Cambrian Line


The Cambrian Line, sometimes split into the Cambrian Main Line and Cambrian Coast Line for its branches, is a railway line that runs from Shrewsbury in England, westwards to Aberystwyth and Pwllheli in Wales. Passenger train services are operated by Transport for Wales between the western terminals of Pwllheli, in Gwynedd, and Aberystwyth, in Ceredigion, and the eastern terminal at Shrewsbury, Shropshire, as part of the Wales & Borders franchise.
The railway line is widely regarded as scenic, as it passes through the Cambrian Mountains in central Wales and along the coast of Cardigan Bay in Snowdonia National Park. The line includes long sections of rural single track and is designated as a community rail partnership.

Route

From Shrewsbury, the line heads west through northern Powys, serving the towns of Welshpool and Newtown, then continues further west calling at Caersws and then Machynlleth until reaching. At Dovey Junction, a short distance west of Machynlleth, the line splits into two branches: the southern branch goes to Aberystwyth, and the longer, northern branch continues to Pwllheli as the Cambrian Coast Line, crossing the River Mawddach by Barmouth Bridge. The section of the Cambrian Line between Shrewsbury and Aberystwyth may be called the Cambrian Main Line.

History

The line comprises:
These lines were constructed between 1855 and 1869. The section west of Buttington Junction became part of the Cambrian Railways in 1864.
The Cambrian Railways became part of the Great Western Railway under the Grouping Act of 1921. On nationalisation, these lines were operated first by the Western Region of British Railways and later by the London Midland Region. In a later reorganisation, passenger services were operated by the Regional Railways Central sector. Following privatisation in the mid 1990s, passenger services were first operated by Central Trains, then by Wales & Borders from 2001, Arriva Trains Wales from 2003, KeolisAmey Wales from 2018 and publicly-owned Transport for Wales from 2021.

Closed stations

Although the line survived the Beeching Axe, many stations were closed from the 1960s onwards:
Shrewsbury to Dovey Junction:
  • Moat Lane Junction
Dovey Junction to Aberystwyth:
Dovey Junction to Pwllheli:
  • The Ruabon bound platforms at were also closed in 1965 and the station renamed Morfa Mawddach.

    Politics

The Cambrian line was not directly threatened with closure in the 1963 Beeching Report. Later threats to the coastal part of the route, from Dovey Junction to Pwllheli, were subsequently withdrawn. Its tourism role is as a scenic route, as well as linking many coastal resorts and connecting to five narrow-gauge tourist lines.

Performance

With long sections of single line and limited passing points, minor disruptions on the Cambrian Line quickly lead to compound delays and partial cancellations. This, combined with short turnaround times at each end of the route, led to severe unpunctuality during much of the first decade of the 21st century. The extension of the service to Birmingham International in late 2008 has helped address this by eliminating the tight turnarounds at the heavily congested Birmingham New Street station. Maintenance changes and additional padding in public timetables has also helped improve performance figures overall.
In Arriva Trains Wales' performance statistics, the Cambrian Line was routinely the worst-performing service group between 2003 and 2008. Since early 2009, recorded timekeeping has improved – a considerable achievement, considering that the route has been the testing ground for brand new signalling technology previously unused on the British railway network.

Line upgrade

In October 2006, it was announced that Network Rail would pilot the European Rail Traffic Management System on the Cambrian Line. The ERTMS allows headways between trains using the same track to be reduced without affecting safety, allowing a more frequent service. Should the pilot scheme be successful, the system is expected to be rolled out on some other rural routes within the UK.
The upgrade was expected to cost £59 million and was to be completed by December 2008, but the system was only released for limited testing, between Pwllheli and Harlech, in February 2010. Three signallers from the Machynlleth signalling centre and seven drivers were trained to operate the new equipment. Ansaldo STS were the principal contractors for the upgrade, with Thales as sub-contractors for the Telecomms and Eldin as installation subcontractors for all elements of UK infrastructure.
Systra was in charge of testing and commissioning the ETCS and interlocking components of the signalling system.
Ansaldo installed ERTMS In Cab ETCS level 2, class 1, specification V2.3.0 in 2011. As the name suggests, the driver receives the instructions for movement on the cab display. This level does not require conventional fixed signals – therefore all the existing signals and RETB boards have been removed. Additionally, the line side speed signs were made redundant – drivers are given the appropriate maximum speed on the cab display.
The Cambrian ERTMS, Pwllheli to Harlech rehearsal, started on 13 February 2010 and completed successfully on 18 February 2010. The driver familiarisation and practical handling stage of the rehearsal provided an excellent opportunity to monitor the use of GSM-R voice in operation on this route. The first train departed Pwllheli at 08:53 in ERTMS Level 2 Operation with GSM-R voice being used as the only means of communication between the driver and the signaller.
Network Rail spokeswoman Mavis Choong was unable to give a figure for how much the scheme has cost, but said £400m was being spent installing it across the UK network. She claimed the 14-month delay was caused by the system "being new".
In 2007, a new flat crossing, named "Cae Pawb Crossing", was installed at the intersection of the Cambrian Line and the Welsh Highland Railway.
In October 2010, following completion of testing, the ERTMS system finally entered service between Pwllheli and Harlech and the previous Radio Electronic Token Block system was removed. On 18 March 2011, the final commissioning phase for the ERTMS system across the whole Cambrian route started, including layout alterations at Welshpool and Talerddig which would facilitate a desired increase in service frequency. At 07:20 on 26 March 2011, the New ERTMS signalling system was placed into operational use across the Cambrian Line controlled from Machynlleth, some 40 minutes ahead of the planned schedule. Two days of driver familiarisation then followed; passenger operation started on 28 March 2011. An initial assessment by the operating company was not favourable: problems with the design and installation of the in-cab displays were identified and infrastructure failures included the control system becoming "confused" by common train movements, such as changes of speed or shunting into the depot.

2018 track upgrades

In 2018, Network Rail began upgrading of track at a cost of £7.5 million. As well as improving reliability by replacing track, Network Rail and Powys County Council installed over a mile of new road and two road over rail bridges at Ystrad Fawr and Rallt. This has closed eight level crossings and improved safety for local residents.

ETCS upgrade announcement 2020

The UK Government's Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced on 21 August 2020 that £3m in funding had been authorised to advance plans to upgrade signalling on the Cambrian line from Shrewsbury Sutton Bridge Junction to Aberystwyth and Pwllheli. "The planned state-of-the-art digital signalling system will modernise the network, improving reliability of services, and supporting the introduction of a new fleet being rolled out across the network in December 2022", the minister said.

Accidents and incidents

Abermule 1921

The worst accident on the Cambrian Line – and the worst on the former Cambrian Railways system – occurred on 26 January 1921 on the single-tracked line between and. A westbound stopping train from set off from Abermule without the correct authority, and collided head-on with an eastbound express from. Seventeen people were killed, including the driver and fireman of the stopping train.

2009 level crossing incident

On 2 September 2009, a Class 97/3 locomotive, operated by Network Rail, collided with a Fiat Punto on a user worked crossing near Penrhyndeudraeth. The driver of the car, an 83-year-old local resident, was killed in the collision. Prior to her death, the victim had been a regular user of the level crossing for more than 40 years, and relied on her knowledge of passenger train timetables to determine when it was safe to cross. On the day of the collision, she had not used the telephone prior to crossing.

Llanbadarn level-crossing incident

Shortly before 22:00 on Sunday 19 June 2011, a passenger train from to ran onto the level crossing at Llanbadarn while the barriers at the crossing were raised, and came to a stop with the front of the train about beyond the crossing. There were no road vehicles or pedestrians on the crossing at the time. The immediate cause of the incident was that the train driver did not notice that the indicator close to the crossing was flashing red until it was too late for him to stop the train before it reached the crossing. Factors behind this included the driver's "workload", the design of the equipment associated with the operation of the level crossing, and the re-setting of the signalling system on board the train before it could depart from Aberystwyth. An underlying cause of the incident was that the signalling system now in use on the lines from Shrewsbury to Aberystwyth and Pwllheli did not interface with the automatic level crossings on these routes.
The RAIB made six recommendations: three directed to Network Rail, two to Arriva Trains Wales and one to the Rail Safety and Standards Board. These cover the development of engineering solutions to mitigate the risk of trains passing over automatic crossings which have not operated correctly; changes to the operating equipment of Llanbadarn crossing; the processes used by railway operators to request permission to deviate from published standards; the operational requirements of drivers as trains depart from Aberystwyth; and the way in which drivers interact with the information screens of the cab signalling used on the Cambrian lines. The failure at ERTMS System-User Interface investigated by the RAIB indicates that the ERTMS Implementation did not satisfy the non-functional attribute of safety integrity of the real time dependable distributed computing concepts.