R A I LT R AC K - The Railways Archive

Route characteristics
DESCRIPTION The route from Swansea to Clarbeston Road is primarily double
track with a five-mile stretch of single track between Swansea and Llanelli. The
remainder of the lines are single track with passing places. Linespeeds on the
route are in the range 40–75mph.
Route vision
Our vision for West Wales is to improve its integration with South Wales cities
through a substantial reduction in rail journey times.
The railways in West Wales have an important role in linking remote
communities. We look forward to working with the West Wales Rail Forum,
which has been formed by local authorities to work with us to develop rail
services in West Wales and to lobby for European and UK grant funding to
improve the infrastructure and deliver our vision.
Our customers’ aspirations are to keep their services broadly at current
levels, and this is well within existing capacity on the route. Wales & West would
like linespeeds raised to 90mph through incremental improvements where
feasible and where funding can be made available.
These are the route improvements we plan to deliver
The present infrastructure is not used to capacity. The route forms an important
link to Eire via the ferry ports.
There are significant flows in freight traffic, particularly to the oil refineries at
Milford Haven, and further developments are being considered.
We will work with our industry partners to obtain funding for
improvements to route capability and building new freight terminals. We will also
continue our SRP at stations to improve their condition to maintain and improve
reliability, to improve linespeed where this can be achieved at level crossings
through renewals or grant funding, and to modernise equipment and layouts
where this creates greater efficiency.
CAPACITY CHANGES TO MEET FRANCHISING DIRECTOR, PTE AND CUSTOMER REQUIREMENTS AND DELIVER ROUTE VISION
LOCATION PROPOSED SOLUTION YEAR REF
West Wales None required
CAPABILITY CHANGES TO ACHIEVE ROUTE VISION
JOURNEY TIMES km STOPS CURRENT POSITION 2001 POSITION SUSTAINING THE ROUTE ACHIEVING ROUTE VISION
Swansea–Llanelli 18 1 42mph (16min) No change No change No change
Swansea–Carmarthen 51 5 41mph (46min) No change No change No change
Swansea–Pembroke Dock 117 16 36mph (2hr 02min) No change No change No change
Swansea–Milford Haven 115 11 40mph (1hr 49min) No change No change No change
Swansea–Fishguard Harbour 118 4 46mph (1hr 41min) No change No change No change
Llanelli–Craven Arms 145 17 28mph (3hr 13min) No change No change No change
LINESPEEDS (km of track)
Up to 35mph 111 111 111 111
40–75mph 407 407 407 407
80–105mph 0 0 0 0
110–125mph 0 0 0 0
Over 125mph 0 0 0 0
TOTAL 518 518 518 518
GAUGE (km of route)
W6A 327 327 327 327
W7 314 314 314 314
W8 110 110 110 110
W9 0 0 0 0
W10 0 0 0 0
AXLE WEIGHT (km of track)
Up to 20.3 tonnes 0 0 0 0
20.4 tonnes to 23.4 tonnes 303 303 303 303
23.5 tonnes to 25.4 tonnes 215 215 215 215
TOTAL 518 518 518 518
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