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197041 ran a few services yesterday afternoon, finishing on a Manchester Airport- Holyhead. Return working was cancelled though and today booked ecs back to Chester. Looks like it still has some issue.

Regarding toilet stops on the last trains up each valley - I wonder whether any of TfW management have actually travelled on these on a Friday or Saturday night. What they are proposing is completely unrealistic. There is no way a bunch of drunk lads from the valleys are going to wait for the...

It makes sense to convert them. Sadly can't see them lasting long on Maesteg - Ebbw Vale services after conversion (if they ever get onto those routes). Unless someone is secretly planning more electrification :)

Bear in mind that prior to withdrawal of Pacers, many valleys services were 4-car Pacers or Pacer+150 combos. At peak times these were often overwhelmed. Stations on some routes (Rhymney and Treherbert) were extended to take 6-car trains but the extra rolling stock never materialised. Capacity...

That's really helpful, thank you.

Anyone know why Avanti West Coast have not released advance purchase tickets for the weekend of 22-23 August? They are available in booking engines for Friday 21st and Monday 24th. I want to book a journey that involves TfW and Avanti, so wondering whether to wait and risk losing the TfW...

Yes, i agree, Swansea is more deserving of improved service on the mainline if capacity is limited. I also agree 4tph between Newport and Swansea would be ideal. One of the issues at the moment is the uneven spread across the hour, especially with the two westbound "fast" services following each...

Maybe... Let's assume the shuttle between Bridgend would be a simple overlay onto the existing timetable, with times 30 mins offset from the existing Maesteg - Ebbw Vale services. That would give an xx04 arrival into P3 at Bridgend, and xx09 departure back to Maesteg. Assuming a 4 min change is...

Yes, tickets now valid either direct to Cardiff from Ebbw Vale, or via Newport. But didn't used to be the case. Appreciate what you say, that Newport is not "on the way", but as I say only adds 10 mins, compared with a direct journey, so not that relevant. A change at Bridgend is likely to be...

Not sure I fully understand the question, but my preference would be 2 services per hour between Maesteg and Cardiff, with both extending east beyond Cardiff to avoid terminating at Cardiff Central, which only causes cogeston. For passengers from Maesteg, I don't think it makes a massive...

Abergavenny would benefit from an additional hourly service, possibly even extending to Hereford, but again that would ideally serve Cardiff, as well as Newport. The Ebbw Vale shuttles should, in my opinion, be extended to Cardiff via a reversal at Newport. I appreciate both the above would...

At present every service in South East Wales bar one goes to/from Cardiff. There is a good reason for that - it is where people want to get to, and can be awkward to drive and expensive to park. The only exception is the Ebbw Vale to Newport shuttle. That was provided to complement the hourly...

That bullet point from the Plaid manifesto is carefully worded. It promises "2 trains per hour on the Maesteg branch", not 2 trains per hour between Maesteg and Cardiff, I.e. a shuttle between Bridgend and Maesteg. The vast majority of passengers using the Maesteg branch are heading for...

Perhaps he could also put in a word for Pyle (within Bridgend County) which doesn't even get a full hourly service, let alone half hourly. Another "metro" station with a long-way-short-of-metro service.

I think the point is that if you ran the entire network as 750 V dc then you need a lot less physical clearance to structures than with 25,000 V ac. This means you can get away without the wiring discontinuities and permanently earthed sections. As a result less wear and tear due to...

A fault I have experienced a few times is with the lock on the small toilet in the centre car of 3 car units. When attempting to move the lever into lock position they lever madly waggles back and for for a few seconds and then stops. Frightened the life out of me first time I experienced it...

K I wouldn't guarantee it is - i have seen the Lcd screen show (correctly) that the wc was occupied, while the indicator on the wall remained green!

That sounds good to me. Barry can justify a 10 minute frequency if Caerphilly and Pontypridd can. For passengers from the west towards the airport or Barry, what is needed is good connections at Bridgend, so a 30 min frequency on the Vale of Glamorgan route to start. And ideally also with a...

Made a journey this week changing at Cardiff Central, which involved transfer from barriered platforms over to Platform 0. Pleased to see that payg only charged me a single journey and did not see it as two separate journeys due to having to tap out and back in again. Hopefully that annoying...

I believe the plan is 50% of TAM services to be double 398s (the ones serving Central) and the rest single (serving the bay). Although that would be around 100% utilisation. That's if I recall correctly!