Bristol Airport - Filton

[The Johnster]

And not a bad drive if you did it daylight on a reasonably clear day!

 

Wales had a flag carrier at one time, or to be more correct a dragon carrier, Cambrian Airways, which saw the opeining of Rhoose and covered the period from DC3s through Viscounts to BAC 111s; they were aborbed into BEA, who retained the livery for a while but abandoned it for their own house colours.  A Welsh flag carrier would be nice, so longs as someone else pays for it; there is no perceptible demand or traffic for such a thing.  A little leaflet on a/c landing at Rhoose would do the same job for next to nothing.

 

Welsh politicians and occasionally business people have long desired a route between the north and the south of the nation.  The idea originates AFAIK with Owain Glyndwr, who intended to unite a nation in which the Gogs, northerners, still hate us southerners more than they do the English, by having Universities (he was an Oxford man himself) in north and south, and establishing 2 Welsh archbishoprics, at St Davids and Bangor,  David Davies Llandimam, who was the contractor for the Cambrian and the Manchester & Milford, as well as main promotor of the Barry, funded the orignial University College of Wales in Aberystwyth and this has since fulfilled Glyndwr's concept of universities in north and south.  Glyndwr, aware of the difficulties inherent in the geography of his divided putative nation, set his government at Machynlleth, where neither north or south could be said to be particularly favoured and from which he could ride anywhere in Wales in less than 2 days.  The idea was revived when a site for the devolved government was being sought, and had to my mind some merit, for much the same reasons.

 

This outlines the historical background to various attempts to have a north-south transport link in Wales which does not run via the Marches. A north-south link within Wales defied railway engineers because it cuts across the geolocgical grain of the country, and is not doable without major civil engineering, and the traffic doesn't pay for that; those who travel north-south go via Shrewsbury and Hereford, journey time about 5 hours Holyhead-Cardiff.  Road transport had a go in the 1990s with the 'TrawsCambria' air conditioned coach service, over 9 hours Cardiff to Holyhead and only one booked through trip in a day.  This in fact never seemed to materialise and you always had to change buses somewhere.  It was not so much a bus service as a vague intention to run one one day, and there are now no through road transport services from south to north.

 

An air service looks attractive to political box tickers in this scenario; a 12 or so seater between Cardiff and Holyhead takes just over an hour and doesn't stop running when the weather blocks the mountain passes.  Perfect, we'll fund it!  But it isn't between Cardiff and Holyhead, it's between Rhoose and Valley.  You then have to arrange car parking, taxis, or buses at each airfield, in order to get anywhere there's a Burger King or a Pret a Manger.  So the air service connects the back of beyond miles from the M4 with the back of beyond miles from the A5.  I didn't work!

[wagonman]

I remember seeing the DC3s parked at Rhoose – occasionally I'd see one bouncing along the grass – as I passed by on the train. Back in 1963-ish the airport terminal was little more than a collection of huts as I recall, but then so was the original Heathrow.

 

On the subject of north-south connections in Wales, some people are talking of reopening the old M&M line from Carmarthen to Aberystwysth and the Afon Wen -Bangor line too. I can't see it being much quicker than the bus, frankly.

 

 

[Pacific231G]

On 05/12/2020 at 16:57, MarkC said:

Oh, how true. I've twice paid off a ship at Pembroke. Both times, having looked at timings to get to Lulsgate by taxi for a Sleazyjet flight to Newcastle, check in, fly, wait for bags, walk to car/taxi then drive home to Durham, I opted to drive. Collected by car hire firm & taken to their depot at Milford, then route Fishguard, Aberystwyth. Machynlleth, Corris, Bala. Corwen, Ruthin, Mold, a stop for food & coffee in the brief  time on the A55, Shotton, then M56, M6, M62, M60, M62, M1, A1(M) to home. Fabulous scenery as far as Shotton. and about the same actual travelling time. Car dropped off at the local depot the following morning. Job done.

 

Probably cheaper than taxi fares, flight costs etc too.

 

Mark

Time to spare go by air! but the extra security etc. has moved that equation even further in favour of surface transport. I once calculated that to get to Bordeaux from my home in W. London by Squeezyjet was about an hour less that Eurostar/TGV and that was just to the car hire company at either Bordeaux airport or station and was before the LGV from Tours to Bordeaux was open so the TGV was half on the classic netwrork. Total cost , with the train fare to Stanstead or Luton was about the same. It did though mean having lunch in Paris and  missing out on the culinary delights of Luton Airport 

[Joseph_Pestell]

I agree that a plane service to Valley is never likely to attract much business.

 

A helicopter service would be a better idea as it could land in places that people want to go.

[RJS1977]

4 hours ago, wagonman said:

On the subject of north-south connections in Wales, some people are talking of reopening the old M&M line from Carmarthen to Aberystwysth and the Afon Wen -Bangor line too. I can't see it being much quicker than the bus, frankly.

 

 

 

I had a similar conversation about this on Facebook a while back.

 

Whilst I can see a case for reopening Carmarthen-Aberystwyth (given that it connects a number of University towns - one of which currently has no rail access), and a case for reopening Caernarfon-Bangor, I certainly can't see much benefit in a through north-south rail service.

 

Cardiff- Aberystwyth alone will be of the order of 4 hours, so continuing up to Afon Wen and round to Bangor will be at least eight, possibly nine hours, and will be subject to delays associated with single line working, weather-related issues on the coastal stretches, and any issues with Barmouth Bridge.

 

Bangor-Cardiff via Crewe is only about 4 1/2 hours, and indeed Bangor- London is less than this. In addition, anyone from the north coast wanting to go to a large city is still going to go to Liverpool or Manchester, and anyone north of the Dovey to Birmingham.

 

The idea of a north-south 'main line' is born more of political ideology than geographic or commercial fact. 

[rob D2]

There was a airline service to valley recently - some fella on YouTube reviewed it , can’t remember where it came from though, wasn’t from the south , 

 

edit - actually it was , Cardiff to valley, eastern airways J41 from 2018 

Edited December 6, 2020 by rob D2