I take the point that Labour didn't do a great deal for Wales. Check out Adam Curtis' excellent documentary '8 people sipping wine in Kettering' for an understanding of that one - available on youtube.

Did anyone hear Mark on the radio wales phone in today with that Proffesor from Glamorgan uni? What an eye opener into how many miserable idiots are knocking about in Wales in the hour they discussed this only one person phoned up to say it was good investment and everyone else said it was a waste of money I couldn't believe what I was hearing the shear negativity! Mark how did it feel to listen to these idiots after you and other have worked so hard on this?

What was the basis of the negative comments? Just that we don't need it?

In general I don't think people care much about public transport. That's why they have cars.

Well Jason Mohammad kept saying it was £9billion being spent but thats not just for Wales many of the complaints stemmed from the time saving is only 20 minutes and how it would be better spent on the NHS or Schools blah blah blah it will be on Iplayer later.

Someone also disputed the idea of people from the heads of the valleys looking for jobs in Cardiff and Newport because "there are no jobs in Cardiff and Newport".

Today Wales moved into the new Millenium.
I hope that the construction runs smooth and many Welsh people get work out of it.
Infrastructure, health and education the way forward for Cymru - ymlaen!

PS I have never voted Tory, but would not rule it out in the future.

I heard the last quarter of the programme but the topic had clearly moved on from rail transport to that overblown story about national anthems.

It is sometimes rather frightening to listen to phone-ins. There is an almost palpable sense of nervousness emanating from the people who phone in (which is totally understandable given that most people have never had any type of media training). This nervousness often quickly descends into people saying things that they don't really mean and losing their tempers somewhat when they have their views cross examined.

A radio phone in programme can often descend into a tiresome tirade of negative opinions which borders on the embarrassing.Sounds like this was one of those experiences.

They seemed to have no grasp of the issues facing the rail network one person said he commuted from Bristol to Cardiff and was annoyed that he had to stand all the time but said the upgrade was a waste of money! Ofcourse electric trains will have increased capacity anyway i've turned this thread all negative, I hope this investment will finally turn around the economy in South Wales or atleast stop the decline there have been many false dawns like the objective 1 EU funding lets hope this works!

Superb news, congratulations to all involved. Hope this morphs into a full blown South East Wales Metro now, and acts as a lightning rod for the Cardiff City Region as a whole.

Delighted that the Maesteg line (and indeed the Ebbw Vale and Vale of Glamorgan lines) have also been included. Coupled with the news of a spur to Heathrow so we don't have to go to Paddington to get to Heathrow now, this has been a great couple of days for our infrastructure

Link to the Radio Wales phone-in, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0079g44, starts just after 3 minutes

It looks like the coalition will be selling Anglesea to fund these electrifications from that map!

Seems fair, I'd accept it

As Jantra has pointed out it has taken a Conservative UK government to start the delivery of rail upgrade and I was pleasantly surprised to see Ebbw Vale, VOG and Maesteg lines included. So this is a reason to be cheerful and slightly optimistic in an otherwise gloomy summer. Will be more re-assured when construction actually commences.

Will the Conservatives get any political kudos. No. People do not notice who ordered the infrastructure they will only get credit if the economy improves substantially and as this bit of infrastructure will not commence until 2014/2015 it will not have any affect on the economy prior to the next election. It might benefit the next government.

Why are a number of people negative? Could be they see substantial public investment and increased fares while rail companies walk off with the profits with little risk? Perhaps some people remember that the old cash starved British Rail in some ways provided a better services eg faster trains to London and eight or twelve carriage trains on the valley lines. Whatever I will wager that this £9Bn will have more long term effect than the £9Bn spent down on Hackney Marsh.

It's welcome news, but at least a decade overdue. The £350 million they're spending electrifying the Valleys Lines and the mainline to Swansea happens to be the same amount it's costing to extend the platforms at Waterloo.

This is small change to the UK government, I'll be impressed when they re-open the Merthyr to Brecon line, or electrify the Heart of Wales.

To be honest this hardly looks bad for Wales. The only thing that concerns me is the rising fares. People will be priced off the railways which can't be good.

I also had to add how I think this is excellent news for us! As sad as I am I've een waiting for this news for several months . Hopefully the Cardiff metro will be a much more achievable goal now

I dont want to be negative or critical, as this is excellent news, albeit long overdue.

But I am going to be critical about DfT attitudes towards Wales - Wales should recieve around 5% of UK Transport spending but over the years we have been recieving less than 2%. When the DfT first proposed electrification of GWML only to Cardiff, they said that this should only continue to Swansea if WG paid. But rail infrastructure is not devolved - so money must come out of UK pot not WG!!

We should now push for devolution of all rail insfrastructure - which will mean that once the current proposals are implemented we will have money to spend on electrification of North Wales main line, Cardiff Metro, plus lots of minor improvements across Wales.

why should Wales receive 5% of all transport funding? for transport, England is a lot larger so has many more miles or road and rail. Wales has half its population within an hours travel time. Thus the total spend is going to be less.

put it another way - do we complain when we receive more than 5% per capita under Barnett or that we get more than 5% in welfare and benefits?

Jantra - I am not going to get dragged down into one of your political rants - I was just making the point that Welsh transport (the non-devolved bit) has been significantally underfunded over recent years, and that while this investment is very welcome, we should not be overgrateful as this is just rectifying a past wrong. As your hero would have said ...Rejoice..Rejoice

I agree that we cannot expect to get more than a population-based share for everything: even a poorer area of a country may have lower "needs" for spending on some areas than the richer area. Transport might be one such area, where the high demands placed on the service and the high returns on investment mean the richer areas (e.g. London) need greater spending.

But I do not agree that fairness is about receiving the same as you pay in. Otherwise any form of redistribution from rich to poor would be unfair, which is not a sentiment I share.

So you are really making two separate points.

@ cambo

perhaps I am - but not intentionally. The point was - as you have picked up - is that Wales may not necessarily need 5% of total spend. We also have to factor in that the cost / passenger mile for the last station on the line is a whole lot more than the hub or any other station inbetween. When there is capital rationing, choices have to be made based on sound financial principles.

wealth distribution is a different matter and that wasn't what I was referring to so apologies

Just realised - Cardiff bay to queen street is not included!! Is this just an oversight ???

If intentional I hope wg will fund their own personal train set

Where did you hear that? This say it is http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-18828866

Truly fantastic news.

I only really hope a quality separate (God forbid Arriva get their grubby hits on any contract) greater cardiff metro service will be born out of this. Only then will it have a great impact on local people.

what will we call the metro system?

I dont have a problem with Cardiff Metro - but that will upset some people....

So call the overall system the South East Wales Integrated Network - or SEWIN (Sea Trout - nice green logo)

But then brand the lines as Cardiff Metro 1, Cardiff Metro 2, Valleys (or Glamorgan) Metro 1, Valleys Metro 2, Gwent Metro 1, etc.


But my plea for a new line and station is a spur off the VoG line to Cardiff Airport. Instead of terminating 3 or 4 trains an hour at Barry Island (who really goes there??) - take at least 2 trains/hour on to Cardiff Airport - then run them as express services stopping only at Barry, Central, Queen Street and Pontypridd.

Cardiff Metro - it won't happen. despite the UK government delivering their part of the bargain, WG/CCC will find a reason to avoid financing such a scheme.

FFS we can't even get the bus station developed, baby steps first (without delusions of grandeur)

I reckon that we should invest in a couple of buckets before we do anything else - there were several water leaks dripping inside from the roof of the carriage on the train that I was on this morning.

Around 3/4 million passengers used Cardiff Bay station last year, which is 3 times more than most Coryton line stations and definitely enough to justify the line remaining.

I'd support closing the line if it was to make way for a LRT system but that's extremely pie in the sky sadly!

Had a listen to part of the phone-in on electrification.

Blimey. First, I think BBC Radio Wales were setting it up for a poor-quality debate. The title "are you willing to foot the bill?" led to confusion, with people thinking that either it is fares that are due to increase to fund this, or that it was the Welsh specifically who were being asked to pay. And secondly, by continually mentioning £9 billion and then saying "20 minute journey time saving", it made it seem like that was all the £9 billion was going towards. That actually was really poor and misleading: about £1 billion is Great Western, and what, a couple of hundred million for Valleys lines (which will also reduce journey times). And then, the format whereby they simply read our readers comments (which are often ill-informed or just plain wrong) without discussion of these allows misinformation to spread.

And then the people who phoned in or tweeted or what not.

Did noone grasp that we can only afford the NHS because we have a broader economy that generates income? And that the economy relies on good infrastructure?

Did noone hear it when it was said that this will reduce the running costs of the railway? And that we would need to replace the trains within 10 years anyway?

Do people not realise that prices are cheaper in many other countries because they have larger subsidies and more modern infrastructures that cost less to run? (and in fact, it is 'turn-up-and-go' prices that are cheaper in the continent, if you book in advance, it is often cheaper to travel in the UK).

OK, I understand most people aren't economists or development geeks. But are they actually unable to process what is being said? Or are we just such a cynical bunch that we believe nothing we are told.

In the main, media coverage has been positive is I'm surprised at BBC Radio Wales' leading question approach.

The £9bn figure is just a coalition headline grabber anyway, £5bn is already committed to Crossrail, Thameslink etc. That's not to say that £4bn is to be sniffed at.

There is some discussion about whether we get new trains, I've heard some talk of getting cascaded class 315's from Greater Anglia which are nearly 30 years old! Let's hope not, they're grim now, never mind in 6 years time.

Previously I liked Jason Mohammad but my opinion of him is lowered because of the way he set that debate, at one point someone texts in saying something like "why are we always trying to go faster, when im on a train I like to look at the countryside out the window"
Anyway I just looked up the train class you mentioned they dont look so bad compared to what we have now but we should really be getting new stock built

Bishop84- There are no through-trains that I know of.

You'll be surprised at how busy the train gets at certain times. Jantra's stats are correct but there is one more division to do - the return journey element so divide the 25 by 2 to get an average of twelve passengers per each one way trip.

Random - I don't think that most of those people were cynical, I think they were just generally ignorant and uninformed. We have more than our fair share of them in these parts. A few have even been elected into office...

According to the Office for Rail Regulation, there were 0.75 million passengers using Cardiff Bay railway station in 2010-11. You can see the stats on the wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_Bay_railway_station

You did mean (3 quarters) not (3 to 4) million right?

Cardiff bay is only a shuttle for now - but current rus plans show that after queen street has been developed that 2 tph will travel from barged & Caerphilly to the bay.

This has even been on the news in London! Very good news for everyone in S Wales, role on 2014!

Lets hope this is the first of many possitive things for Wales.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2175511/Japanese-bullet-trains-Blow-British-industry-Government-puts-1billion-order.html?ito=feeds-newsxml Look at this stupid article in the daily mail they're claiming that "bullet trains" are coming to the UK with the order of thr trains from Hitachi that will go on the GWML.