Ceredigion council backs Cambrian line freight idea

[muddythefish]

The problem is road hauliers do not pay for all the damage they cause to the roads and the environment. Road charging cannot come soon enough.

 

[GearJammer]

The problem is road hauliers do not pay for all the damage they cause to the roads and the environment. Road charging cannot come soon enough.

So your solution is to price trucks off the road? I suspect you are like the councilliors...... good intentions but in reality not got a clue.

Don't forget, when road charging comes in, you'll be paying for it to.... even if you don't own a car.

You come up with ideas without putting any real thought into it.

 

[Bald Rick]

The problem is road hauliers do not pay for all the damage they cause to the roads and the environment. Road charging cannot come soon enough.

Equally, freight operators do not pay for all the damage they do to the railway. If they did, they would have been out of business long ago just paying for the Settle and Carlisle line.

Re environment, a couple of 40 tonne arctics will create considerably less emissions than a short freight train on a journey such as this. Freight on rail needs volume to be efficient.

 

[GearJammer]

Equally, freight operators do not pay for all the damage they do to the railway. If they did, they would have been out of business long ago just paying for the Settle and Carlisle line.

Re environment, a couple of 40 tonne arctics will create considerably less emissions than a short freight train on a journey such as this. Freight on rail needs volume to be efficient.

Indeed, a VERY considerable reduction in emissions given most distribution trucks are replaced on a frequent basis with modern Euro 5-6 trucks....... and the only type of traction for the train that has been suggested so far is a class 37.... not exactly renowned for their lack of emissions.

 

[Bald Rick]

..... and the only type of traction for the train that has been suggested so far is a class 37.... not exactly renowned for their lack of emissions.

Maybe the councillor should campaign on the basis that 'yeah but the train will sound better'

 

[GearJammer]

Maybe the councillor should campaign on the basis that 'yeah but the train will sound better'

Could be an interesting campaign.... A V8 Scanny with straight through pipes or a class 37..... hmmmmmm, i'll sit on the fence for that one I think.

 

[Gareth Marston]

The roads are pretty much knackered here in mid wales a culvert collapsed under the A489 east of Newtown this summer took weeks to repair with long queues, there's still pack horse and cart bridges over the rivers in places expected to take HGV's such as the Dyfi bridge at Machynlleth and at Caersws on the A470.

The roads are not purpose built with few exceptions, the cost of upgrading them is totally prohibitive that's why people are looking at alternatives seriously, it's nothing to do with the economics of road distribution.

 

[merlodlliw]

West coast railways are paying to fit etcs in 2 Class 37 for for a handful of charters a year if that's economic then sticking it in an MPV or other locos for a regular freight train will be too.

The current DOWN and UP charter/ test train paths in the off peak are not effected after May 15. Anyway with etcs the Cambrian is a 24 hour railway as Mach is manned all night and all crossings are automated.

OK, has you said earlier the roads are knackered, with only one bridge to be replaced costing £20 million as a result of next years WG budget, at least Network Rail are not involved in this bridge,

 

[Emyr]

Why is the concept fixed around a single consumer such as Morrissons?

Many other local businesses could receive palletised goods or Intermodal-outline units.

Road-freight movements in the Aberystwyth surrounding region could be modified such that the drivers performing the last-mile delivery would have local knowledge.

Moving goods using a common rail backbone should be cheaper in total for the smaller business, so for example Aberystwyth's many pubs and bars receive liquid supplies from a small number of suppliers (InBev etc), so it shouldn't be that hard to make savings.

 

[GearJammer]

Why is the concept fixed around a single consumer such as Morrissons?

Many other local businesses could receive palletised goods or Intermodal-outline units.

Road-freight movements in the Aberystwyth surrounding region could be modified such that the drivers performing the last-mile delivery would have local knowledge.

Moving goods using a common rail backbone should be cheaper in total for the smaller business, so for example Aberystwyth's many pubs and bars receive liquid supplies from a small number of suppliers (InBev etc), so it shouldn't be that hard to make savings.

How is it going to be cheaper??????

Look its quite simple, if you want to move freight from A-B use a truck, you pay one man to load the truck at point A, a second man to drive the truck, and no doubt that same man will unload it at point B.

Now if you pay both men £50 in wages, that's £100 to move freight from A-B.

Now if you use rail, you pay one man to load the truck (£50) Second man to drive the truck to the rail head (£50) a third man to tranship from truck to train (£50) a forth man to drive the train (£millions) a fith man to tranship from train back to truck (£50) and sixth man to drive the truck and freight to its final destination (£50).... that's £250!

Yes ive simplified this, but you get the point! Running a truck is cheaper than running a train...... mainly because less people are needed to run a truck. In this video at the beginning of this topic there is a guy that gets tyres supplied to his tyre garage..... also Morrisons are mentioned...... do you honestly think either give a monkies about each others business or deliveries?

 

[HSTEd]

General traffic railfreight is dead, especially while the railway clings desperately to practices from a hundred years ago.
I wish people would just accept this and move on.

 

[krus_aragon]

General traffic railfreight is dead, especially while the railway clings desperately to practices from a hundred years ago.
I wish people would just accept this and move on.

Sheer curiosity: what century-old practices do you feel obstruct general railfreight?

 

[Llanigraham]

It doesn't matter, ok so you eliminate the 44 tonner, that freight still has to get from the train to the end destination, so even if you get a fleet of what I would imagine be a minimum of 18 tonners, that truck will still have to make 2-3 trips, its axle weights are still the same so the damage being done to the roads, will still be being done to the roads, you've replaced one truck movement with 2-3.

Also most of the factories/shops don't give a monkies how their stuff gets to them, as long as it gets to them at the cheapest possible price and have it arrive when they want/need it.

Goes to prove you didn't read what I put!!

The problem is that the roads around here are not suitable for 44 tonne artics, so we would quite happily put up with more movements of smaller lorries going from the distribution centre to the outlets.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

So your solution is to price trucks off the road? I suspect you are like the councilliors...... good intentions but in reality not got a clue.

Don't forget, when road charging comes in, you'll be paying for it to.... even if you don't own a car.

You come up with ideas without putting any real thought into it.

Every tax payer in the country already pays for the roads, as it all comes out of general taxation.

Next incorrect point from you?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

General traffic railfreight is dead, especially while the railway clings desperately to practices from a hundred years ago.
I wish people would just accept this and move on.

And another bland posting with no details!
Perhaps you would like to give us examples of these practices?

 

[HSTEd]

And another bland posting with no details!
Perhaps you would like to give us examples of these practices?

Well lets start at the top shall we.....

1) No general use automatic couplers - chains and buffers prevent increasing train weights and increase the time required to perform shunting operations and the like. They also have issues with increasing lateral surging. Not to mention the lack of standardisation of locomotive multiple working equipment.

2) Continued reliance on single pipe air brakes for all needs moving forwards, railways in other parts of the world are now introducing ECP brakes, in fact this has been ongoing for 10-15 years now. The intensively worked railway we have in Britain would especially benefit as it would reduce freight train stopping distances drastically and simplify the handling of long trains that are going to become increasingly necessary if railfreight is actually going to go somewhere.

3) Connected to the above, the complete lack of any attempt to introduce locotrol or similar technologies which would permit our largely fixed formation freight trains (especially container rakes) to operate in Push-Pull or full power Top and Tail. Instead we embrace insanity like bespoke rail traversers to save space in crowded freight yards.

4) Short trains, while this is a problem exacerbated by the short lengths of available freight loops there has been little to no work to increase feasible train lengths.
Considering the number of paths eaten up by coal trains on a variety of lines you would think there would be a push to ever increasing train weights to reduce the number of deliveries required to power stations - but there has been none.

5) Leading on from the lack of automatic couplers making shunt moves time consuming and problematic - no attempt to make use of electrification to reduce haulage costs and increase train performance, even when the train will travel up to hundreds of miles under perfectly functioning overhead wire. Even the Class 88 is unlikely to make any difference as they have stubbonly refused to order a CoCo locomotive, leaving them with a standard Bo-Bo electric that can also shunt.
A Class 92 sized locomotive would be able to function far more effectively under diesel power.

All in all the railfreight industry in the UK is almost entirely staid and makes little to no attempt to actually introduce innovations from elsewhere or develop any itself.
It has largely been this way since privatisation.

 

[The Planner]

In terms of 4, unless the power stations can cope with longer trains then its a bit of a moot point. They would have to fund that themselves and I doubt they will want the expenditure. Unless you have freight dedicated lines then length can only go so far before its self defeating for junction capacity.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

The last time Aberystwyth had "consumer traffic" by rail was before the parcels traffic was withdrawn around 1976 - that being deliveries carried by passenger train to the long gone Woolworths.

"Groupage" traffic was a loss leader on rail from before Beeching - you need an awful lot of volume to encourage a switch from road to rail. Freightliner jettisoned most if it in my time there in the early 80's - TNT , DHL , etc took the market for flexibility , speed , lack of damage etc etc.

 

[the-gog]

The last time Aberystwyth had "consumer traffic" by rail was before the parcels traffic was withdrawn around 1976 - that being deliveries carried by passenger train to the long gone Woolworths.

"Groupage" traffic was a loss leader on rail from before Beeching - you need an awful lot of volume to encourage a switch from road to rail. Freightliner jettisoned most if it in my time there in the early 80's - TNT , DHL , etc took the market for flexibility , speed , lack of damage etc etc.

This is what many people here can't grasp - the only freight traffic that the railway can transport economically (ie at a cheaper rate than road transport) is either trainload over medium to long distances (eg coal from docks to port) or container, on similar distances.

There is no one industry in north Cardiganshire that will command frequent trainload freight, like a steelworks, for example. Thus, the only traffic that trundles by road can only be replaced by wagonload train. Aberystwyth is at the narrow end of the funnel. Incoming traffic will be entering Wales to get to Aberystwyth from pretty much the entire length of the English border. Assuming that wagonload freight is economic, where do you locate the English-side terminal? Shrewsbury? Trucks from the SE or SW will have to go up to Shrewsbury instead of taking the A44. Ditto with trucks from the NW, who now just take the A483. These diversions add (expensive) travel time and increase fuel costs. You then need to pay someone to unload the HGV and load the railway wagons - manual handling, even if helped by fork lift trucks.

Say it takes an hour to load the entire train, that's another hour added onto the time delay. After that, the train would need to wait for a path down the Cambrian, assuming ERTMS or the loco hasn't gone pop (like 97303 did recently). Or lack of traincrew. Then another hour to completely unload the train. As others have said, it won't save anything from the roads of Cardiganshire, as the same loads will still need to be carried on lorries from the Bow Street terminal, and fleets of smaller lorries are less economical to run and emit more emissions than one larger artic.

It'll be more expensive, and increase the transit time, which for perishables isn't helpful. When was the last time you saw a refrigerated freight wagon in regular use in the UK? The appalling state of the roads in mid-Wales is neither here nor there. It won't cheapen railfreight costs. If Ceredigion Council was serious about this idea, they'd impose a HGV tax and claim to use that money to subsidise the railfreight costs. All that would happen is that the road hauliers would switch to using vehicles below the council's HGV tax limit, at cost to the environment, and at greater cost to the local economy. Remember that one of the major parcel delivery companeis until quite recently imposed a surcharge to deliver to addresses in Cardiganshire. They scrapped this after a great deal of pressure from Plaid Cymru, among others, but just goes to show that any restrictions imposed on the logistics companies will simply be passed onto consumers and businesses in Cardiganshire, either directly, or indirectly. (Edit: it was DHL, and they wanted to impose a £16 surcharge to deliver to the SY23, 24 and 25 codes in the Aberystwyth and Tregaron areas: http://elinceredigion.wordpress.com/2014/08/28/success-for-parcel-surcharge-campaign/)

 

[GearJammer]

This is what many people here can't grasp - the only freight traffic that the railway can transport economically (ie at a cheaper rate than road transport) is either trainload over medium to long distances (eg coal from docks to port) or container, on similar distances.

There is no one industry in north Cardiganshire that will command frequent trainload freight, like a steelworks, for example. Thus, the only traffic that trundles by road can only be replaced by wagonload train. Aberystwyth is at the narrow end of the funnel. Incoming traffic will be entering Wales to get to Aberystwyth from pretty much the entire length of the English border. Assuming that wagonload freight is economic, where do you locate the English-side terminal? Shrewsbury? Trucks from the SE or SW will have to go up to Shrewsbury instead of taking the A44. Ditto with trucks from the NW, who now just take the A483. These diversions add (expensive) travel time and increase fuel costs. You then need to pay someone to unload the HGV and load the railway wagons - manual handling, even if helped by fork lift trucks.

Say it takes an hour to load the entire train, that's another hour added onto the time delay. After that, the train would need to wait for a path down the Cambrian, assuming ERTMS or the loco hasn't gone pop (like 97303 did recently). Or lack of traincrew. Then another hour to completely unload the train. As others have said, it won't save anything from the roads of Cardiganshire, as the same loads will still need to be carried on lorries from the Bow Street terminal, and fleets of smaller lorries are less economical to run and emit more emissions than one larger artic.

It'll be more expensive, and increase the transit time, which for perishables isn't helpful. When was the last time you saw a refrigerated freight wagon in regular use in the UK? The appalling state of the roads in mid-Wales is neither here nor there. It won't cheapen railfreight costs. If Ceredigion Council was serious about this idea, they'd impose a HGV tax and claim to use that money to subsidise the railfreight costs. All that would happen is that the road hauliers would switch to using vehicles below the council's HGV tax limit, at cost to the environment, and at greater cost to the local economy. Remember that one of the major parcel delivery companeis until quite recently imposed a surcharge to deliver to addresses in Cardiganshire. They scrapped this after a great deal of pressure from Plaid Cymru, among others, but just goes to show that any restrictions imposed on the logistics companies will simply be passed onto consumers and businesses in Cardiganshire, either directly, or indirectly. (Edit: it was DHL, and they wanted to impose a £16 surcharge to deliver to the SY23, 24 and 25 codes in the Aberystwyth and Tregaron areas: http://elinceredigion.wordpress.com/2014/08/28/success-for-parcel-surcharge-campaign/)

Well said sir and point well made....... I can never really be bothered to type out posts that long.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

This is what many people here can't grasp - the only freight traffic that the railway can transport economically (ie at a cheaper rate than road transport) is either trainload over medium to long distances (eg coal from docks to port) or container, on similar distances.

There is no one industry in north Cardiganshire that will command frequent trainload freight, like a steelworks, for example. Thus, the only traffic that trundles by road can only be replaced by wagonload train. Aberystwyth is at the narrow end of the funnel. Incoming traffic will be entering Wales to get to Aberystwyth from pretty much the entire length of the English border. Assuming that wagonload freight is economic, where do you locate the English-side terminal? Shrewsbury? Trucks from the SE or SW will have to go up to Shrewsbury instead of taking the A44. Ditto with trucks from the NW, who now just take the A483. These diversions add (expensive) travel time and increase fuel costs. You then need to pay someone to unload the HGV and load the railway wagons - manual handling, even if helped by fork lift trucks.

Say it takes an hour to load the entire train, that's another hour added onto the time delay. After that, the train would need to wait for a path down the Cambrian, assuming ERTMS or the loco hasn't gone pop (like 97303 did recently). Or lack of traincrew. Then another hour to completely unload the train. As others have said, it won't save anything from the roads of Cardiganshire, as the same loads will still need to be carried on lorries from the Bow Street terminal, and fleets of smaller lorries are less economical to run and emit more emissions than one larger artic.

It'll be more expensive, and increase the transit time, which for perishables isn't helpful. When was the last time you saw a refrigerated freight wagon in regular use in the UK? The appalling state of the roads in mid-Wales is neither here nor there. It won't cheapen railfreight costs. If Ceredigion Council was serious about this idea, they'd impose a HGV tax and claim to use that money to subsidise the railfreight costs. All that would happen is that the road hauliers would switch to using vehicles below the council's HGV tax limit, at cost to the environment, and at greater cost to the local economy. Remember that one of the major parcel delivery companeis until quite recently imposed a surcharge to deliver to addresses in Cardiganshire. They scrapped this after a great deal of pressure from Plaid Cymru, among others, but just goes to show that any restrictions imposed on the logistics companies will simply be passed onto consumers and businesses in Cardiganshire, either directly, or indirectly. (Edit: it was DHL, and they wanted to impose a £16 surcharge to deliver to the SY23, 24 and 25 codes in the Aberystwyth and Tregaron areas: http://elinceredigion.wordpress.com/2014/08/28/success-for-parcel-surcharge-campaign/)

Excellent post - Da Iawn ! - parcel companies are very aware , obviously , of the higher costs of "marginal area deliveries" - and you have raised this point in a very constructive manner. (much like a hard economic purist view beloved by some "academics" would put a surcharge on letters or mail to more rural locations) ....the real wins for Railfreight (and I spent a good 10+ years on operations and contract management) , are on the bulk flows from ports / producing areas to major consumer points Much though we all love the idea of dinky container trains to the smaller locations. Excellent points made earlier though about crumbling road infrastructure in Mid Wales.

 

[the-gog]

Excellent post - Da Iawn ! - parcel companies are very aware , obviously , of the higher costs of "marginal area deliveries" - and you have raised this point in a very constructive manner. (much like a hard economic purist view beloved by some "academics" would put a surcharge on letters or mail to more rural locations) ....the real wins for Railfreight (and I spent a good 10+ years on operations and contract management) , are on the bulk flows from ports / producing areas to major consumer points Much though we all love the idea of dinky container trains to the smaller locations. Excellent points made earlier though about crumbling road infrastructure in Mid Wales.

Diolch. I'm very much aware of the parlous state of the road infrastruture here in mid- and north-Wales. However, it's a separate issue to that of running wagonload freight to Bow Street. Most of the roads that reach Aber are trunk routes, and as such fall under the jurisdiction of the various trunk roads agencies, not councils. If we were in Germany, we'd have a dual carriageway all the way from the A5 at Oswestry to Llanidloes, instead of the glorified farm tracks that we have to put up with. (The A458 is worse, especially around Cyfronydd.) Indeed, the A5 would be dual its entire length.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
If wagonload freight - like that that Ceredigion councillors would like to see running to Bow Street - were viable, surely we'd have seen it in operation elsewhere in GB? I don't see what's especially attractive about Bow Street/Aberystwyth that would make it the torch-bearer to bring back wagonload freight to our railways. The economics don't stack up, more's the pity. Donnington hasn't exactly been a stunning success, even considering its location slap bang in a populous area and surrounded by an awful lot of industry. If it can't work there, it can't work at Bow Street.

 

[RichmondCommu]

General traffic railfreight is dead, especially while the railway clings desperately to practices from a hundred years ago.
I wish people would just accept this and move on.

Surely everything in a container on an intermodal freight service is general traffic? Intermodal seems to be doing ok at the moment.

 

[the-gog]

Surely everything in a container on an intermodal freight service is general traffic? Intermodal seems to be doing ok at the moment.

Yes, but intermodal - for the railway part of it - is trainload freight, and again over medium to long distances, eg Felixstowe to Birmingham, or Birmingham to Wentloog. Even if Freightliner could be persuaded to build a terminal in Bow Street, it would only result in a tiny amount of freight being taken off the roads to Bow Street. If this scheme was to work, Ceredigion Council would have to mandate that every single HGV and artic trailer be replaced with an ISO container carrier.

The other regular traffic that passes through Aber are the large fleet of Mansel Davies milk tankers that travel from NW Wales to Pembrokeshire and return, operating a virtual milk pipeline. Even if Speedlink still existed, I dread to think how much longer it would take 1, to assemble enough into a viable train length to trip to the nearest yard to aggregate into a longer train; 2, trip this to Severn Tunnel Jct, where it would split (hopefully not the milk!); 3, take this to Crewe (ditto); 4, take this to Bangor (for example).

Something else I hadn't thought about is bulk aggregates, cement, and sand for the readymix concrete plant in Aber. These would need to be emptied into appropriate wagons at the (Shrewsbury) railhead, then emptied from those at Bow Street into the HGVs. At least the aggregate part of it would create a job for someone with a JCB.

If the council actively pursued this dream, then I expect it would commission an external consultant's report into its viability. He/she would assess the level of existing HGV freight traffic, its origin, its destination, and payload. They would then set out the economic case of effectively forcing this traffic onto rail at somewhere like Shrewsbury, the time delays, and the costs of running a terminal at both Shrewsbury and Bow Street. Ceredigion Council would need to fund a terminal in Shrewsbury, as Shropshire Council won't do it free of charge, and neither will Network Rail. In short, the recommendation will be that it won't be financially viable given that British railways no longer has a comprehensive wagonload freight network, and that piggyback solutions won't work (this has been tried before, and failed). Even if they still went ahead with it in the face of this report, I would expect the Wales Audit Office to crawl all over Ceredigion Council. It won't be pretty.

 

[Gareth Marston]

The most interesting thing to come out of this thread is the attempted DHL surcharge for Ceredigion. This confirms that the economics of road distrubution to remoter rural areas in the UK is becoming un viable.
In the 1990's the distribution industry located itself around the instersections on the UK motorway arguing that the then Cost of fuel etcs and the roads for prosperity agenda would see them centrally placed and accessible quickly to all parts of UK. The extra road links didn't come and the cost of fuel went up.
Running to Aberysywyth is a 100 mile plus slow trip from these depots and taken in isolation there probably not viable with current income levels however the company's are probably taking a hit fearing political pressure and with the cut throat nature of competition in a downturn they are fearful that pulling out or increaseing prices will have a negative impact on their business as a whole. When times get better someone will break ranks and say we're not doing it, then it will get interesting.

 

[MarkyT]

In the 1990's the distribution industry located itself around the instersections on the UK motorway arguing that the then Cost of fuel etcs and the roads for prosperity agenda would see them centrally placed and accessible quickly to all parts of UK. The extra road links didn't come and the cost of fuel went up . . . . with the cut throat nature of competition . . .

That is the nature of modern competitive freight transport in the UK. Many players, all barely making any profit, with their vast operations centres all grouped around the same road intersections and generating huge hub and spoke traffic levels. Very few individual contracts are sufficient to justify agglomeration into flows sufficient for rail, nor even any more efficient road trunking via satellite depots in more remote areas.

It is a system that is seemingly engineered to generate the maximum possible lorry miles with commensurate levels of emissions and pollution, as well as maximising drivers' hours. It is only really 'efficient' economically in that it helps prevent any local or larger monopolies establishing themselves, neither the domination of particular markets by any particular company, nor the old chestnut of particular trades unions coming to control the labour market and the fear of them then taking industrial action for their own economic or political aspirations. Industrial disputes of the 1950s are almost always cited by industrialists over a certain age as the final nail in the coffin for British Rail general freight, and students no doubt continue to receive that and related opinions about rail and other more traditional distribution techniques today in business schools.

Logistics companies have always bleated on incessantly about their increasing efficiency, but they are almost always talking about reducing their costs per mile hauled, never about measures to reduce the total lorry miles, which is after all essentially the product they sell and on which they make their increasingly small margins.

So to sum up, freight transport is a market that is highly, if not 'perfectly', competitive in free market economic terms whilst being at the same time structurally extremely inefficient in terms of it's resource utilisation and emissions.

 

[Rhydgaled]

I'm still sceptical, but there's a more-detailed peice in 'The Courier', Aberystwyth's Student Newspaper which has made me reconsider the odds of something coming out of this. I now think it is slightly less of a no-hoper.

Not sure if I should quote the article in full, but it appears to clarify that the mention of Bow Street is a park and ride scheme rather than something to do with the freight idea. An EMO oil station near the Rheidol Retail Park is apparently earmarked for the freight development. More-interesting is that it isn't just councillors backing the plan. An MEP, Jill Evans, is also interested and that EU investment might be available as part of a "comprehensive network". Also, there is a mention that the hope is for Tesco to supply their two new Aberystwyth stores and exising ones in Newtown and Welshpool.

My take on this: if you could get Morrisons in on it too (they have a store in Newtown as well as Aberystwyth I think) you might actually be able to make up trainload levels of traffic. For this sort of thing though, you are likely to need something like this:

1) No general use automatic couplers - chains and buffers prevent increasing train weights and increase the time required to perform shunting operations and the like.

Oh, and sidings in Newtown and Welshpool and perhaps a third track in Aberystwth too. Starting to look rather expensive.

So, Cambrian freight is still highly unlikely, but maybe not as impossible as our gut instinct would tell us.

 

[Gareth Marston]

I see the A44 between Llangurig and Aberystwyth has been named as Britains most dangerous road again. I think there's a consensus in the Aberystwyth area that the road links to it are never going to be great and making them so unaffordable.

 

[themiller]

I see the A44 between Llangurig and Aberystwyth has been named as Britains most dangerous road again. I think there's a consensus in the Aberystwyth area that the road links to it are never going to be great and making them so unaffordable.

There's no such thing as a 'dangerous road' - they just lie there looking grey! The problems lie in dangerous/inexperienced/inattentive/careless drivers!

 

[Gareth Marston]

There's no such thing as a 'dangerous road' - they just lie there looking grey! The problems lie in dangerous/inexperienced/inattentive/careless drivers!

Three big problems on the A44, drivers going to fast for the road usually there behind the wheel of a van that May or maybe not transporting goods, drivers that go to slow for the road and don't pull over causing tail backs behind them and when van driver gets behind he just can't help trying to overtake where he shouldn't and middle aged bikers in groups trying to weave in and out of everybody else. I suppose there present elsewhere but the 44 is a road you have to be switched on all the way. I know people who go via Machynlleth rather than use it to get from Newtown to Aberystwyth.

 

[Llanigraham]

There's no such thing as a 'dangerous road' - they just lie there looking grey! The problems lie in dangerous/inexperienced/inattentive/careless drivers!

You've obviously never driven it!!
(I live just off it)

Quite, Gareth.

 

[Parallel]

I second what others have said about the A44, I studied at the university in Aberystwyth a few years ago and once whilst on our way there, a group of bikers were swerving in and out of cars, and later on, the police had closed off the road as their had been a "grizzly" situation when one of the bikers had crashed and been killed, not good at all. We decided to turn back and drive to Aberystwyth via Devil's Bridge.