If anyone travels through on their commute, feel free to get snappy ;p

Today's metro advert was an announcement by Arriva/Welsh Government about the forthcoming improvements but no details on actual developments. Can't wait for Queen Street Station to be upgraded. What they did to that building is criminal

Is it my imagination or did the BBC News say tonight that funding to open a station at Bassaleg on the Ebbw Vale had been secured?

Cannot trace anything on any website.

Jeremy,

There are a few ifs involved.

 PYE CORNER 


UPDATE:

Them coalition ratbags have funded it!

 GREEN LIGHT FOR PYE 

I reckon there is a call for a station between Cardiff Central and Newport Station.
It astounds me there is no active line between the two mainline stations.
Not a single train station on the east side of Cardiff - neglect.

The eastern-most station on the whole Cardiff network is...

Cardiff Bay!

Agreed. It's such an easy win as well. You could have stations at Railway St/Pearl St in Splott, Rover Way in Tremorfa, Maerdy Rd in Rumney, Hendre Rd in Trowbridge/St Mellons, St Mellons Business Park, Marshfield etc. From my recollection there is ample space to build a station near all of the above. I don't know much about signalling but I'm sure it would not be too complicated to install so that the suburban routes don't hold up the inter city trains.

Traffic in Newport Rd from Roath Court funeral home to town is shocking. Imagine how many commuters you could take off the road (especially if combined with the completion of the Eastern PDR).

Isn't that more or less the "Cardiff Crossrail" part of the South Wales Metro plan being discussed on the "electrification" thread?

I haven't read the Cardiff Crossrail proposal in any great depth but stations as listed in my previous post make sense. Easy access for lots of people, enough room to build stations and infrastructure, near businesses etc etc.

I guess my point was that doing this is an easy win. It opens up the suburban rail network to east Cardiff and thousands of people without a huge outlay. I admit I really don't know a great deal about how the railways work but wouldn't it make sense to start building now? It would give impetus for the whole Cardiff Metro project for not a great deal of money in the big scheme if things. Happy to be corrected if there are any technical reasons why this can't happen now or if my sums are horrendously wrong and it would take many, many millions.

But once the signalling is in place isn't it a case of build it? There could be a design competition for the Cardiff Metro livery and signing and the design of the first Cardiff Metro stations etc etc - build a consensus, a recognisable image and get people used to the idea and the benefits.....

The report put the cost of Cardiff crossrail at £200m although I can't remember what it was including and no idea if they could start now. IMO it is a great idea and would be better for the council & WG to prioritise this over funding for a conference centre/arena. However, both would be nice!

Obviously East Cardiff is completely short of stations. No idea why or how it can be resolved though the ideas above are interesting. As for West of Central, we should get a station on the paper mill site and what about St Fagans??? A 5 minute shuttle ride from central would be great and good for those who live in the Village. Also you could build 1,000 houses south of the railway which could be served by the new station. The difficulty is whether this could be done on a mainline railway. Of course the trains won't be travelling that fast as they are coming into/leaving the station.

The Cardiff Cross Rail idea is relativiley expensive because it includes extending the City Line to Creigau and envisages street running trams to south of Central station.

But an East Cardiff line could be opened very quickly and easily at little cost - placing stations as suggested above and utilising the existing relief lines (already 4 tracked between Cardiff and Newport)so as not to interfere with Intercity and regional services. Services could continue eastwards to Newport (or even Ebbw Vale) and westwards on Ely line or to Barry or Penarth.

Could then be fully incorporated into a Crossrail scheme later.

Just get on with it.

Id love to see how a basic single platform station and a tarmac carpark can cost £3.6 million.

You want to see how many men can spend so much time doing so little. What should take a few weeks at the most will usually take a year.

They should get barratt or persimmon to build them out of plasterboard for about 20k. Even if they had to rebuild it every 5 years.

The managed motorways project around the M4/M5 junction, have you seen how long this is planned to take and at a what cost.
They built the whole M1 in that time.
This is why Britain is F****D. Other countries must laugh at how inefficient we are.

Agree that we have to build things quicker and less expensively in Britain.

As for the extra stations debate, I think Creigau is a nice idea long term but it's expensive and not much worth it without new houses in west Cardiff being built. The most obvious place for a new station is north Cathays. Daviot St behind Macintosh Place isn't perfect but is easily accesible for people in Roath and on the other side you must have thousands living in the triangle between Fairoak Road Crwys Road and the railway line. You have five or six trains an hour going through there. Why isn't there a station in Gabalfa? Again you've got an easily accessible potential station for a large housing estate right next to a school! How often do people blame traffic on the school run?

The problem is that that the old TVR mainline is at maximum capacity in Cardiff. Extra stations = fewer trains per hour.

One of the arguements used for electrification was that electric trains decelerate and accelerate more quickly than DMUs. The additional stations you mention (which are reasonable suggestions) might be possible after electrification - but not before.

The old South Wales Railway / Great Western main line has a similar problem having been built to a two track rather than four track standard. New stations are possible - but they won't be easy or cheap.

Extra stations can be added on the northern part of the Rhymney Valley line - and one is being at the moment and there are plans for a Canton / Ely Paper Mill station on the City Line. Those are relatively straight forward.

Isn't the whole idea of revamping Central and Queent St about adding capacity. I thought the number of Valleys trains would be increasing to 16 an hour with the redevelopment? Are you saying that the added time caused by more stations would mean more congestion and therefore go above capacity?

It would be possible to free up some capacity between Radyr and Queen Street by diverting one or two trains an hour via the City Line so arriving at Central Station before Queen Street - this could allow a Pontypridd to Cardiff Central express (non-stopping) service - and/or continue trains on to Newport.

Then extra stations could be opened at Cathays and Gabalfa as you suggest.

That's a very sensible suggestion. The problem of stations versus capacity on the former TVR mainline is going to be with us until someone bites the bullet about replacing the Queen Street railway bridge. The signaling work / new platforms / electrification can only do so much.

The problem dates back to the closure of Cardiff Parade Station in the 1920s - diverting passenger trains from the Rhymney valley line onto former TVR metals eventualy created today's bottleneck at Queen street. The move made perfect sense at the time - the valley lines were primarily goods lines and the Rhymney valley line maintained its seperate (goods only) link to Cardiff Docks.

Yes the only problem with that would be fewer trains for Llandaff and Cathays. Is the only answer to try and move to four tracks between Queen St and the split off between the lines going to Cathays and Heath.

Probably - and that would mean a prolonged disruption while the Queen Street and Salisbury Road bridges were replaced. I think it would be worth it - but I understand why politicians are scared of the inevitable grief they would get.