How it's what the T1 & T5 almost does now and the line wasn't built for passengers it was built to serve the dairy industry more than anything.
That's the point isn't it, it's so unpopular having a plane bigger than a Cessna isn't worthy and if it was then building a road and runway to serve anything bigger at Caernarfon would be even more of a waste.
Should TFW cut the Cambrian Coast, HOW and The Conwy Valley line, both have huge costs and both could be replaced by bus routes. In some cases the equivalent bus services are faster than the train. Why shouldn't New Quay be added into a Aber - Carmarthen line that will connect both the West Midlands to Ceredigion and also the services in South West that serve Mid and West Wales, the alternative is to build new roads and straighten what's there now, and unless they find a bus comfortable and fast enough to bother using you aren't taking a single driver out of their car.
I was thinking something along the lines of a DHC Twin Otter seat about 20 passengers. Used by Isles of Scilly Steamship Company on their routes from Exeter / Land's End and Newquay.
They couldn't fill what they had and it's been tried so often it's not worth bothering, Caernarfon is not any better than Valley. At least Valley and Cardiff had aviation connections in terms of the RAF and it still didn't get used.
I heard that the average loading was about 15 or so. You'd have hoped they'd have done some sort of anonymous survey on who was actually using it. Business? Politicians? Novelty value air geeks?
I don't know if it was the norm or not - but the one time I did try the flight all passengers were given a survey form asking where our journey was to and from and what the purpose of travel was.
I'm quite jealous, I wanted to go on it but it always ended up "ah, next month."
If flight crew asked me ''where are you travelling to'' Id worry.
Joking aside it might not be such a bad idea, and there's already the old formation there so wouldn't cost anywhere near as much as a brand new link.
Reinstating the twin tracks between Chester and Wrexham which should never have been singled. It wouldn't actually make the route any faster when it's clear, but the amount of delays that the single track inflicts due to having to wait for late oncoming trains is disgraceful.
1) This would be a very expensive way to annoy most of the passengers on the service. There's an awful lot of passenger change over at Chester.
To be fair it's an awful lot better since the partial restoration of the double track as far as Rossett. I've found its very rare I get held there now. Unfortunately we can thank cash strapped BR for only paying for a single track bridge over the dual carriageway..
Or fix the issues that cause late running so trains present on time?
Cambrian coast is used as easy access for school pupils where the bus journey would mean a far earlier start and a much later arrival at home, the pupil numbers do not warrant building new schools all along the coast.
"Both"? You've listed 3! The Cambrian Coast carries school traffic and bridges rivers that the roads don't.
As above, doubt it other than Blaenau.
How do you get from Carmarthen to Aber via New Quay? Presumably by ignoring Lampeter and Tregaron? So a railway for outside tourists rather than locals? Not sure what your second part means "services in South West that serve Mid and West Wales"?
But it's not just about modal shift, it's about economic and social sustainability. I suspect you could upgrade the A487, the A485 and the A482 for a fraction of the cost of a new railway and to the benefit of 5x as many local residents and businesses.
Politics as well as practicality is an issue, perhaps the overriding one. Don't expect any politician of any colour to support closing the Conwy Valley. We're effectively a Conservative / Labour marginal constituency, which has been Plaid Cymru in the recent past when there's been a local infrastructure issue. You should fully expect it to become a 3 way marginal again if this was proposed. None of the parties would dare support this.
Your doubts are wrong I know it is look at a timetable and travel on it. Even with changes the main towns along the route are quicker by bus Pwllheli - Porthmadog - Machynlleth - Aberystwyth is faster by bus and cheaper. Even Barmouth with an hourly T3 connecting the T2 can be more convenient than hanging around for two hours. Other than the all stops coast RRB, many were quicker during the closure than the train is now, With buses travelling from the coast meet to the T2. Tywyn - Barmouth - Harlech is about the only destinations quicker by train
Nice idea but it's been tried for many decades and simply doesn't work. Trains run late for many reasons, all of which can be successfully fixed in Japan and other countries, but the UK culture simply doesn't allow them to be fixed.
Another example of the culture problem that the UK suffers. Government only takes an interest in transport if they perceive votes in it, and even then they often get it wrong. They're certainly not capable of listening to those who were telling them when the dual carriageway was being built, that rail traffic was on the rise, and that removing one of the tracks was a crazy idea. No, they chose instead to strip BR of cash as part of their ongoing post-Thatcher "Roads are everything" anti-rail programme.
Works in a myriad of cases, to say it doesnt is ridiculous. How do you fix unintended circumstances such as assistance at a station call, failure of infrastructure, weather etc.. or should there be resilience for everything?
Of course many things can be fixed, and indeed are, but can you imagine having to refund passengers in the UK if a train is just 5 minutes late? In Japan they have the confidence that they can do that, which they do by ironing out the reasons for delays. As I said, it's a cultural thing. Japanese culture is that loyalty to their employers is paramount, such that many of them don't even take all of their leave entitlement, whereas in the UK it's extremely common to fabricate a "sickie" to add to their annual leave. In China recently, many people literally lived at their places of employment throughout their latest 65 day Covid lockdown in order to keep their industries going. In the UK there would be an outcry of "slavery" before that happened here.