South Wales "Valley Crossrail"

[CardiffKid]

Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price has told his party's conference in Swansea that if Plaid win the 2021 Assembly election then by 2028 they’ll build a cross valley railway line from Treherbert to Pontypool with end to end journey times taking 1h 10min.

 

[MarkyT]

Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price has told his party's conference in Swansea that if Plaid win the 2021 Assembly election then by 2028 they’ll build a cross valley railway line from Treherbert to Pontypool with end to end journey times taking 1h 10min.

One of Mark Barry's proposals in a blog here: https://swalesmetroprof.blog/2018/06/04/making-metro-work-for-valleyscardiff/

Making the Metro work for the Valleys and for Cardiff…

I did a lot of “heavy lifting” re: the South Wales Metro 2010-2016, the burden then passed to Transport for Wales….and now to Keolis/Amey who will work to deliver it by 2023/4. Perhaps I may allow myself a moment to sketch out some ideas for how the planned network could be enhanced and extended from the mid 2020s …..

A new cross-valley tram-train service and an integrated public transport network across Cardiff...

 

[PeterC]

Either there would be a lot of tram-train street running on what are currently major cross valley roads or some extensive new alignments will need to be built. For example, if I am comparing old and new OS maps correctly, most of the old x-valley line between Pontypool and Crumlin is now the A472

 

[MarkyT]

Either there would be a lot of tram-train street running on what are currently major cross valley roads or some extensive new alignments will need to be built. For example, if I am comparing old and new OS maps correctly, most of the old x-valley line between Pontypool and Crumlin is now the A472

I'd say you could build a new rail alignment alongside this road for most of the distance where there is no housing. Better curve and gradient handling of light rail vehicles could allow such a line to closely shadow the highway alignment even where it has strayed from the old railway, and being under light rail regs, new level crossings would be tolerable. Around Pontypool itself some street running might be neccessary to serve the town as well as reach the main line station (which might be worth moving as well).

 

[Tomos y Tanc]

I'm trying to work out the logic of running from Pontypool to Treherbert rather than from Pontpool to Aberdare as the old Taff Vale Extension Railway did. I get the need for the route to include Pontypridd, which the TVER avoided, but running up the Rhondda rather than the Cynon Valley doesn't make any difference in that regard and the populations of the two valleys are roughly the same.

Maybe it's just that Rhondda is a Plaid Cymru seat!