Here are a few rural Welsh railways with websites devoted to their promotion. The information has been moved from elsewhere on the web during a spring clean so that it lives on. Hopefully, some can make use of this posting.
Conwy Valley Railway
It’s nearly ten years since I first travelled along this stretch of the National Rail network and guidebooks were issuing warnings about the future of the line. Then, an elderly diesel multiple unit was what plied the scenic route but more modern 150’s carry on the service these days. The operator has changed too with Arriva Trains Wales having taken over from a now-defunct First North Western in the intervening years. The website is a Conwy Borough Council microsite and very useful it appears too. So far, all those fears from a decade ago have proved unfounded though trains are replaced by buses in the winter months and there is the hourly X1 Llandudno-Blaenau Ffestiniog service operated by Express Motors on other days of the week too. With its passage through the pretty alluring countryside and its connections to the Ffestiniog narrow gauge railway, let’s hope that its future isn’t imperilled by an inclement economic climate or public spending cuts.
Heart of Wales Line
This website comes from the Heart of Wales Line Forum, one of several community rail partnerships in Britain, and it does look as if they promote a railway that needs it. Despite their best efforts, the service level comes to four trains each way from Monday to Saturday and two each way on Sundays. It’s a long rural line too as it winds its way from Craven Arms in Shropshire to its eventual destination of Swansea. Trains don’t start from or terminate at Craven Arms though because Shrewsbury is the actual northern terminus and I have seen the single carriage train that plies the line attached to a two-car set at Crewe on Sunday mornings. Now that I think of that, I wonder if it still is the arrangement even if a vague memory leaves me with the impression that it has changed. On the Welsh side of the border, the route does wind through at least one narrow valley before round the Brecon Beacons National Park, first to its north but then to its west. The latter has been planting ideas of exploring the park’s western reaches from this line though that has yet to come to pass. Well, it’s never any harm to have ideas in mind…
Update 2012-12-18: Having noticed that this post still is being visited by folk, I am left wondering if they are seeking information on what’s happening to the service in January 2013. If that’s the case, there’s another post that describes those details and is far more up to date than this one.
As someone who lives in Macclesfield yet works in Wilmslow, I am a regular user of Arriva’s 130 bus service. Therefore, it was of interest to me that new paper timetables were available in one of their buses one morning this week. At the time of writing, the new timetable doesn’t seem to have made it online yet. Therefore, it might be of interest to relate some of the main changes on here.
One of the more striking ones is the shortening of the 19:12 Monday-Friday journey from Manchester. This may be just one change among many but it does take away a journey option from bus users. In light of that, it wasn’t so good to hear a bus driver admitting to another passenger that it was his idea and very few used it anyway; ironically, eight passengers were travelling to Macclesfield that evening! While he went on about profit or the lack of it, I do wonder if someone fancied a shorter day anyway. Maybe that isn’t the case but I don’t know Arriva’s Manchester rosters so I cannot be certain. However, I was the only passenger on the 19:12 of another night so I could see where that driver was coming from though it might have been better to have heard them talk about profitability tempered by a sense of public service.
After that spot of overhearing, an interesting idea crept into my mind: how about only extending a late evening service to Macclesfield from Wilmslow or Alderley Edge when there are passengers who need it. It is something that I have seen Shiel Buses do in Scotland and it might curb all that travelling with empty buses on the 19:12 while not stranding passengers who happen to work a little later until the council-supported 20:40 Bakerbus from Parr’s Wood turns up to collect them. Another case where this could have been useful is for the 22:29 from Manchester of a Sunday. If passengers on the bus were to need to get to Macclesfield or others at Wilmslow wish to do so, then the bus would continue to go all the way. Otherwise, it would turn around and return to its depot. All in all, it might make an interesting accommodation that lies partway between having a service running unnecessarily and not having it at all.
With that forthcoming route shortening in mind, it might be an idea to look at railway alternatives to bus travel in the event of their being needed. After all, there have been times when the A34 has hit gridlock for one reason or another and it does make sense not to embark on a 2-hour journey home if it can be avoided. Then, there’s avoiding a wait in the cold when a bus does fail to pass the way. While it does look circuitous to go to Cheadle Hulme or Stockport to get from Wilmslow to Macclesfield, it can be quicker than a bus journey and there are tickets available for this too. However, these aren’t so cheap at £6.80 for a single though using cheap evening return tickets can cut the cost to £4.90 (£2.00 for Wilmslow-Stockport, £2.90 for Stockport-Macclesfield). In summary, it can be said that train travel is a more expensive alternative to the 130 though it does have its place as a very reassuring fallback.
Moving away from that disappointing curtailment, there seem to be timing changes all over the place to Arriva’s Monday-Friday services though the evening ones operated by Bakerbus under contract to Cheshire East Council will remain the same. There simply are too many to list here and you have to ask why. One stimulus might be the completion of the Nether Alderley bypass (the works around Monk’s Heath aren’t quite finished yet though they seem to have little impact on traffic whenever I am passing) though monetary pressures must be acting too. Nevertheless, Saturday and Sundays seem to stay untouched so that’s one less thing to check. So, here’s a scanned copy of the paper timetable for your consultation because the new times certainly will affect when I travel to and from work.
Arriva 130 Timetable (valid from 2011-03-13): Macclesfield-Manchester (File Size: ca. 2 MB).
When you are seeing timings like these and go comparing inbound and outbound journeys from termini, you do get to wondering about the dwell time between buses arriving and departing. Of course, that brings up questions about what happens to outbound services when the inbound ones get delayed. If this brings slippage from the current punctuality enjoyed before 09:00 on weekday mornings, then the online bus tracker will become even more useful than it already is and there may be reasons to go telling Arriva what is happening too. In the past, that has been known to have its effect so I hope that will be one change that we never come to see.
Last evening’s journey home turned out to be a hell of a lot more interesting than I expected. While I was aware of water mains works resulting in temporary traffic lights on the Wilmslow side of Alderley Edge, the one thing that I hadn’t expected was a road traffic accident to take place in the same area as well. Emergency services were on the scene with the telltale blue lights flashing atop their vehicles.
As a result, the bus driver turned around his bus and asked if anyone was going to Alderley Edge before going on to say that they needed to walk the rest of the way. However, the sight of moving cars prompted a protest from the one passenger who was affected. To placate him, the bus was turned around again but driver still decided that there was no way through for him and the annoyed passenger had no option but to leave at that point. Before this settlement was reached, some untoward comments about driving quality and another passenger decided to act as a mediator in order to bring the situation to a somewhat dignified close.
After that, the bus was again turned in the road and it seemed to be a difficult thing to do the second time around too. Alderley Edge wasn’t served and we were taken around the Alderley Edge by-pass instead. To the driver’s credit, we did call at Alderley Park even if we went the opposite way around to what is usual and passage over every speed bump was jarring. In the end, we all got home and that probably is more than could be said for anyone waiting in Alderley Edge; I don’t envy them one bit and I hope any injuries in that accident weren’t fatal or serious.
Update: Interestingly, I since discovered that the previous bus for Macclesfield got through the accident area to serve Alderley Edge. What was different when mine was passing? Did one driver see things differently from another or did something change between the passage of both vehicles (the second was 15 minute late too)? It is hard to answer those questions exactly so I’ll leave them open for now.
In the last few days, two types of services have been coming to an end. First up is the well-regarded Wrexham, Shropshire and Marylebone Railway company which stopped running services between Wrexham and London on Friday. While Virgin will continue to run one service each way from Wrexham to London and back, most will find themselves going via Chester or some other route. Sadly, I never got to try WSMR out for size so I don’t know what I’ve missed. Nevertheless, I do know what it’s like to be travelling on the last services of something that were a good thing.
My reason for saying that is that DFDS Norfolkline’s last sailing from Birkenhead to Dublin is departing in just under an hour (checking in probably has closed in by now). A day trip to Dublin and Howth had me traveling on the last sailing from Dublin to Birkenhead last night and it was a forlorn event. You could hear the captain’s voice breaking as he announced the end of something that had been going since 1995. Indeed, other members of the crew were welling up at times too. After all, this is something that could be missed. P&O do operate a ferry from Liverpool to Dublin and back but they don’t accept foot passengers like the others did. The result is that foot passengers will be losing a seven hour sailing that allowed the chance for some more sleep when travelling between Merseyside and the Irish Republic. Everyone will need to go to Holyhead or some other port now.
The service seemed busy enough on the seven hour sailing that I undertook but I don’t know how things were going during the week or on daytime sailings and the Irish economy isn’t going very well at the moment while the British one is having its troubles too; the Holyhead-Dublin sailing that I used in the middle of the day wasn’t that busy so that might be a hint. Then, there was the takeover of Norfolkline by DFDS so that might result in a change of priorities too. Still, the Birkenhead-Belfast operation continues though the days of getting evening meals and breakfast on the price of the sailing are gone after the end of the month. Fares will cost more by the looks of things and you’ll need to pay for any food as well. Was it impossible to keep the Dublin route going on this basis?
Good things sadly can come to an end and I suppose the WSMR’s demise is but another example that sounds very similar to the sea travel tail that I have related here. My only wish is that everything works out OK for the staff caught up in both of these less than positive changes. There’s something about both that makes them sound like the ends of eras.
Update 2011-01-31: There seems to be swathe of route discontinuations in train with BMI pulling its Glasgow-London service and Air Southwest doing the same with its Newquay-Gatwick and Plymouth-Gatwick runs. Interestingly, there is no mention of the news on the former’s website while it is there on the latter’s. In truth, DFDS wasn’t so communicative about the Dublin-Birkenhead route either.
Out of curiosity, I decided to explore the Megabus website for the U.K. and it surprised me to see how low some of their prices were. There’s a seat sale in progress at the moment too so that may explain some of those less than £5. However, it’s easy to see the attraction of what aren’t so infrequent services from Manchester to places such as Leeds, Birmingham, Glasgow and London. With the recent increases in train fares, even a ticket costing less than £20 has to look tempting. Is that why the thought of savouring their services to see what they’re like has entered my head?
While checking out express coach services, I also decided to take a look at what Greyhound offers to the U.K. traveller these days and it looks as if things have expanded beyond the London services to the south coast of England with which they started. For instance, regular services between Cardiff and Swansea are now on offer with the frequency making them look like the Welsh version of the Scottish Citylink service between Edinburgh and Glasgow or the National Express one between Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool. It looks like a good move forward and I hope that it’s attracting a good level custom. Also coming within the Greyhound fold is the overnight service between London and Scotland (Hamilton, Glasgow, Edinburgh) that First Glasgow took over from Silver Choice. All the while, it’s south of England tally of destinations increases with Winchester being a recent addition to those like Portsmouth, Poole, Southampton, Bournemouth, Fareham, Ringwood (for the New Forest) and the Isle of Wight. All in all, Greyhound is growing in Britain so there must be some success being had somewhere. Maybe the attractive prices might have something to do with it because I did glimpse a few going for £1 plus booking fee.
All in all, it looks as if express coach travel might be on the up and it would not be a bad thing if a decent network was built up in England and Wales, even if it meant travelling with different operators on a single journey. The looming increases in train fares are presenting an opportunity and I wonder if anyone is out there waiting to take it. Now mightn’t be a bad time to spend a little longer travelling to save a little cash when it is a scarcer commodity than used to be the case a few years ago.