krus_aragon
Established Member
Sorry I've been late in joining this thread. I wanted to make sure I had the time to give it some proper attention. Here are some of my thoughts.
Firstly, this discussion is jumping the gun a little, as the political make-up of the Senedd in Cardiff Bay after May's election is still up in the air.
South East Wales
The whole Metro idea has strong backing from Government, so there'll certainly be something happening. Plans need to be clarified over the next two years, but I'm going to assume that the majority of the network will continue to be operated by heavy rail.
Doubling the frequency of Maesteg services is an existing CP5 project. Doubling Ebbw Vale frequency is also likely (be with a Newport service or otherwise). I hope we'll see the Abertillery branch opening during the franchise, but as it requires further infrastructure investment, it might not be included in the initial franchise specification.
As Phillip Phlopp stated up-thread, electrifying the Valleys should be straightforward once the workforce is available. I forget the BCR stated for the project, but it's high, assuming suitable stock is cascadable, and as the route's been resignalled recently there's low risk of mislocated cabling etc. With 67% growth in Cardiff commuter traffic expected by 2023, there's a need for extra rolling stock, sooner than the wires will get there. Additional pacers or converted 230s could bridge the gap equally well, but I'll leave the choice up to the DDA legislators and franchise bidders.
With the slip in the electrification timetable, I'm unsure what the situation with cascaded EMUs will be. Would the mooted 315s still be available/usable? With Northern and TPE's franchises let, there seem to be a lot of 319s going spare, but as mentioned, there are plenty of franchises to be re-let before W&B could contemplate getting them. (And the Valleys have been aiming at 6-car platforms, so they may well need shortening to 3-car.) I don't pretend to have absorbed what the new Northern/TPE franchises mean in terms of available EMUs either. Would finances stretch to using new-build stock from the start?
South West Wales
This seems to me to be a place where bidders could innovate. Fishguard's services are currently what could be wrung out of slack in existing diagrams, and wires going up next door will lead to those diagrams and the services being redrawn completely. Swansea Landore is expected to become a W&B depot for West Wales' DMU maintenance. What should the post-electrification Swanline service look like? Presumably more than the paltry train every two hours currently operated. Would it best be integrated with a Bristol-bound EMU service, or perhaps curtailed to a frequent Swansea-Port Talbot service?
Will services from Northern Pembrokeshire continue to operate through to Crewe/Manchester, or be curtailed at Cardiff? I don't expect that they'd be cut back to the electrification boundary at Swansea: given the political will for having direct services from Holyhead/Wrexham to Cardiff, I doubt if cutting West Wales off would have any backing. As for splitting at Cardiff: is there the capacity to terminate more eastbound and westbound services? It may be easier to keep sending them through, even if there is a limited number of through travellers.
I would consider Gareth Marston's suggestion of express West Wales - Cardiff services via the Swansea District line. I'm not as sure on the bi-mode idea, as it would infer acquiring brand new stock for the job. Let's see what's available from the current 175 fleet and any DMUs released by other franchises.
Linespeed improvements in South Pembrokeshire would be very welcome, as ChiefPlanner said. There'll be need of greater summer capacity with IEPs not going further than Carmarthen.
Mid Wales
There won't be much scope for further improvements to the Heart of Wales line without added subsidy, and I doubt there'll be any forthcoming. We might see some more shuttles at the southern end, but I won't be holding my breath.
Cambrian services are tied to ERTMS-equipped 158s. Given how the fleet is stretched at the moment, units will have to be brought home from other services in North/South Wales to provide growth, or 158s will need to be procured from elsewhere and equipped for ERTMS. (I don't feel that transferring the Shrewsbury-Birmingham portion of the service is viable unless the West Coast franchise starts serving Shrewsbury more regularly, keeping London journeys at one change. Even so, I'm led to believe that having to change for Birmingham would be very unpopular.)
Cambrian mainline services will grow to be hourly as and when rolling stock allows. If Holyhead-Shrewsbury-Birmingham services are rerouted or withdrawn, they may operate through to Birmingham in their absence. Alternatively, continuing to Crewe would be advantageous. (This is assuming, of course, that these lines are not transferred to the West Midlands franchise.)
Marches
The southern end of the "North and West" route should see development as part of the Cardiff Metro area, with a commuter service to Abergavenny (plus station at Caerleon). 2tph between Cardiff and Shrewsbury is a medium term aspiration; Network Rail's indicative service specification suggests supplementing the current 1tph to Manchester and 0.5tph to Holyhead with 0.5tph to Liverpool (via Halton Curve). I prefer this option to upping Cardiff-Holyhead to 1tph, but other voices may win out.
Shrewsbury to Crewe stopper diagrams have recently been combined with Heart of Wales diagrams, giving some through services. I've mentioned reallocating them as continuations of the additional Cambrian Mainline services above, but the service might be reallocated to the LM franchise instead.
North Wales
I'll address the Borderlands line first. Other than specifying a normal bank holiday service, I don't expect any quick changes. Improvements to this line are tied to Merseyrail's plans and aspirations for the future, and the question of electrification (last seen somewhere in the long grass). Were the frequency to be doubled, the use of Shotton as a good interchange station would be viable. Extra mainline stations in the Shotton-Chester-Wrexham area may be desired, given the population of the area.
The current capacity improvements between Chester and Wrexham will be found severely wanting, as 1.5tph(IIRC) isn't going to cut it, given the combination of freight and (desired) passenger services. Moreover, services along the North Wales Coast (and by extension from Chester to Shrewsbury) are going to need some serious evaluation over the next decade, as LNW-GW Joint pointed out. A lot will depend of what the next West Coast franchise intends to do.
I would hope that they will operate a proper bi-hourly service along the coast (to Holyhead/Bangor) allowing a new timetable of local services to be built around them. One potential service list that springs to mind is Holyhead to London 0.5tph, Cardiff 0.5tph, Birmingham (via [stn]SHR[/stn] or [stn]STA[/stn]?) 0.5tph, Liverpool 0.5tph, along with Llandudno to Manchester 1tph. Other flavours are available, of course. 3tph may be excessive at franchise start, but more appropriate come the mid 2020s.
Sunday services to Llandudno Town should be viable after stage 1 of the Coast Line resignalling is done, as there will no longer be the cost of opening Deganwy and Llandudno signal boxes to consider. I don't expect any changes to service frequency on the Conwy Valley, but would hope for some work on flood resilience in the Llanrwst area.
Reopening Bangor-Caernarfon or Bangor-Llangefni remain as wildcard options (both of which I'd welcome) but I don't expect they'd be explicitly included in a franchise tender.
Rolling Stock
The current fleet consists of Pacers (142/143), Sprinters (150/153), Express Sprinters (158), Coradias (175), and some loco-hauled stock to cover a general lack of long-distance DMUs. The Pacers (or 230s) will be needed until Valleys electrification is done, then they'll be scrapped. Newly acquired EMU stock will replace them on local services in the Cardiff area, releasing Sprinters for elsewhere. There may be a business case for new-build EMUs, depending on the sparks effect.
150s will likely need replacing during the course of the franchise. I expect this would be for the franchise bidders to specify, according to what will become available. The 158s will be getting long in the tooth by the end of the franchise, but I don't expect any reference to their replacements will be made in the letting of the franchise. The key objective will be obtaining more ERTMS stock for the Cambrian in the interim, be it by reallocation of existing units or conversion of extra 158s (as mentioned earlier). The 175 will be due a mid-life refurb during the franchise, which gives an opportunity to fit power sockets and please a lot of people.
With electrification of the North Wales Coast Line unlikely to be confirmed before the letting of the franchise (and electrification of the Marches even further away), more long-distance diesel stock will be required. The one thing that seems certain is that the extra stock will be incompatible with the 175s (as all the 180s are spoken for). The settling dust of the Northern and TPE franchise bids reveals that the 185s may be going off lease in the next five years. If not snapped up by others (West Midlands, East Midlands, and Scotrail come to mind) they may be considered. Alternatively, unwanted Voyagers be going cheap. Introducing First Class service on the Cardiff-Manchester route (as well as, of course, Cardiff-Holyhead for political reasons) may be welcomed. Scotland's electrification projects could also provide some DMUs. I don't expect that there'll be the money for new-builds.
I understand that Alstom's lease of the Chester depot (and presumably their contract to maintain the 175s there) expires at or around the end of the current franchise. If the 175 are not tied to Chester in the future, I think they could find themselves in Landore in a decade's time, serving the West Wales routes in their twilight years.
Firstly, this discussion is jumping the gun a little, as the political make-up of the Senedd in Cardiff Bay after May's election is still up in the air.
South East Wales
The whole Metro idea has strong backing from Government, so there'll certainly be something happening. Plans need to be clarified over the next two years, but I'm going to assume that the majority of the network will continue to be operated by heavy rail.
Doubling the frequency of Maesteg services is an existing CP5 project. Doubling Ebbw Vale frequency is also likely (be with a Newport service or otherwise). I hope we'll see the Abertillery branch opening during the franchise, but as it requires further infrastructure investment, it might not be included in the initial franchise specification.
As Phillip Phlopp stated up-thread, electrifying the Valleys should be straightforward once the workforce is available. I forget the BCR stated for the project, but it's high, assuming suitable stock is cascadable, and as the route's been resignalled recently there's low risk of mislocated cabling etc. With 67% growth in Cardiff commuter traffic expected by 2023, there's a need for extra rolling stock, sooner than the wires will get there. Additional pacers or converted 230s could bridge the gap equally well, but I'll leave the choice up to the DDA legislators and franchise bidders.
With the slip in the electrification timetable, I'm unsure what the situation with cascaded EMUs will be. Would the mooted 315s still be available/usable? With Northern and TPE's franchises let, there seem to be a lot of 319s going spare, but as mentioned, there are plenty of franchises to be re-let before W&B could contemplate getting them. (And the Valleys have been aiming at 6-car platforms, so they may well need shortening to 3-car.) I don't pretend to have absorbed what the new Northern/TPE franchises mean in terms of available EMUs either. Would finances stretch to using new-build stock from the start?
South West Wales
This seems to me to be a place where bidders could innovate. Fishguard's services are currently what could be wrung out of slack in existing diagrams, and wires going up next door will lead to those diagrams and the services being redrawn completely. Swansea Landore is expected to become a W&B depot for West Wales' DMU maintenance. What should the post-electrification Swanline service look like? Presumably more than the paltry train every two hours currently operated. Would it best be integrated with a Bristol-bound EMU service, or perhaps curtailed to a frequent Swansea-Port Talbot service?
Will services from Northern Pembrokeshire continue to operate through to Crewe/Manchester, or be curtailed at Cardiff? I don't expect that they'd be cut back to the electrification boundary at Swansea: given the political will for having direct services from Holyhead/Wrexham to Cardiff, I doubt if cutting West Wales off would have any backing. As for splitting at Cardiff: is there the capacity to terminate more eastbound and westbound services? It may be easier to keep sending them through, even if there is a limited number of through travellers.
I would consider Gareth Marston's suggestion of express West Wales - Cardiff services via the Swansea District line. I'm not as sure on the bi-mode idea, as it would infer acquiring brand new stock for the job. Let's see what's available from the current 175 fleet and any DMUs released by other franchises.
Linespeed improvements in South Pembrokeshire would be very welcome, as ChiefPlanner said. There'll be need of greater summer capacity with IEPs not going further than Carmarthen.
Mid Wales
There won't be much scope for further improvements to the Heart of Wales line without added subsidy, and I doubt there'll be any forthcoming. We might see some more shuttles at the southern end, but I won't be holding my breath.
Cambrian services are tied to ERTMS-equipped 158s. Given how the fleet is stretched at the moment, units will have to be brought home from other services in North/South Wales to provide growth, or 158s will need to be procured from elsewhere and equipped for ERTMS. (I don't feel that transferring the Shrewsbury-Birmingham portion of the service is viable unless the West Coast franchise starts serving Shrewsbury more regularly, keeping London journeys at one change. Even so, I'm led to believe that having to change for Birmingham would be very unpopular.)
Cambrian mainline services will grow to be hourly as and when rolling stock allows. If Holyhead-Shrewsbury-Birmingham services are rerouted or withdrawn, they may operate through to Birmingham in their absence. Alternatively, continuing to Crewe would be advantageous. (This is assuming, of course, that these lines are not transferred to the West Midlands franchise.)
Marches
The southern end of the "North and West" route should see development as part of the Cardiff Metro area, with a commuter service to Abergavenny (plus station at Caerleon). 2tph between Cardiff and Shrewsbury is a medium term aspiration; Network Rail's indicative service specification suggests supplementing the current 1tph to Manchester and 0.5tph to Holyhead with 0.5tph to Liverpool (via Halton Curve). I prefer this option to upping Cardiff-Holyhead to 1tph, but other voices may win out.
Shrewsbury to Crewe stopper diagrams have recently been combined with Heart of Wales diagrams, giving some through services. I've mentioned reallocating them as continuations of the additional Cambrian Mainline services above, but the service might be reallocated to the LM franchise instead.
North Wales
I'll address the Borderlands line first. Other than specifying a normal bank holiday service, I don't expect any quick changes. Improvements to this line are tied to Merseyrail's plans and aspirations for the future, and the question of electrification (last seen somewhere in the long grass). Were the frequency to be doubled, the use of Shotton as a good interchange station would be viable. Extra mainline stations in the Shotton-Chester-Wrexham area may be desired, given the population of the area.
The current capacity improvements between Chester and Wrexham will be found severely wanting, as 1.5tph(IIRC) isn't going to cut it, given the combination of freight and (desired) passenger services. Moreover, services along the North Wales Coast (and by extension from Chester to Shrewsbury) are going to need some serious evaluation over the next decade, as LNW-GW Joint pointed out. A lot will depend of what the next West Coast franchise intends to do.
I would hope that they will operate a proper bi-hourly service along the coast (to Holyhead/Bangor) allowing a new timetable of local services to be built around them. One potential service list that springs to mind is Holyhead to London 0.5tph, Cardiff 0.5tph, Birmingham (via [stn]SHR[/stn] or [stn]STA[/stn]?) 0.5tph, Liverpool 0.5tph, along with Llandudno to Manchester 1tph. Other flavours are available, of course. 3tph may be excessive at franchise start, but more appropriate come the mid 2020s.
Sunday services to Llandudno Town should be viable after stage 1 of the Coast Line resignalling is done, as there will no longer be the cost of opening Deganwy and Llandudno signal boxes to consider. I don't expect any changes to service frequency on the Conwy Valley, but would hope for some work on flood resilience in the Llanrwst area.
Reopening Bangor-Caernarfon or Bangor-Llangefni remain as wildcard options (both of which I'd welcome) but I don't expect they'd be explicitly included in a franchise tender.
Rolling Stock
The current fleet consists of Pacers (142/143), Sprinters (150/153), Express Sprinters (158), Coradias (175), and some loco-hauled stock to cover a general lack of long-distance DMUs. The Pacers (or 230s) will be needed until Valleys electrification is done, then they'll be scrapped. Newly acquired EMU stock will replace them on local services in the Cardiff area, releasing Sprinters for elsewhere. There may be a business case for new-build EMUs, depending on the sparks effect.
150s will likely need replacing during the course of the franchise. I expect this would be for the franchise bidders to specify, according to what will become available. The 158s will be getting long in the tooth by the end of the franchise, but I don't expect any reference to their replacements will be made in the letting of the franchise. The key objective will be obtaining more ERTMS stock for the Cambrian in the interim, be it by reallocation of existing units or conversion of extra 158s (as mentioned earlier). The 175 will be due a mid-life refurb during the franchise, which gives an opportunity to fit power sockets and please a lot of people.
With electrification of the North Wales Coast Line unlikely to be confirmed before the letting of the franchise (and electrification of the Marches even further away), more long-distance diesel stock will be required. The one thing that seems certain is that the extra stock will be incompatible with the 175s (as all the 180s are spoken for). The settling dust of the Northern and TPE franchise bids reveals that the 185s may be going off lease in the next five years. If not snapped up by others (West Midlands, East Midlands, and Scotrail come to mind) they may be considered. Alternatively, unwanted Voyagers be going cheap. Introducing First Class service on the Cardiff-Manchester route (as well as, of course, Cardiff-Holyhead for political reasons) may be welcomed. Scotland's electrification projects could also provide some DMUs. I don't expect that there'll be the money for new-builds.
I understand that Alstom's lease of the Chester depot (and presumably their contract to maintain the 175s there) expires at or around the end of the current franchise. If the 175 are not tied to Chester in the future, I think they could find themselves in Landore in a decade's time, serving the West Wales routes in their twilight years.
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