railway, taking almost 21,000 cars off the Freeway. "This is the project that really is going to bring home the bacon for this community. Already we see buses take around 60-65 minutes, for a bus to go from Mandurah to Perth. With a train service, that's 48 minutes," Ms MacTiernan said. Seems a far cry from the way we do things here! Here is a two part video posted on YouTube about the railway. Part one is below and the story continues in Part two. Part 2 New Zealand Ends Rail Privatisation New Zealand which privatised its railways the year before Britain has this month brought back the railways totally into public ownership. From 1993 to 2004 the network (including the track) was owned by a private company, Tranz Rail, formerly New Zealand Rail Limited. The infrastructure has been renationalised. In May 2008 the New Zealand Government agreed to buy Toll NZ's rail and ferry operations for $665 million. As of 1 July 2008 the New Zealand rail network is operated by KiwiRail. The railway infrastructure was brought back into public ownership in 2004. KiwiRail was launched by Prime Minister Helen Clark after the assets were transferred to the government on 1 July 2008 from the private company which held the rights to the franchise until 2070. The chairman of the new company is Jim Bolger who as prime minister sold off the railways to private enterprise 15 years ago. Mr Bolger said the cost of fuel and environmental concerns had changed and Mrs Clark said the renationalisation was a major step in building a sustainable transport system for the 21st century. She said: "With rising fuel prices and a sense of urgency in the fight against climate change, governments around the world are again looking to rail as a central party of 21st century economic infrastructure. "With our rail system back in public ownership, we can make the strategic decisions and investments necessary for rail to play its full part in building a more sustainable New Zealand. "Over time, we will be able to move more and more freight off our roads and on to rail. Rail will also play a bigger role in public transport in our major centres." A rail development group will present the government with recommendations for the future structure of the rail businesses in early August. Finance Minister Michael Cullen commented that privatisation had clearly not worked. He said: "From asset-stripping to trading scandals, New Zealand's experiment with rail privatisation failed to produce much-needed investments in this critical part of New Zealand's transport infrastructure. "By bringing our rail system back into public ownership we will spare future generations from subsidising a private rail operator and we will be able to create an integrated, sustainable transport system." Infrastructure Problems Further West We found this on a site called "Newsvine" Click here to read the full article. Okay, so its not the Antipodes which is the theme of this section but if we think we have problems with timekeeping here on the Cambrian, spare a thought for fellow conspirators over in America. By 2035, traffic jams on the railways there could be so severe trains would grind to a halt for days with nowhere to go. "For those of you who've ever seen a good rail meltdown, this is what it looks like," said Matthew Rose, CEO of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. "It's literally chaos in the supply chain." While the nation's attention is focused on air travel congestion and the high cost of fuel for highway driving, a crisis is developing under the radar for another form of transportation - the freight trains used to deliver many of the goods that keep the U.S. economy humming. The nation's 140,000-mile network of rails devoted to carrying everything from cars to grain by freight is already groaning under the strain of congestion, with trains forced to stand aside for hours because of one-track rail lines. It's probably going to get worse over the next two decades, according to an analysis of government and industry projections by The Associated Press and interviews with experts on rail freight. The damage to the U.S. economy could climb into the billions of dollars. Higher shipping costs would raise prices for everything from lumber to grain. One analyst said the rail crunch could add thousands of dollars to the price of a car. "It's not rocket science to see we have a calamity coming down the road," said Paul Bingham, a transportation analyst at research firm Global Insight. Congestion around the country has remained chronic, even as the ailing economy has led to a 3 percent dip in freight train traffic in the first few months of this year compared with last year. And a new U.S. Chamber of Commerce report warns demand for freight trains is expected to double over the next 25 years. The problem is that there's no room. "Even if the estimates are half wrong, we can't put even 25 percent more freight in the system right now without serious implications," said Randy Mullett, an analyst for the nonprofit Transportation Research Board. Already, delays hamper the existing rail freight network. A lone train stopped in Chicago can force other trains to stop or slow as far away as Los Angeles or Baltimore. Back to Top
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