Train Notes

Here is another story of how common sense and long-term planning appear not to exist.

In re-opening the Ebbw Vale train line, someone did an estimate of passenger numbers, almost certainly without asking the likely users of such a service. And then they built a service which could just about manage to serve their guestimate of 22,000 passengers - a decision was made to provide just three miles of double track instead of nine. That’s enough for an hourly service but with no possibility to add services without further substantial investment.

So now we have a situation where double that number of people is using the train, and they can’t run extra trains because they didn’t put enough dual track to allow any more trains to use the line.

Genius.