Should Conwy Valley line be closed? Or is there an affordable way to keep it open?

[yorksrob]

The question is is there one? Short of rebuilding it higher up so it's not on the flood plain...

Yes, providing a route for water to drain through.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yes, providing a route for water to drain through.

That would help, but wouldn't prevent other damage caused simply by waterlogging.

 

[AndrewE]

That would help, but wouldn't prevent other damage caused simply by waterlogging.

Come on! If the track bed is on its viaduct above the water line and the ballast is draining properly then there wouldn't be any problem at all. The flood water is going under the bridge spans, don't forget. After all, we don't have speed restrictions on properly maintained track just because of heavy rain, do we?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Come on! If the track bed is on its viaduct above the water line and the ballast is draining properly then there wouldn't be any problem at all. The flood water is going under the bridge spans, don't forget. After all, we don't have speed restrictions on properly maintained track just because of heavy rain, do we?

The trackbed was under water in places, wasn't it?

 

[AndrewE]

The trackbed was under water in places, wasn't it?

Was that because the water had been dammed up? or was the whole width of the valley under water - and would the water have been that deep if the railway and other embankments hadn't been impounding it?
Obviously it needs thinking about by someone who understands the local geography and water flows (and who has been given the remit to retain the railway) but until that has been done - as was done for the rivers Exe and Creedy at Cowley Bridge - it is premature to call for the abandoning of the railway line.

 

[Greybeard33]

Yes, this. I would support closure to be replaced with a Swiss style Postauto on a regular interval timetable. Not, as would happen, a single rotting old Dennis Dart being driven up and down in a reckless manner, which is what it would be (and is what the X1 was).

Section 7 of the Transport (Wales) Act 2006, as subsequently amended, appears to give the Welsh Assembly powers to procure a replacement bus service of an appropriate standard:

7 Provision of public passenger transport services

(1) The Assembly may secure the provision of any public passenger transport services which it considers appropriate for the purpose of meeting any public transport requirements within Wales which would not in its view otherwise be met.

(2) In exercising its power under subsection (1) the Assembly must have regard to—

(a) a combination of economy, efficiency and effectiveness,
(b) the Wales Transport Strategy, and
(c) the transport needs of members of the public who are elderly or disabled.
​

(3) For the purpose of securing the provision of a service under subsection (1) the Assembly may enter into agreements providing for service subsidies.

(4) But the Assembly may not enter into an agreement under subsection (3) unless the service in question would not be provided, or would not be provided to a particular standard, without a subsidy.

(4A) The reference in subsection (4) to the standard to which a service is provided includes—

(a) the frequency or timing of the service;
(b) the days, or times of day, when the service is provided;
(c) the vehicles used to provide the service.​

I guess a political obstacle might be that the on-going cost of the bus subsidy would come out of the WA's devolved budget, whereas the cost of rebuilding the railway would effectively be met by the UK government, via the Network Grant to Network Rail.

 

[edwin_m]

Section 7 of the Transport (Wales) Act 2006, as subsequently amended, appears to give the Welsh Assembly powers to procure a replacement bus service of an appropriate standard:

I guess a political obstacle might be that the on-going cost of the bus subsidy would come out of the WA's devolved budget, whereas the cost of rebuilding the railway would effectively be met by the UK government, via the Network Grant to Network Rail.

Isn't Wales still subject to bus deregulation? That quote seems to give WG the same power as local authorities to procure services, but these are subject to challenge if they appear to be competing with a commercial service.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

There needs to be a very serious environmental study on the flooding characteristics of the area , and the associated impacts. Akin to the numerous and detailed works on the Dawlish corridor. It is clearly a matter outwith the railway frankly ,and a bigger fluvial / geomorpholigical study - (a) to deal with rock issues in the tunnel and (b) the river valley.

The rail industry has patched the route up several times , at no doubt great expense , and restored operations - only for another series of washouts. This really cannot go on for ever, and much though the line is "adored" it is indeed part of the National network , but frankly does not really make it a "must keep it open at all costs" bit of railway. Passenger loadings are generally low for much of the year and as mentioned before the business case for enhancement of services is very low. Unless someone can provide a convincing and quantified case for the latter.

I said before there is no strategic freight to consider , and frankly not much of a "lifeline" passenger consideration.

A very hard think is needed in my opinion.

Money saved could be better spent elsewhere in North Wales.

 

[Bald Rick]

We've had the promises that "there's a replacement bus and it's equivalent to the railway that's just been torn up" before.

Do people believe it.

Also, do people genuinely believe that the money to run their railway in the area, will go to local schools, social care etc, or will the saving just be lost in the next round of Council grant cuts.

I wonder ?

I need to be clear here - I’m not advocating closure in the current political / operating model of the railway.

What I am suggesting is that if the system changed, and we had a willingness by the politicians to guarantee a much better bus/ coach service - run as part of the rail franchise in the national network with all that entails - then it would unquestionably be better for the passenger (more frequent, more reliable, quicker service), and taxpayer (much lower cost). I can’t see any downside.

I also suggest that if/when Wales gets full autonomy on transport spending, it will work this out.

This line is probably the best example of this potential, although no doubt here are a handful of others.

 

[Greybeard33]

Isn't Wales still subject to bus deregulation? That quote seems to give WG the same power as local authorities to procure services, but these are subject to challenge if they appear to be competing with a commercial service.

These powers are similar, but not identical, to those of English local authorities/PTAs. An amendment, specific to Wales, introduced by Section 69 the Local Transport Act 2008 (para. 4(A) in the extract I quoted above) specifically allows subsidies if a commercial service is not to the required standard, in respect of either the timetable or the vehicles used.

This appears to provide TfW with a defence against a challenge from a "cowboy" commercial operator offering an inferior service.

 

[6Gman]

I don’t feel comments like that are particularly helpful to be honest and they’re becoming a bit of a cliche. The line is there, it’s important to the local economy so it’s essential it is repaired.

Is it really important to the local economy though?

 

[6Gman]

I suspect , back in the day , the existance of the power station at Trawsfynydd was a major strategic factor in the retention of the route as there were reasonable numbers of nuclear trains running. (which also kept the section south of Blaenau functioning - an extant route which has had a few issues of late in potential "restoration")

So , there are no realistic options for strategic or other freight traffics, - there were unrealised slate waste trials a good few years ago.

The future is therefore on the passenger service. I suspect the economics are very precarious , particularly having assessed a Rail Partnership Programme bid in the days of the SRA , where the case fell at the very first hurdle on potential patronage. The cost / benefit ratio was well below acceptance level , and this was with 15x rolling stock , not some Swiss Rhaetish Bahn panorama trains or "scenery viewer" trains.

The answer clearly has to be how much money "UK PLC" feels that the line can absorb. Operationally and retention / restoration of the infrastructure.

A helpful post, as ever.

I think it was nuclear traffic which saved the branch in the 1960s; that traffic has now gone.

 

[tomos dafis]

In response to suggestions about a decent regular and reliable bus service in place of the flood- damage prone railway requiring frequent expensive repairs, it is worth noting that bus and taxi regulation have now been devolved to Welsh Assembly in the Wales Act 2018. WG is currently consulting on regulation of taxis and aims to consider how to proceed on bus regulation in Wales in future plus it is intending to extend the remit of TfW beyond just rail. So in future it is possible TfW could specify a regulated modern regular reliable bus service in place of the train (sad as I love this line but commercial and economic reality must enter the discussion).
Also expensive repairs to frequent flood damage to this line eat into the funds allocated by Network Rail to the Wales region, money which could be used for enhancements elseswhere in Wales and Borders.

 

[yorksrob]

I need to be clear here - I’m not advocating closure in the current political / operating model of the railway.

What I am suggesting is that if the system changed, and we had a willingness by the politicians to guarantee a much better bus/ coach service - run as part of the rail franchise in the national network with all that entails - then it would unquestionably be better for the passenger (more frequent, more reliable, quicker service), and taxpayer (much lower cost). I can’t see any downside.

I also suggest that if/when Wales gets full autonomy on transport spending, it will work this out.

This line is probably the best example of this potential, although no doubt here are a handful of others.

Is there anything stopping a more frequent train service being operated today, or is it just stuck with an old timetable like the Whitby line ?

Anyway, this is the sort of "potential" I can happily do without.

 

[krus_aragon]

Is there anything stopping a more frequent train service being operated today, or is it just stuck with an old timetable like the Whitby line ?

Anyway, this is the sort of "potential" I can happily do without.

It's a single line south of Llandudno Junction, with a passing loop at Llanrwst North. If you up the frequency, you either need to stop through trains to Llandudno Town, drop the clockface timetable, or spend money on infrastructure upgrades.

There was a better service in the 90s, on much the same infrastructure, but it was anything but clockface, and interworked with stopping services on the coast (which no longer exist, with long distance trains making request stops).

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's a single line south of Llandudno Junction, with a passing loop at Llanrwst North. If you up the frequency, you either need to stop through trains to Llandudno Town, drop the clockface timetable, or spend money on infrastructure upgrades.

It doesn't have a clockface timetable, though it needs one. Unfortunately, there isn't *quite* enough time to run clockface two-hourly with one unit (turning at the Junction) - it was tried in the past but was not workable.

With the present passing loop you could run two-hourly clockface but would require a second unit and crew, but could do this without any infrastructure changes. There might be a sensible way to do this involving having it do an additional Llandudno-Jn shuttle in the (excessive) layover.

To go any better than two-hourly you would need infrastructure changes.

Having said that, if there was a will to obtain a couple of dedicated units, say Class 230s, you could have sets with diesel generators and batteries to give EMU or even tram-like acceleration, as well as saving an additional 5 seconds or so per stop by using driver door release, which just might speed things up enough to get away with it. With dedicated units there's quite a lot of good stuff you could do - say you go for 3-car sets there could be 6 bike spaces and extra luggage space for rucksacks, as well as bus-style stop buttons to ease the request stop operation.

 

[yorksrob]

Two hourly seems to me to be the very minimum level of service that one would need to make it useable.

 

[Bletchleyite]

This appears to provide TfW with a defence against a challenge from a "cowboy" commercial operator offering an inferior service.

Only to the extent that it would mean they would not have to withdraw service if some rubbish like the X1 turned up. It wouldn't stop the operator running them into the ground.

Really, to get a Swiss style operation in place you need regulation, including to the extent of preventing others entering the market.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Two hourly seems to me to be the very minimum level of service that one would need to make it useable.

If you want to get the weekend tripper market, it also needs a late evening Friday service (2100 ish) and a Sunday service. The UK does have a bad habit of throwing away markets for this kind of thing - Windermere is similar - it just finishes too early.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Was that because the water had been dammed up? or was the whole width of the valley under water - and would the water have been that deep if the railway and other embankments hadn't been impounding it?

I think in places the river level had raised sufficiently to place some parts fully under water. That wasn't what caused the embankment washaways, but I suspect it did cause some of the equipment damage. Llanrwst station, for instance, is quite low down and has a number of times flooded to platform level. I'd imagine that may be what has caused Dolwyddelan platform to flop - it's only ply and it would have been waterlogged. I also read something saying that the foundations of some platforms had shifted as there had essentially been a horizontal landslip.

Re equipment boxes etc could there be a sense in switching it to RETB? Then there basically wouldn't be any equipment to maintain at all. (Are there any AHB level crossings? I think they are all manual?)

 

[yorksrob]

If you want to get the weekend tripper market, it also needs a late evening Friday service (2100 ish) and a Sunday service. The UK does have a bad habit of throwing away markets for this kind of thing - Windermere is similar - it just finishes too early.

Yes indeed. It's amusing how so many on here are so quick to start drafting the closure notice, when no one has even bothered to run a decent service yet.

 

[yorksrob]

I think in places the river level had raised sufficiently to place some parts fully under water. That wasn't what caused the embankment washaways, but I suspect it did cause some of the equipment damage. Llanrwst station, for instance, is quite low down and has a number of times flooded to platform level. I'd imagine that may be what has caused Dolwyddelan platform to flop - it's only ply and it would have been waterlogged.

Does it need dredging perhaps ?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yes indeed. It's amusing how so many on here are so quick to start drafting the closure notice, when no one has even bothered to run a decent service yet.

Or indeed to market it properly. The Swiss have this one sewn up - and other than being standard gauge and non-wired this line is probably the closest to the Swiss narrow gauge concept the UK has.

 

[krus_aragon]

It doesn't have a clockface timetable, though it needs one. Unfortunately, there isn't *quite* enough time to run clockface two-hourly with one unit (turning at the Junction) - it was tried in the past but was not workable.

With the present passing loop you could run two-hourly clockface but would require a second unit and crew, but could do this without any infrastructure changes. There might be a sensible way to do this involving having it do an additional Llandudno-Jn shuttle in the (excessive) layover.

Near-clockface, then. It's about as near as they can make it with a single 150, and it's a lot closer than it was in the past (though I'm sure it's drifted again in the past decade).

When I did a desktop/crayon job of looking at a two-unit two-hourly solution, I felt things would be very tight for exchanging single line tokens at the Junction: timings were slim anyway, and if the unit from the branch ran into P4 as now, it'd be a dash over the bridge with the token in the case of late running. If it ran into P3 to save the crew's legs, then it might introduce conflicts with coast services (and P1 would be occupied with the unit waiting to go down the branch in the meantime).

The 230s, or a similarly sprightly unit, might be able to make it work off-the shelf. Otherwise, I'd expect a need for linespeed upgrades to make a robust timetable.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Near-clockface, then. It's about as near as they can make it with a single 150, and it's a lot closer than it was in the past (though I'm sure it's drifted again in the past decade).

It's about every three hours, but it isn't clockface. There is only any point in clockface if it actually is clockface, i.e. you can remember something like "five minutes past every three hours starting at 0905 and finishing at 2105" or something. Once you move even a couple of minutes off, it's pointless.

When I did a desktop/crayon job of looking at a two-unit two-hourly solution, I felt things would be very tight for exchanging single line tokens at the Junction: timings were slim anyway, and if the unit from the branch ran into P4 as now, it'd be a dash over the bridge with the token in the case of late running. If it ran into P3 to save the crew's legs, then it might introduce conflicts with coast services (and P1 would be occupied with the unit waiting to go down the branch in the meantime).

I just tried it, and it indeed didn't work very well...I might have been doing it wrong though. Speeding things up so you could do two-hourly with one unit might work better (and either use one unit, or use two/three and interwork it with a Holyhead to Llandudno stopping service of some kind).

 

[Belperpete]

We would have to ........ have a completely different attitude to funding buses to achieve something like this.

Er, like they have in Wales, do you mean? In Wales, the Traws Cymru bus network is centrally funded by the Welsh Assembly, and is an integrated network of interconnecting, long-distance services with modern, Traws Cymru-liveried coaches and buses. Replacing Conwy Valley services with a Traws Cymru service would mean it wouldn't be subject to the kind of problems associated with commercial and local authority supported services.

The Conwy Valley Line would need massive investment to give anything like the kind of service that the Welsh Assembly could get for fairly minimal cost by extending its Traws Cymru network to cover. On a cost-benefit analysis, it is a no-brainer.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Er, like they have in Wales, do you mean? In Wales, the Traws Cymru bus network is centrally funded by the Welsh Assembly, and is an integrated network of interconnecting, long-distance services with modern, Traws Cymru-liveried coaches and buses. Replacing Conwy Valley services with a Traws Cymru service would mean it wouldn't be subject to the kind of problems associated with commercial and local authority supported services.

Traws Cymru is *not* the level of quality required. It has fancy buses, but it's still operated like a bus service, largely under lowest-cost tender by the precise disreputable small local operators who I don't want anywhere near the thing. It also has poor luggage and cycle provision, and no through ticketing with the railway. And there's no law against anyone trying to compete with it and thus trash it.

It looks glitzy, but in reality it is done on the cheap.

 

[edwin_m]

Is Traws Cymru only possible because most of its territory doesn't have enough passengers for anyone to make any money on a commercial serivce? The fact Express Motors have tried on this route suggests there could be another commercial challenge, especially if the train is no longer there.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Is Traws Cymru only possible because most of its territory doesn't have enough passengers for anyone to make any money on a commercial serivce? The fact Express Motors have tried on this route suggests there could be another commercial challenge, especially if the train is no longer there.

That would be my precise worry. Without the train, a commercial "low quality, low cost" option may be viable and make TC non-viable.

TC mostly works because it is long-distance services through quite sparsely populated areas - so nobody would do it commercially. The Conwy Valley is more of a local service, and you could almost certainly run Llandudno-Betws profitably, if not beyond there. There are other commercial services to Llanrwst anyway.

 

[Belperpete]

Traws Cymru is *not* the level of quality required. It has fancy buses, but it's still operated like a bus service, largely under lowest-cost tender by the precise disreputable small local operators who I don't want anywhere near the thing. It also has poor luggage and cycle provision, and no through ticketing with the railway. And there's no law against anyone trying to compete with it and thus trash it.

It looks glitzy, but in reality it is done on the cheap.

As opposed to the luxury trains provided on the Conwy Valley? NOT! The last time I travelled on the Conwy Valley, the train was filthy and rode like a bucking bronco, with unpleasant wheel squeel at every tight bend.

As a regular user of the Traws Cymru services, I have never had problems with taking luggage. The services may be tendered, but TfW sets the timetable and provides the buses. The services are every bit as reliable as the train. In fact I often use the service between Porthmadog and Machynlleth in preference to the train, because it is nearly half an hour faster than the train.

And as for the idea that a commercial operator would set up in competition with an Assembly subsidised bus service and trash it, you really are clutching at straws there. It is far more likely that a commercial operator would set up in competition with a slow and inconvenient train service and trash it. As that is exactly what happened - the hourly X1 service that was just as fast, with more convenient stops, and with through services to Porthmadog, decimated ridership on the Conwy Valley. Who is to say the same thing won't happen again after umpteen millions have yet again been pumped into the Conwy Valley?

I am frustrated that the half-hearted support that the Conwy Valley currently receives means that we only get a half-hearted service. The Assembly should either give the line the investment it needs to offer a decent service, or not bother. However, the reason the Assembly isn't investing in the line is quite simple : it would fail even the most superficial cost-benefit analysis. How much would it cost to upgrade the Conwy Valley line to give an hourly service, and line speed comparable with the parallel road? And even then, passengers would still be worrying about the connection at Blaenau. Whereas, for the cost of four coaches, TfW could provide an hourly through service between Porthmadog, Blaenau and Llandudno.

Realistically, I cannot see the Conwy Valley ever receiving the investment it needs to become competitive. The sums involved would be so massive, with such a poor cost-benefit return. The millions that are currently being spent on life-support for the Conwy Valley line mean that we are being denied an alternative that would be faster, more frequent, more convenient and considerably better used.