http://www.geowiki.com/New_Adlestrop_Railway_Atlas.pdf

Just found this map showing all the current and past railway lines, quite interesting stuff, must have been amazing to have seen it at the height.

"But maybe the WG were prompted by that report by the Cardiff Busines Partnership?"


I couldn't possibly comment......

The arguments about Beeching are endless and pretty fruitless.

What is clear is that is was a major mistake not to preserve the rail corridors for future rail or other transport use. Many useful plans have been totally stymied by the selling off of track-bed particularly in urban areas.

This is much more of a problem in England than in Wales. For instance the arguments over the route of HS2 would be far less if it had been possible to utilize sections of the old Grand Central Railway route.

I was in London today the tube really is a pleasure to use apart from the circle line lets hope we'll have something similar with the metro.

I wouldn't get that optimistic Huw - there isn't going to be a criss-cross network involving multiple changing points where you can opt for a myriad of alternative routes to reach your destination.

That earlier pdf was quite striking if the faint grey lines all represented closed passenger routes.Wow.

Also, does anyone know where roath station was, and what was parade station and why was it called that?

I think I'm in danger of becomming a train geek here.

I think Roath station was in Pearl Street (which I would say was Splott).

As for the Parade I'm assuming that there was a stop near to the Engineering building of Cardiff Uni which is on the Parade.

The Rhymney Railway terminus was situated on current Uni land north of Queen St Station adjacent to The Walk. This closed when the RR and GWR amalgamated in 1924 all passenger traffic was then re routed into Queen St (which had 6 platforms).
Pearl Street closed in 1917 as a wartime economic measure.

Fast forward to today: as well as electrification there should be new stations between Cardiff and Newport at St Mellons, Marshfield and Dyffryn / Celtic Springs. This could remove a huge amount of road commuter traffic at very little cost.

I see beddau is mentioned as a priority by several people, why is that?
Just wondering, as I've been there and it wasn't anything to shout about.

It also means 'Graves' in Welsh. Lovely name, spent a good chunk of my childhood there too. The station could help it become less stagnant. My mother, who worked in Cardiff, needed to take an hour long bus journey to get to work everyday. A train station would make the commute a bit easier and presumably stop in Cathays, Queens and Central

I think you may have missed my previous post on why the Beddau line is a priority. This is why.
http://www.thenewtowncentre.co.uk/

Beddau is not a final destination in its own right - it is at the end of a spur line which would pick up Llantrisant & Talbot Green before joining SWML at Pontyclun. It then goes via western Cardiff so Cardiff Central would be first stop - not Cathays - but it is about time that they re-opened a station at St Fagans.

I think a Beddau line should then continue east to St Mellons rather than north to Queen St.

I don't know much about railway engineering but everytime I go on the GWML it always seems as though there are acres of space to put stations in various parts of east Cardiff, particulalry Rumney, St Mellons and even places like Tremorfa and Splott.

Would it be so difficult to add a few stations and sort out the signalling so commuter trains could share the line? Would it be that expensive? Getting into the city centre from the east is a nightmare as soon as you get anywhere near the funeral home. Imagine a couple of park and ride stations in east Cardiff and how much traffic it would take off the road as well as the potential to develop further residential and commercial opportunities.

Eastern Cardiff also has the benefit of 4 tracks so commuter services could be separated from express line

Came across this....some interesting ideas

http://www.mgbarryconsulting.com/docs/10042012103742.pdf

@colour Wolf

Mark Barry posts on here as Mark. We have seen that paper some time ago, as you say lots of good ideas and if the costings are to be believed, its nonsensical to not implement.

Not sure why, but I use a number of "handles"! As an fyi I am expecting/hoping for some +ve news re rail electrification. A HLOS announcement is due from DfT in next 2-3 weeks; not sure of full scope but I am convinced we will get something. The challenge for us in SE Wales is how we maximise the impact of that investment - which for me is to fully develop the Metro plan for delivery in the period 2018 - 2030. Key to this is a Cardiff City Region body with sufficient powers and funding to deliver. Let’s see what the Minister says about city regions in Wales tomorrow!

Mark - excellent work on the metro proposals. Is there a reason (apert from cash) that the Coryton line and City lines can not be connected to form a circle? Even if not used for circular services (to avoid overloading the Queen St-Central section) it would allow Pontypridd line passengers to change at Radyr onto Coryton line??

Mark - I understand about competing for ever decreasing pots of cash, and concentrating on the easy wins first. But if the concept of a circular connection was included in the design, then it could be added at some time in the future for minimum disruption.

Hope this all comes about.

As Mark said the idea of linking the Coryton and City lines to create a "city circle" has been around since at least the 1970s.

The problem with it is that there's not much point to a single-track circle line. To be useful the track would need to be doubled to allow for regular clockwise & anti-clockwise services. That's expensive and not justified by current or projected passenger flows.

Meanwhile a circular service would reduce the train paths available on the City Line for valley services into Cardiff Central - thus increasing pressure on the already over-stretched Queen Street corridor.

infrastructure development

here is a little bit of infrastructure for us, helping Wales connect with the outside world.

Now I'm not one for getting party political, but this government - in one stroke - has done more for Wales' infrastructure than the previous administration has done in 13 years

Will this mean direct services from Cardiff central to Heathrow or stopping at every stop along the GWML or changing at Reading?

I have been banging the drum for Heathrow rail Access for a number of years and presented evidence to the Westminster transport committe on this and HSR last year.

Re electrification....watch out for news on Monday...

Looks like your vision is taking place