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

[yorksrob]

The Wales free bus pass is not generally available on train services. You can't use it on the North Wales Coast or the Cambrian mainline for example, nor on the Cambrian Coast for a large part of the year. It wasn't available on the Conwy Valley line until after the X1 bus service had commenced. The council only made it available on the Conwy Valley deliberately to get passengers off the bus back onto the train. If that doesn't count as deliberately rigging the market, then I don't know what would be.

Before the council deliberately undermined it, the X1 showed that there was a market for an hourly service, including through services to Porthmadog. What we currently have is a three hourly train service, with some very poor onward connections to Porthmadog. So poor is the service that is often quicker to go via Bangor! I used to go from Porthmadog to Llandudno quite often for shopping, but it is almost impossible to do so by public transport now - it is far and away quicker and easier to go to Bangor.

While money continues to be poured into the black hole that is the Conwy Valley line, there is no way that the Assembly or local councils are going to support a parallel bus service. And there is no way the Conwy Valley line is ever going to get the investment needed for an hourly service. So we are stuck with the current miserable service, when something so much better is needed, and could be had for a fraction of the cost. As far as I am concerned, the Conwy Valley line isn't providing a service, it is preventing the service that is needed.

And I say that providing a pass on the bus which isn't usable on the train is rigging the market in favour of the bus. The council merely equalised the situation.

Let's face it, if the train was as comparatively unattractive as you say it is, someone with a bus pass which can be used on both will clearly chose the bus. That they didn't shows that the bus wasn't as attractive as you like to say it was.

That's not to say that the train service shouldn't be improved to meet peoples expectations. I agree with this here as I do with the Whitby line for example.

 

[Bletchleyite]

To be fair, the pass thing didn't kill the X1 completely, it just caused them to drop it to a single bus. What killed it was the closing down of Express Motors due to the fraud charges levelled against several of its directors - it was the *classic* disreputable small operator.

Ironically, wasn't said fraud related to claiming passholder journeys were made that weren't?

The X19 now exists to plug some of the gaps (though sadly is not in the train timetable) - and no doubt costs more because Llew Jones behave themselves.

 

[Belperpete]

The last time that I caught the train, I was one of three who got off the train at Blaenau. Whilst waiting for the bus to Porthmadog, the X1 pulled in and about a dozen people got off. As Bletchleyite says, the council's actions didn't kill off the X1, they just caused sufficient people to move back to the train to cause the bus operator to reduce the service. There were still considerably more people using the bus than the train.

It used to be possible to leave Porthmadog at mid-day and do a couple of hour's shopping in Llandudno using the X1 bus, until the council deliberately rigged the market against it. Looking at Traveline Cymru, if I want to go shopping in Llandudno, I can catch a bus from Porthmadog at 0733 to Blaenau then up the Conwy Valley. If I want to get up at a slightly more reasonable time, however, then I have to go via Bangor. The next itinerary up the Conwy Valley doesn't leave Porthmadog until 1549 - and that uses the X19 bus not the train! That is completely useless as far as I am concerned, and why I have largely given up going to Llandudno. The council's actions may have brought a few people back to the train, but at the expense of a bus service that was actually useful to considerably more.

 

[yorksrob]

The last time that I caught the train, I was one of three who got off the train at Blaenau. Whilst waiting for the bus to Porthmadog, the X1 pulled in and about a dozen people got off. As Bletchleyite says, the council's actions didn't kill off the X1, they just caused sufficient people to move back to the train to cause the bus operator to reduce the service. There were still considerably more people using the bus than the train.

It used to be possible to leave Porthmadog at mid-day and do a couple of hour's shopping in Llandudno using the X1 bus, until the council deliberately rigged the market against it. Looking at Traveline Cymru, if I want to go shopping in Llandudno, I can catch a bus from Porthmadog at 0733 to Blaenau then up the Conwy Valley. If I want to get up at a slightly more reasonable time, however, then I have to go via Bangor. The next itinerary up the Conwy Valley doesn't leave Porthmadog until 1549 - and that uses the X19 bus not the train! That is completely useless as far as I am concerned, and why I have largely given up going to Llandudno. The council's actions may have brought a few people back to the train, but at the expense of a bus service that was actually useful to considerably more.

No they haven't rigged the market as train and bus have an equal playing field.

Perhaps you should be directing your ire towards the way that bus services are funded and (not) regulated, rather than the railway network.

 

[Bletchleyite]

No they haven't rigged the market as train and bus have an equal playing field.

Perhaps you should be directing your ire towards the way that bus services are funded and (not) regulated, rather than the railway network.

If only the buses were regulated, the sensible thing on the Conwy Valley would be a combination of bus and rail - possibly even involving fewer trains than at present on the southern section allowing two-hourly clockface on the northern section.

I'm a great supporter of unified ticketing and timetabling in cities - but in rural areas where provision can be patchy it's even more important still.

 

[yorksrob]

If only the buses were regulated, the sensible thing on the Conwy Valley would be a combination of bus and rail - possibly even involving fewer trains than at present on the southern section allowing two-hourly clockface on the northern section.

I'm a great supporter of unified ticketing and timetabling in cities - but in rural areas where provision can be patchy it's even more important still.

Given the scarcity of the service at present, I wouldn't support any further reductions on any section of the line.

Nevertheless, I agree that elements of reregulation and cross subsidy are required for bus services.

 

[Belperpete]

No they haven't rigged the market as train and bus have an equal playing field.

Perhaps you should be directing your ire towards the way that bus services are funded and (not) regulated, rather than the railway network.

I might have agreed with you had the free pass been available on the Conwy Valley before the bus service started, or if they had made the free pass available on all rail services. This was a targeted intervention, specifically designed to undermine a commercial bus operation by changing the playing field. If that were not bad enough, the council's action wasn't even done to benefit their ratepayers, as it resulted in them receiving a significantly worse service.

Like it or not, in most of the UK, free passes are available on bus services but not rail services. Bus operators can decide whether or not to run a commercial bus service based on that known market model. Agreed that there are some specific areas where the free pass can also be used on trains, but again this is a known market model that bus operators can base their commercial decisions on. What happened in the case of the Conwy Valley was that a bus operator decided to start a commercial service based on the known market model, and the council then deliberately changed that market model to undermine the commercial operation. They deliberately rigged the existing market against the bus operator.

 

[Belperpete]

If only the buses were regulated, the sensible thing on the Conwy Valley would be a combination of bus and rail.

The problem with regulation, particularly when combined with a shortage of funds, is that it tends to lead to services becoming fossilised, and only getting ever more pared back when demand drops.. Councils are reluctant to risk public funds unless there is a demonstrable need. It took a commercial operator to take the risk to show that there was sufficient demand for an hourly bus service. Agreed that there wasn't sufficient demand for an hourly bus service AND the train service, but it was the council regulator that decided to kill-off the useful hourly bus service in order to save the next-to-useless three hourly train service. You are going to have to do a lot to convince me that giving them even more powers would be a good thing!

 

[yorksrob]

I might have agreed with you had the free pass been available on the Conwy Valley before the bus service started, or if they had made the free pass available on all rail services. This was a targeted intervention, specifically designed to undermine a commercial bus operation by changing the playing field. If that were not bad enough, the council's action wasn't even done to benefit their ratepayers, as it resulted in them receiving a significantly worse service.

Like it or not, in most of the UK, free passes are available on bus services but not rail services. Bus operators can decide whether or not to run a commercial bus service based on that known market model. Agreed that there are some specific areas where the free pass can also be used on trains, but again this is a known market model that bus operators can base their commercial decisions on. What happened in the case of the Conwy Valley was that a bus operator decided to start a commercial service based on the known market model, and the council then deliberately changed that market model to undermine the commercial operation. They deliberately rigged the existing market against the bus operator.

Just because the free bus pass already exists (which I don't have an issue with by the way) doesn't give commercial operators an inalienable right to benefit from it by way of an enhanced market position, in perpetuity. The Council were quite within their right to offer free rail travel to pass holders, just as commercial bus operators have a right to operate a service which they think they can do on a commercial basis.

The fact of the matter is, that given a choice between using the bus with their free pass, or using the train with their free pass, many people chose to use the train.

 

[mmh]

This "the council sabotaged the bus" conspiracy theory seems unlikely to me.

Who are "the council"? The line passes through two council areas.
Bus passes issued by any council in Wales are valid.
Has the same "market rigging" taken place for all the other lines where bus passes can be used?
Why would anyone want to "rig the market"?

 

[edwin_m]

The problem with regulation, particularly when combined with a shortage of funds, is that it tends to lead to services becoming fossilised, and only getting ever more pared back when demand drops.. Councils are reluctant to risk public funds unless there is a demonstrable need. It took a commercial operator to take the risk to show that there was sufficient demand for an hourly bus service. Agreed that there wasn't sufficient demand for an hourly bus service AND the train service, but it was the council regulator that decided to kill-off the useful hourly bus service in order to save the next-to-useless three hourly train service. You are going to have to do a lot to convince me that giving them even more powers would be a good thing!

Regulation on its own achieves very little. But it is one of the necessary elements to put bus services onto a long-term stable footing as train services largely are, and let the bus play its full part in reducing car use. Currently governments of whatever colour just push costs onto councils while cutting their funding, and buses are one of the easiest things for councils to cut. The Conwy Valley is an example of where the taxpayer is funding an expensive train service when it could achieve a similar or better result at far less cost with a publically funded bus service if only the funding of the two was a level playing field. In other places bus regulation would actually lead to better train services by feeding passengers into them instead of providing an imperfect form of competition.

There is a risk of fossilisation, but there needs to be a measure of continuity. People will choose where to live and work based on the existence of a train service, but are unlikely to do so if the connection is a bus that might disappear with a couple of months notice.

 

[krus_aragon]

I might have agreed with you had the free pass been available on the Conwy Valley before the bus service started, or if they had made the free pass available on all rail services. This was a targeted intervention, specifically designed to undermine a commercial bus operation by changing the playing field. If that were not bad enough, the council's action wasn't even done to benefit their ratepayers, as it resulted in them receiving a significantly worse service.

Like it or not, in most of the UK, free passes are available on bus services but not rail services. Bus operators can decide whether or not to run a commercial bus service based on that known market model. Agreed that there are some specific areas where the free pass can also be used on trains, but again this is a known market model that bus operators can base their commercial decisions on. What happened in the case of the Conwy Valley was that a bus operator decided to start a commercial service based on the known market model, and the council then deliberately changed that market model to undermine the commercial operation. They deliberately rigged the existing market against the bus operator.

I think some of your ire may be misdirected here. as @mmh has pointed out, the passes are issued nationwide, and to the best of my knowledge, are funded by the Welsh Government, not local councils. Some local councils funded other schemes, not linked to the bus pass, but many, including Powys withdrew their schemes in favour of the national bus pass one. And renewals/extenions to the scheme have generally been announced by the Welsh Government.

I agree that the acceptance of bus passes on rail in Wales was a targeted intervention but I don't think that it was targeted specifically at Express Motors as operator of the bus service in the Conwy Valley (or bus operators along the Cambrian Coast, HOWL and Borderlands lines. They will have been disadvantaged by the competition, granted. (The bus company would have still had the flexibility to alter their routes, timings, etc as they saw fit. Heck, they could have timed their buses to run ten minutes ahead of every rail service to poach passengers if they wanted, just like warring bus companies do to each other!)

The commercial situation changed, and in a way that was not advantageous to the bus operator. But should public bodies be obliged to never do anything that would indirectly disadvantage a private operation? That's a very political decision to make. (Should Gwynedd Council be berated for funding BR and its successors to operate extra services on Summer Sundays along the Cambrian Coast? Think of the lost revenue for the local bus operators!)

 

[Bletchleyite]

Heck, they could have timed their buses to run ten minutes ahead of every rail service to poach passengers if they wanted, just like warring bus companies do to each other!)

That I think is what they *did* do when they cut it to one bus, rather than running at more convenient times - the train lacks commuter-timed services to Llandudno (which the X19 now provides) and they didn't I think go for those.

 

[Belperpete]

I think some of your ire may be misdirected here. as @mmh has pointed out, the passes are issued nationwide, and to the best of my knowledge, are funded by the Welsh Government, not local councils. Some local councils funded other schemes, not linked to the bus pass, but many, including Powys withdrew their schemes in favour of the national bus pass one. And renewals/extenions to the scheme have generally been announced by the Welsh Government.

Initially only Welsh bus passes issued by Gwynedd or Conwy could be used on the Conwy Valley. However, latterly the local authority restrictions on using Welsh bus passes on the various train services all seem to have been removed (see RailUK Fares & Ticketing Guide - Section 6 - Discounted Fares I have already pointed out to the moderator concerned that this section needs changing).

I agree that the acceptance of bus passes on rail in Wales was a targeted intervention but I don't think that it was targeted specifically at Express Motors as operator of the bus service in the Conwy Valley (or bus operators along the Cambrian Coast, HOWL and Borderlands lines.

Availability on the Cambrian etc has been in place for quite awhile. Availability on the Conwy Valley was a much later addition, made in direct response to the X1 service.

The commercial situation changed, and in a way that was not advantageous to the bus operator. But should public bodies be obliged to never do anything that would indirectly disadvantage a private operation?

Agreed. But their intervention disadvantaged their own ratepayers, who lost a useful bus service in order to protect a worse than useless train service.

 

[Belperpete]

The timings don't work very well for people commuting to the Junction and Llandudno, so most commuters probably drive (there is no circa 0830 arrival nor a circa 1745 departure, and most of the work is retail which will sit in roughly that bracket, or hospitality which will just be rather random and not suitable for rural public transport anyway). That said, if anyone there works in Chester it does work for that.

The Conwy Valley timings are primarily driven by the school traffic, which is why they are pretty useless for just about anyone else. The Ffestiniog realised that the loadings on its last train had been dropping, as increasingly families prefer to get back for their evening meal earlier than used to be the case. The late afternoon Conwy Valley train suffers from the same problem - the numbers travelling back on the 1730-ish from Blaenau are nothing compared to what they were even ten years ago. If you are on a train that gets back to Llandudno at 1830-1900, by the time you have got back to your hotel and got ready, and then found somewhere to eat, it will probably be getting on for 8 o'clock, which is far too late for families with young children.

The Ffestiniog therefore retimed its last train to run earlier, and saw a corresponding increase in traffic. They tried to get the Conwy Valley train made earlier too, to maintain the connection and improve traffic, but this was refused as it would have meant making the previous train too early for the school run home.

 

[krus_aragon]

Initially only Welsh bus passes issued by Gwynedd or Conwy could be used on the Conwy Valley. However, latterly the local authority restrictions on using Welsh bus passes on the various train services all seem to have been removed (see RailUK Fares & Ticketing Guide - Section 6 - Discounted Fares I have already pointed out to the moderator concerned that this section needs changing).

I'd forgotten that. All the rail schemes were limited to local council residents at first, so it seems. This article from 2007 about the start of the Conwy Valley scheme notes that both the Welsh Assembly Government and the two local councils (through the Conwy Valley Rail Initiative) contributed funding to the scheme, but doesn't mention how much the councils contributed compared to the WAG's £100k. The impression I get is that the WAG was the main funder.

Availability on the Cambrian etc has been in place for quite awhile. Availability on the Conwy Valley was a much later addition, made in direct response to the X1 service

Are you sure on that? This archive copy of a Daily Post article from May 2008 indicates that the Conwy Valley scheme had been running since 2007, and the Cambrian Coast scheme was a new addition in 2008. There may have been a separate council-run scheme prior to that, but I haven't been able to find any evidence of it yet.

Agreed. But their intervention disadvantaged their own ratepayers, who lost a useful bus service in order to protect a worse than useless train service.

It's a valid point, but I doubt whether that was their intention. Looking back, a different course of action may have been better, but you know what they say about hindsight being 20/20...

The Conwy Valley timings are primarily driven by the school traffic, which is why they are pretty useless for just about anyone else.

Which school traffic? For Ysgol Dyffryn Conwy, in Llanrwst, the northbound train calls at the station at 0907, when morning registration started at 0855. The school day finishes at 1530, but there's no time to get to the station before the 1530 service departs (northbound again, so doesn't offer a journey home to anyone who came by train in the morning).

As for Ysgol John Bright in Llandudno, their school day starts at 0840, and if you're travelling by train from the Conwy Valley you've got a choice of arriving at 0740 (changing at Junction) or 0958, both impractical. At the end of the school day (1510) you've got over an hour's wait until the next train to Blaenau. Pupils from the Upper Conwy Valley would be more likely to go to Ysgol Aberconwy (in Conwy) than John Bright, but requiring a change of train at the Junction isn't going to help in that direction either.

The timetable on the Cambrian Coast is certainly designed around school traffic (Ysgol Ardudwy in Harlech), but the timetable for the Conwy Valley is as useless for school traffic as it is for everyone else.

 

[Llanigraham]

Re extending the Ffest through the tunnel.
My understanding is that this has been looked at, together with the extension towards Traws, but both have been discounted as being unfeasible, economically, practically and not "worthy".

 

[Dr_Paul]

Re extending the Ffest through the tunnel. My understanding is that this has been looked at, together with the extension towards Traws, but both have been discounted as being unfeasible, economically, practically and not "worthy".

It would be taking on a massive job, whatever direction the line went. Going north to Bettws, the tunnel would be a right bother if the current instability continues. Going south to Trawsfynnedd, the route would have to be thoroughly overhauled, including a big viaduct, as it's been disused for many years. Looking more broadly, the northern route does have the advantage of ending at a popular tourist town; the southern route ends in bleak moorland by a derelict power station, not a particularly attractive destination for many people.

 

[Bald Rick]

Well, someone has grasped the nettle...

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/conwy_valley_line_spending

 

[yorksrob]

No doubt all the Beechingistas will be licking their lips in excitement.

If we let this one escape, those of us who rely on the railway as a network will soon live to regret it.

You mark my words.

 

[Bletchleyite]

No doubt all the Beechingistas will be licking their lips in excitement.

If we let this one escape, those of us who rely on the railway as a network will soon live to regret it.

You mark my words.

That is certainly a valid concern - if closures become politically acceptable, there will be a LOT more of them.

Isle of Wight second, I reckon - it's as much of a basket case, it just doesn't flood out and cause damage every other year.

 

[yorksrob]

That is certainly a valid concern - if closures become politically acceptable, there will be a LOT more of them.

Isle of Wight second, I reckon - it's as much of a basket case, it just doesn't flood out and cause damage every other year.

I don't accept either as a case for closure, however the IoW doesn't seem to be comparable on any level because it doesn't seem to be subject to as much climate related stress as this route. It's just not been renewed properly and people are trying to concoct a case for closure around that.

 

[Adsy125]

The IOW light is different, because it's genuinely useful and provides a superior service over what the bus could ever do, because of the speed. Sadly the Conwy valley line is neither faster or more frequent than a bus could be.

 

[allaction]

Tonight’s (Wednesday 10 April) 1830 edition of BBC Wales Today includes (15 minutes in) a comprehensive film report of the damage to the line. The damage is extensive, but by contrast, that part repaired in 2016 was untouched by the recent storms.

It’s well worth a look on the BBC iPlayer when it goes up at around 1930, but like all news programmes, is only up for 24 hours, and not the standard 30 days.

 

[AndrewE]

Nice to see a good report, and they highlighted that repairs of the most recent (last year's?) damage have withstood the flood this time (but didn't hint or even wonder whether the overtopping might have just been pushed elsewhere!)
However some sort of innovative response was hinted at.
For my money the automatic response to anything like this should be to dig a few deep holes where the railway line was supposed to be, put in however many concrete piers are needed and use standard concrete beams or even decks to reinstate the line. (As we have talked about earlier.)