South Wales Mainline Electrification

Winsor Road bridge to be closed next week.
Have you seen the mad north bound diversion? Why on earth are they sending cars/lorries via Lloyd George Avenue?
Up and down the central link would do the same.
In an ideal world the WAG would have built the Eastern Bay Link before allowing Network Rail to start this.

They are putting traffic lights on Central link as well!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-32397853

We have got a CGI of the new trains, wow.

The comments on the video are strange.
( 1min 14secs in, real opportunities for lots of things including serving tea/coffee on trains and we in Wales have experiences of these things but not enough!! Tea/Coffee serving NVQ's on the way )

I think you are being a bit unfair. I think she meant that more generally about procurement in Wales where there is a perception Welsh companies lose out as they sometimes aren't great at competing with bigger operations over the border. Esp on the higher tech stuff. It did sound a bit strange, but the reference to the teas and coffees was showing there were a range of procurement opportunities across the board from high-tech to low-tech.

A look inside the interior of the new trains: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/business/b ... st-9240563

Looks pretty good to me!

Delay in electrification to Swansea until some point between 2019 & 2024. Obviously will impact on Metro & other transport improvements across Sth Wales.

This Govt are useless, swayed by any winds, ill or otherwise with the result that they are crippled by inaction & afflicted by shouty condescending hyperbole.

[quote="This Govt are useless, swayed by any winds, ill or otherwise with the result that they are crippled by inaction & afflicted by shouty condescending hyperbole.[/quote]

I think it’s a bit unfair to single out one particular government. The reality is, all British and Welsh governments have been useless for decades! What did Labour, new or otherwise, do during their 12 years in power? Why wasn’t electrification and the construction of a metro system for the Cardiff region made a priority decades ago?

Why is it that Newcastle upon Tyne, with its 2014 population of 289,835 (1,650,000 in Metro) manage to build a Metro system back in 1980?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyne_and_Wear_Metro

Latvia has more electrified railways that Wales, that's how third world we are!

Delay in electrification to Swansea until some point between 2019 & 2024. Obviously will impact on Metro & other transport improvements across Sth Wales.

This Govt are useless, swayed by any winds, ill or otherwise with the result that they are crippled by inaction & afflicted by shouty condescending hyperbole.

Will this delay affect the bulk of the metro project ? The Cardiff to the Bridgend and Cardiff to Llantrisant area part of it yes, but not the majority of it. Don't get me wrong, it annoys the shit out of me that my home town of Bridgend and the rest of the line to Swansea is going to get electrification much later than the rest of the line but I can't say I'm shocked. I've been working on large government influenced or related projects for almost 10 years and they are useless at estimating, running major programmes of work and controlling major organisations that are running projects that they've funded. It's been happening for years and there's no sign of them getting any better at it, but then I've been seeing it in other countries in the last few years as well.

As for the metro there's no reason why that part of it can't be planned to be done later is there ? How much of it have they actually planned out yet ? Realistically there's no way the whole of the metro would have been done before the Cardiff-Swansea line is done anyway for the same reason this is delayed - incompetence at running major programmes of work. We haven't even got a brand name for the metro yet.

GWML electrification has no impact on Metro.....watch this space.....

I hadn't realised the new south entrance of the station is open now. Obviously the new platform is still some way off needless to say.

On electrification, it's been a little quiet of late since we heard of the massive cost increase. I presume we're still thinking on the basis of Cardiff for about 2018? Obviously the line to London is the Rolls Royce of the network but as someone who often goes to Birmingham it would be nice to see that line improved, not least since with HS2 on the way it provides the potential for much faster journey times to Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool etc. The Birmingham train takes two hours though often seems to dawdle. I came back one night with the train stopping virtually everywhere and we did it in 1h 55 easy. Someone suggested to me the train would have been light due to lack of passengers! Alternatively you could make the Bristol to Birmingham line high speed in the old sense (which it isn't at the moment).

By my arithmetic you could get to Manchester in 2 1/2 hours, compared to 3 1/2 now. Leeds in less than 3 hours rather than 4 1/2 etc.