Proposed new Welsh stations

[The Johnster]

2 hours ago, John-Miles said:

As this has become a thread about reopening lines rather than new stations, there are two valleys to the east of Maesteg (Ogmore  and Garw) which would be at least as good a candidate in terms of population served

And the Dimbath valley as well of course...

[Mountain Goat]

On 11/06/2020 at 14:01, The Johnster said:

How about diverting the Central Wales line services 'direct' to Swansea HS avoiding Llanelli by relaying the LNW from Ponrardulais to Gowerton and effect a junction with the SWML there.  This would save about 30 minutes on the Shrewsbury-Swanse running time, and increase traffic on the southern end of the Central Wales with commuters and shoppers to Swansea.  Traffic can be quite bad in the area and the big car parks are on the wrong side of Swansea for them.

 

This would I suspect be easier, cheaper, and offer a far better return on the investment than attempting to re-open Carmarthen-Aberystwyth.

Wouldn't it be cheaper to (Now I don't know how much of this line is still in use) open a new station in the Swansea dock area and use existing lines? I worked the District line but as a passenger avoiding line, so I did not go down the branches from it... But if it still exists it maybe a more viable possibility? I believe the Pontarddulais to Gowerton may need more effort to re-instate it? I know they did want to use it as a cycle path but had to think better of it. I have not really explored the area myself. Only passed on the roads. A driver said that he used to work trains down to the colliery there. Was one of the car scrap yards on the colliery site? Is the scrap yard still there? 700 autos or a name like that? Used to go down there regularly when I used to own a Fiat. Haha. Many Fiat owners did! So many Fiats in scrap yards back then. I then bought my first Volvo and rarely did any local scrapyard have a Volvo, so I stopped looking... But in those days Volvo parts were reasonably priced new unlike today where they wanted between £173 and £240ish (Depending where) for a tiny little power steering pipe! It was only a few inches long. I had the old one fixed via a retired blacksmith who used a stainless steel welding rod to seal the little hole. 

 

[Northmoor]

I hadn't noticed that funding for St. Clears got approved back in November.  This quote from the local MP got my attention:

"This will make a massive difference to the many commuters, shoppers and students who travel from the area, as well as being a big boost for the town.”

Yes it will, but it will also add five minutes to everyone else's rail journeys to West Wales.  I hope I'm wrong, but it will be interesting to see the passenger figures for Whitland and Carmarthen after 2024 (to see if  St Clears traffic is new business or abstractive from those stations) and whether West Wales traffic continues to decline.  While many rural routes in the UK have seen significant revivals this century, the West Wales lines seem to have bucked this trend.  Perhaps the WAG-run "franchise" will improve things over Arriva's (lack of) efforts.

As an aside, I wonder how long it will before the complaints start about the long delays at St. Clears level crossing, when it has to close as trains from one direction approach, stop, then pull away over the crossing?  Their current one minute delay could soon become four. 

[Ben B]

4 hours ago, Northmoor said:

While many rural routes in the UK have seen significant revivals this century, the West Wales lines seem to have bucked this trend.  Perhaps the WAG-run "franchise" will improve things over Arriva's (lack of) efforts.

 

 

I must admit, my exposure to Arriva's efforts in recent years has been the Cambrian and Conway Valley lines, and the phrases "bare minimum", "cancellation", and "replacement bus" spring to mind, so I too will be interested to see if the new owners do anything to improve matters.  It's not that long ago that extra-long trains were being run on bank holidays to Aberystwyth or Phwelli, but the service more recently (immediately pre-Covid) does seem to have been Arriva running as little as they could comfortably get away with.  Saying a service only needs a single 158 every few hours because it's quiet is one way of looking at it- or maybe if they didn't put people off by only offering them a 2-carriage train with faulty air-con for a 4 hour run to the seaside, and randomly cancel it, then they might get more passengers... 

[corneliuslundie]

I think you are being unfair to Arriva. There was a major constraint in that the franchise was let on a "no growth" basis and only a certain number of class 158s are fitted with ERTMS, so it was not possible just to divert stock from elsewhere. And most services were 4 cars at least as far as Machynlleth, with extra trains slotted in after political pressure - but only by finding different stock to free up an extra 158 to make that possible.

And certainly in the summer some of the busier trains were 6 cars at Newtown.

But things will get no better because the Welsh Assembly's arrangements with the new operator allow for only about the same number of new ERTMS fitted trains as the present fleet. There have been announcements about extra capacity but as far as I can see that will be more standing room and fewer seats.

And you must have been unlucky because in seven years I have rarely had trouble with cancellations. I am not saying that they have not happened, and floods have certainly caused problems, but I don't travel then anyway!

Jonathan

[Northmoor]

Resurrecting this thread after reading about the hospital proposals for West Wales.  Ignoring the local resistance over their A&E facility moving further away (although it will be closer to some), of the remaining three short-listed sites for a new Urgent and Planned Care Hospital, one is in St.Clears but on the opposite side of the town from the railway, about a mile from the station.  This is very convenient for the A40/A477 junction but not for rail passengers, although it might still contribute some traffic to the railway. 

 

There are two sites in Whitland; the further is also just off the A40 (but closer to the station than in St.Clears) while the nearer is the only brownfield site, the former creamery site (where I had my first job over 30 years ago!) and the obvious location if you are going to build a facility like this.  It is only seconds further off the A40 from either direction but will also be easy walking distance from the station.  If the Trust adheres to the strategy of the WAG towards reducing its carbon footprint, this is surely the sensible location (although there are obviously many other considerations in healthcare provision).  Note that at the moment, neither Haverfordwest or Carmarthen hospitals are conveniently accessed by rail.

[corneliuslundie]

Mind you if recent performance is anything to go by I wouldn't risk going for a hospital appointment in Wales by train at the moment. No TfW trains from Aberystwyth are going beyond Wolverhampton again. Apparently because of withdrawals of 175s for checks following three fires over the last three months, 158s being commandeered for the Marches line etc.. They have some 197s now but do not seem to be using them to replace 175s, though I understand that they have been running for some time on the Conwy Valley line. And more than originally planned are being fitted with ERTMS for the Cambrian route.

But I also read that they have big compartments for the catering trolley which means the loss of six seats, but the trolleys do not fir the compartments. That is only a rumour and I stand corrected if it is wrong.

Meanwhile back on topic, when I have passed through the new Bow Street "park and ride" station there have been very few cars in the car park. With an hourly service at best I am not surprised. To my mind a park and ride service needs to be at least every 15 minutes to get people to use it.

Jonathan

[KeithHC]

Very tongue in cheek. Carmarthen hospital has a rail connection The Gwilli railway.

 

off for my hat and coat

 

Keith

[corneliuslundie]

Of course if the Carmarthen to Aberystwyth line should reopen . . . 

Jonathan

[phil-b259]

On 06/03/2023 at 08:50, corneliuslundie said:

 

Meanwhile back on topic, when I have passed through the new Bow Street "park and ride" station there have been very few cars in the car park. With an hourly service at best I am not surprised. To my mind a park and ride service needs to be at least every 15 minutes to get people to use it.

 

 

 

'Parkway' stations should not be confused with a 'park & ride' facility - the two are NOT the same!

 

The point of 'parkway station's (as compared to 'ordinary' stations) is their large car parks and easy access from the road network thus making it easier for people remote from the railway to easily drive there and find plenty of parking on arrival, they are NOT built specifically because of train frequencies will be any better than surrounding stations.

 

Bristol Parkway for example wasn't built on the basis it would provide a park and ride facility for Bristol (though by virtue of its position it has become one)  or - it was built to attract motorists away from the M4 to London.

 

One of the newest examples, Thanet Parkway, is similarly being built with London Commuters in mind - not as a park and ride facility for Ramsgate.

 

Similarly the reason Bow Street was built was to cater for those longer distance travellers who didn't fancy driving into the centre of Aberystwyth to catch the train, it is not primarily intended to provide a 'park and ride' facility for Aberystwyth itself (though obviously that is potentially an option)

 

[corneliuslundie]

But the point I was making was that it is hardly used, though I am sure when the idea was being touted it was on the basis of reducing congestion in Aberystwyth, which I gather in the summer can be bad (I don't go there that often). Let's hope I have just seen it on a quiet day.

Jonathan

[phil-b259]

13 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

But the point I was making was that it is hardly used, though I am sure when the idea was being touted it was on the basis of reducing congestion in Aberystwyth, which I gather in the summer can be bad (I don't go there that often). Let's hope I have just seen it on a quiet day.

Jonathan

 

It does sometimes happen that the expected business predicted by the BCR analysis doesn't turn up in reality.

 

A classic example is the rebuilt Ivybridge station in Devon - it was built in a new location (rather than re-opening the old station) and most of the custom was supposed to be from people chosing to drive there and take the train to Plymouth rather than drive along the A38.

 

What the planners / BCR number crunchers neglected to pay attention to is (1) Plymouth station is actually a fair distance away from the city centre and (2) Thanks to the Luftwaffe / 1960s town planners Plymouth is blessed with lots of decent roads (even if they are congested)

 

As such passengers numbers were miserable compared to forecasts and it wasn't long before the feeder busses to local villages were withdrawn and the train service slashed.

 

Had the actual passenger numbers been correctly assessed at the planning stage its likely the station would never have been built.

 

These days its reverted to effectively being a small wayside station just serving Ivybridge itself and although housing development in the village is slowly increasing numbers it remains a very good example of the 'experts' getting it wrong

 

Going further back in the early 1990s a series of new stations were built between Bridgend and Swansea. Here too the 'experts' seriously over estimated the number of users - IIRC it was a combination of a rather poor service pattern and a mis understanding of where people wanted to travel to (i.e. for lots it wasn't Swansea).

[Metr0Land]

13 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

But the point I was making was that it is hardly used, though I am sure when the idea was being touted it was on the basis of reducing congestion in Aberystwyth, which I gather in the summer can be bad (I don't go there that often). Let's hope I have just seen it on a quiet day.

Jonathan

 

I don't think I've ever seen it more than a third full (if that) irrespective of where people are going on the train.

[Northmoor]

19 minutes ago, Metr0Land said:

 

I don't think I've ever seen it more than a third full (if that) irrespective of where people are going on the train.

This is what I fully expect to happen at St. Clears, plus you'll find about the same number of new spaces appearing at Carmarthen and Whitland.  I know I haven't actually lived in the area (or anywhere in Wales) for nearly 30 years - so maybe I'm completely out of touch - but re-openings in the Principality seem too often, to focus on reversing 1960s closures instead of creating the rail services needed in the 21st Century.

[KingEdwardII]

35 minutes ago, Metr0Land said:

I don't think I've ever seen it more than a third full

The fact is that Bow Street is basically in the middle of nowhere. Most folk would have to use a car to get to the station - but if they do that, they would probably use the car for the whole of any local journey - e.g. to Aberystwyth or Machynlleth. The numbers travelling long distance, e.g. to Birmingham, are not going to be that large. Other possible journeys, such as to/from Cardiff or most places in North Wales would test the patience of a saint by rail - far easier to drive.

 

It made me laugh when I investigated the train journeys from Aberystwyth to Cardiff using the National Rail planner to find that about half the suggested journeys involved taking a bus from Aber to Carmarthen and catching the train from there...

 

Yours, Mike.

[melmoth]

26 minutes ago, KingEdwardII said:

The fact is that Bow Street is basically in the middle of nowhere. Most folk would have to use a car to get to the station - but if they do that, they would probably use the car for the whole of any local journey - e.g. to Aberystwyth or Machynlleth.

 

I went to school in Aberystwyth, and it's probably fair to say than almost anywhere near Aber is in the middle of nowhere. Bow Street just happens to be on a railway line. I would think that very few people are likely to use the station to get to Machynlleth, but going into Aber it could serve as a park and ride base for Llandre, Clarach, and possibly Talybont. The feasibility of that depends no doubt on what the local bus services are like these days.

[The Johnster]

4 hours ago, KingEdwardII said:

It made me laugh when I investigated the train journeys from Aberystwyth to Cardiff using the National Rail planner to find that about half the suggested journeys involved taking a bus from Aber to Carmarthen and catching the train from there...

 

 

Did this back in the 70s, returning from a walking holiday in the Cambrians on a Friday because I had to be in work on the Saturday pm. My experience suggests that the route is a bit wobbly at best.  As I recall, I boarded a bus at Aber with Carmarthen on the destination blind at about 16.30 in the afternoon, with the idea of catching the Milford Haven-Bristol TPO to Cardiff.  All seemed well at first; the bus was one of Crosville's latest airconditioned motorway cruisers, reclining seats, very quiet, very good ride, very comfortable, and there are worse things to do on a pleasant June evening that watch the coastline pass by you as you roll along the A487.  When we got there, driver asked everybody to get off, and a replacement bus was on it's way, about half an hour and a quick beer in a handy hostelry.  Replacement bus turned up, Davies of Pencader, a 1960s sort of single decker with plastic seats, which took us as far as Lampeter, where we were once again asked to debus for a replacement, and again there was a pub handy. 

 

At this point things became interesting.  The replacement was wonderful, a half-cab with a proper radiator and double doors operated by the driver via a cord and pulley system from a handle over his head, and real leather seats, looked to date from the late 40s.  Museum piece or not, it was in superb mechanical condition and it could shift, just as well as it turned out.  Time was getting on a bit by now and I was becoming mildly concerned about the TPO.  At Pencader, we drove into the bus garage, as the bus needed fuel and a wait for a replacement driver to arrive, as ours' hours were up.  So it was about half past eight when we got under way for Carmarthen; IIRC the TPO was due out at 21.10.

 

There was quite a bit of country lane work at this point, taking in Llanpumpsaint, and after the last passenger except me had got off at the door of her farmhouse, I thought it was time to mention to our driver that I was intending to get the TPO.  Something like 20.50 by then, and he says 'oh, righty ho, hang on tight then', and put the hammer down.  We rolled on to the platform at Carmarthen at 4 minutes past nine!  Enormous fun, but I wouldn't want to make a habit of it...

 

Fast forward a quarter century or so and I'd gone down to Cross Hands (first roundabout after the end of the M4 at Pont Abraham) to spend a couple of days with a chum who'd bought a smallholding down there, and came home on a Sunday evening on the TrawCambria service, which by that time had replaced the earlier jiggerypokery with an express coach service running Holyhead-Bangor-Aberystwyth-Carmarthen-Swansea-Cardiff, or at least it said it did.  It's a rainy Sunday evening, light fading fast, and the main drag in Cross Hands is deserted, so I'm starting to have my doubts, but the Traws appears over the brow of the hill bang on time, and picks me up.  Maybe half a dozen people aboard.  Away we trot in the gathering gloom to Swansea, where the driver asks everybody to debus, as his hours are up and his finishing here.  Here we go again, then.  

 

So I asked him how I was to get to Cardiff, and he says 'not to worry, you can go up on the Shuttle' (Swansea-Cardiff-Newport-Bristol).  'When's that'?  '50 minutes, you've got time for a pint, and it's straight up the motorway, no stops, so you'll only be about five minutes later into Cardiff.  Give the driver your Traws ticket and he'll hand it in to our office in when he gets back to Cardiff tomorrow, and we'll all square up later'...

 

Which is exactly what happened, to be fair and to my amazement, but I was confirmed in my belief that the Traws-Cambria and in fact bus services in rural Wales in general are not really services so much as they are a vague intention to run services one day, but in the meantime we'll employ all sorts of dodges to get you home, chwarae teg, nawr, see.   I doubt very much if the situation has improved much since!

[corneliuslundie]

Well, as one who regularly uses the Traws Cambria services through Newtown, they have been just as reliable most of the time as the trains. We went to Oswestry recently. No problems except that the road into Montgomery had been closed at almost no notice for work on a water main, so we missed the town completely. We sometimes go to Machynlleth (especially on Thursdays, market day). And at one time I regularly (well every eight weeks) used the service T4 to Brecon. I have very, very rarely had problems with cancellations. or significant lateness

Interesting the comment about Aber to Carmarthen. I once wanted to buy a ticket from Newtown to Cardiff. The machine said "Via Aberystwyth." so I thought I would wait and buy the ticket on the train. The guard's machine said the same so she said to buy a ticket at Shrewsbury. On investigation, I discovered that you can use the bus between Aber and Carmarthen. Note that the machines did not give this as an alternative route!

A while ago I investigated the Aber to Carmarthen service when there was a lot of fuss about re-opening the M&M line. About 11 buses a day against four or five trains when the line was open. And considerably quicker even though the bus serves far more places (but not I seem to remember Strata Florida!).

Yet there is still a campaign to re-open that line. It is claimed that because there are lots of students in Carmarthen, Lampeter and Aberystwyth there would be a lot of traffic on the line!!!! 

Of course I am slightly biased as I can travel on the buses free in or to/from Wales.

Jonathan

PS Recently we did have a rather older and noisy replacement bus from Lloyds on the T12 from Newtown. The driver explained that a pheasant had flown right into the windscreen of the bus and shattered it, so this was what was available to replace it. But we got to our destination and only a couple of minutes late.

[Metr0Land]

3 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

Yet there is still a campaign to re-open that line. It is claimed that because there are lots of students in Carmarthen, Lampeter and Aberystwyth there would be a lot of traffic on the line!!!! 

 

 

It's died the death again for now but the Tafia seem incensed by the fact trains between north and south Wales have to go via England despite the fact the geography hasn't changed since the time of Beeching.

 

Anyway, in recent years they spent a third of a million of our money employing consultants for the scientific study of the flipping obvious and were then going to spend £0.75Bn of our money reinstating a proper railway from Carmarthen to Aberystwyth.

 

Despite doing all they could in terms of social cost benefit analysis to engineeer more 'income' the line would only have paid back 41p in the pound.  Annoyingly the study didn't consider all kinds of other options which would have been cheaper (I'm more than happy to fund public transport over road building).

 

They didn't consider light rail of any form

They didn't consider operating normal sized trains under light rail conditions like the Heart of Wales line and the Tenby/Pembroke branch

They didn't even consider the mountain of problems of reinstating c.60 level crossings (foot crossings/road crossings/occupation crossing)

They didn't consider subsidising an hourly bus which they could have funded for years and years with £0.75Bn and which would have been barely slower than train given the terrain (and run just as empty)

They woefully underestimated (IMHO) the cost/difficulty of threading the line under a road bridge on Carmarthen bypass. 

[corneliuslundie]

There were two north-south routes, the M&M and the Mid Wales Railway. The latter was slightly busier than the M&M and did in the past have some summer through trains from Cardiff andNewport to the Cambrian coast  But even that was pretty quiet most of the time. Now if you could persuade sheep to use the trains there might be enough passengers, but there just ain't many people in mid Wales (Newtown is by some way the biggest town in Powys and even that is only say 12,000). 

BTW when I looked the buses between Aberystwyth and Carmarthen were both much more frequent and quite a bit quicker than the trains had been.

There is a nice little section in "The railways of Wales circa 1900" by Gwin Briwnant Jones and Denis Dunstone about possible routes from Amlwch to Barry Island. Great fun. A twist was that because the stationmaster at Amlwch worked for the LNWR he tried to avoid using GWR lines!

Jonathan

[Metr0Land]

Aberystwyth-Carmarthen by bus curr 2h8m, (the 2018 study proposed 85-95 min journey time depending on type of unit used for rail journey).

Edited March 9, 2023 by Metr0Land

[corneliuslundie]

Agreed. I was comparing with the times and frequency when the line was running. But if the same rail route were used it would miss most of the significant centres of population - which is why a number of branches were built. Really, if there were to be a new railway line between these two points one should start again in planning the route, not picking up something which was originally designed to connect Milford Haven to Lancashire.

Jonathan

[The Johnster]

There was at one time a through carriage that ran from Cardiff Bute Road to Aberystwyth via Treherbert, R&SB, Swansea, and Carmarthen, and one via Merthyr, B&M, Brecon, Mid-Wales line, Moat Lane  and the Cambrian.  You can't say they didn't try...

 

It would have been interesting to estimate how much of these journeys took place within even 20 degrees of a direct line between Cardiff and Aberystwyth, and how much a modern road journey would compare in that respect.  The problem is the Caledonian/Appalachian Orogenesis, which took place about 420 to 400mya, and aligned the bulk of current Welsh geology and the resulting topography in a way that seems to deliberately prevent anyone in Wales going from almost anywhere in Wales to almost anywhere else they want to go in Wales without some difficulty, while it's relatively easy to get into England.

 

During the debate about where the Welsh Assembly Government should be located, several towns and cities put themselves forwards (we all knew where it was going, most of the Taffia/Crachach live in Cardiff), and one of these was Machynlleth, a small town in the middle of, well, not very much by English standards, which resulted in some amusement.  It is actually a very sensible location for a Welsh parliament, and Owain Glyndwr chose it for his Senedd.  He wasn't from by there, and a pretty clued up guy in a strategic/logistical sense, and he chose it because it was a) on the border between Dyfed and Gwynedd, the ancient dividing line between us and the Gogs, and, perhaps more importantly b) he could ride his horse to anywhere in Wales within only two days from there if he had to, and consequently news from anywhere in Wales could reach him in that time.  This was the early 1400s.

 

These reasons are, in a sense, still valid.  The Gogs think they are left out of the decision making because the Senedd is nearly as far south as it can get from them in Cardiff Bay, and the old resentments still simmer away (just watch the fun when Wales achieves full independence!), and they may have a point, and Machynlleth is more or less at the road junction of the A470, our spinal trunk road, and the A487. the west coastal road.  The other major road routes, the A44 and A483, are not far away from it; you can probably drive anywhere in Wales in about 2 and a half hours from there, traffic and weather permitting, within speed limits.

 

There was a plan back in the early 70s to upgrade the A470 to be capable of 60mph traffic all the way from Cardiff to Bangor, and some of this has been achieved (Merthyr-Brecon bypass, Newbridge-Llangurig, Dolgellau by-pass-Trawsfynydd), but progress over the last 50 years is nothing to shout about, and the going is very slow between Trawsfynydd and Bettws y Coed, admittedly not the easiest of terrains but this includes 30mph thought the back streets of Blaenau Ffesiniog, and anyone trying it on at much over 40 on the A5 section from Bettws to Bangor is asking for trouble; even Telford found this a challenge.

 

Much as I prefer railways to roads, and given that I accept that trying to make any progress in Dyfed anywhere except on the A40 is a bit of a 'mare and the A484   Gwili Valley road especially is completely unfit for purpose, and much as the current political climate is not favourable to spending money on roads, the money that would be spent on re-instituting the Aberystwyth-Carmarthen railway (it was never properly closed, btw, there was a landslip that blocked it in 1964 and BR just 'forgot' about it becuase they didn't want to go through the public enquiry/protest process; like the Central Wales line it passed through several marginal constituencies), would make a much bigger difference to the problems of getting around anywhere in Wales if it were spent on the outstanding work on the A470, particularly a Blaenau Ffestiniog by-pass from Trawsfynydd to the top of the Crimea (that would take a good chunk of the cash) and other trunk road improvements in Wales.  An Aberystwyth bypass for the A487, Builth Wells, Newbridge, Llanidloes, and Bettws Y Coed bypasses (Builth Wells is particularly easy) for the A470, and A483, A487, A484/6 improvements for 50mph would make significant differences to both local and tourist traffic, and free the areas up a bit.  As it stands, matters are inconvenient and local businesses are hindered by traffic problems and holdups, considerably, and the WAG, which should be helping them, seems unable to do so effectively, and I am of the view that this is not entirely due to lack of money!!!

 

A major traffic headache is trying to get from the Vale of Glamorgan into Cardiff at peak periods.  A look at a map shows that there are not much more than two miles in a straight line between Port Road (the 'top road' in Barry) and Leckwith Road in Cardiff.  Expensive and probably needing a tunnel under Leckwith Woods, but surely justifiable as traffic easement.  Now, who lives directly in it's path in Michaeston-le-Pit?  In the meantime, the focus is on developing 5 Mile Lane and country lanes between Rhoose Airport and J33 on the M4, about 25 miles diversion of route to Cardiff.  I mean, seriously, what's going on here (I have suspicions, but will not air them here, some of the people involved are known to be highly litigious, and are experienced and skilled at covering their *rses).

[corneliuslundie]

Just one correction. Llanidloes has a bypass, along the route of the railway passing right next to the still extant station building. And Newtown now also has a bypass - it only took 50 years.

Jonathan

[Northmoor]

8 hours ago, Metr0Land said:

They didn't consider light rail of any form

They didn't consider operating normal sized trains under light rail conditions like the Heart of Wales line and the Tenby/Pembroke branch

They didn't even consider the mountain of problems of reinstating c.60 level crossings (foot crossings/road crossings/occupation crossing)

They didn't consider subsidising an hourly bus which they could have funded for years and years with £0.75Bn and which would have been barely slower than train given the terrain (and run just as empty)

They woefully underestimated (IMHO) the cost/difficulty of threading the line under a road bridge on Carmarthen bypass. 

1. Light rail rolling stock for the line would have to be compatible with the stock at either end or preferably would continue running through; you wouldn't want to be introducing two changes of train. Otherwise you've created a unique railway with unique rolling stock, which is likely to be uniquely expensive.

2. When did the Pembroke Dock branch become a Light Railway (also not sure the HoW is either)?  It used to have a 60mph line speed and is fully fenced.  The odd open crossings West of Manobier which require Stop-and-Proceed, have been there for over 50 years.

3. Agreed, crossings cost money, almost as much as the bridges to replace them.

4. Agreed, I'd estimate about a century.

5. Didn't know about that but believable.

 

@The Johnstermakes a good point about the A484, it is NOT a quick road and dangerous to try otherwise.  The railway up the Gwili Valley is also very slow and reverse-curved and as the valley is so narrow, the line crosses the river four times in under two miles; probably the main reason the preserved railway extended across one bridge at Llwyfan Cerrig then after about 30 years of looking at the three bridges ahead of them to reach Conwil Elfed, decided to focus on extending in the other direction.  A re-opened main line railway on the same formation isn't going to exceed 50 mph along that stretch and even that may be optimistic.