Full hourly train service needed

There is a need for a full hourly service along the Cambrian Railway Line, according to a rail users group setting out its priorities to Parliamentary candidates in the area.

The Shrewsbury to Aberystwyth Rail Passenger Association is to tell candidates and the elected government, that a range of measures need to be undertaken to ensure rail use continues to increase while keeping costs down and efficiencies up.

This includes building on the success of the "hourly" service introduced two years ago, but filling timetable gaps to make it a full hourly service, according to the group.

SARPA Spokesman Albert Hall said: “Brexit is going to happen. This election is not a re-run of the referendum. We need to be focusing hard on domestic issues, on transport successive governments have let down the people of the UK and Mid Wales and Shropshire MP’s in the new Parliament must stand up to correct these mistakes.”

SARPA’s top priorities agreed at a meeting last weekend and to be issued to Parliamentary candidates are:

“A sensible structure for the rail industry to bring costs down and increase efficiency. The 1993 Railways Act and blind adherence to it has created the world’s most expensive and dysfunctional railway this has led to higher fares, slow improvements and the squandering of £ Billions that could have transformed networks.

“The end to transport policies that create Nitrogen Dioxide chocking and killing people. We must move away from the health crisis by investing in modal shift to less polluting forms of transport including rail. The return of rail freight and rolling programme of electrification are desperately needed.

Building on the success of the extra trains on the Cambrian Mainline introduced in May 2015. Rail use is now the fastest growing sector of the Mid Wales economy we need to complete the job and ensure that the Cambrian Mainline has a full hourly service with sufficient carriages for further growth.”

 Photo: A train on the Cambrian Railway (©Owain Betts)