Cambrian Line

The Cambrian Line (Welsh: Llinell Cambria) is a railway from Shrewsbury (in Shropshire, England) to Welshpool, Aberystwyth and Pwllheli. The railway runs first through the central part of Wales and then along the coast of Cardigan Bay.

The railway is scenic, with parts travelling through the Cambrian Mountains or along the Cambrian Coast. This latter section travels over the Barmouth Bridge, which crosses the River Mawddach.

Route
The line diverges at Dovey Junction, just after Machynlleth, to serve either Aberystwyth, or Pwllheli via the Cambrian Coast Line. The stations on these routes are shown diagrammatically on the route diagram.

History
The line is made up of: These lines were constructed between 1855 and 1869. From Buttington Junction west became part of the Cambrian Railways in 1864.
 * Shrewsbury and Welshpool Railway between Shrewsbury and Buttington
 * Oswestry and Newtown Railway between Buttington Junction and Newtown
 * Llanidloes and Newtown Railway between Newtown and Moat Lane Junction
 * Newtown and Machynlleth Railway between Moat Lane Junction and Machynlleth
 * Aberystwyth and Welsh Coast Railway between Machynlleth and Aberystwyth/Pwllheli

The Cambrian Railways became part of the Great Western Railway and 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 Trains from 2001 and, since late 2003, by Arriva Trains Wales.

The last scheduled freight over the line was in 1993. In 2003, freight multiple unit trials were undertaken for a period of five weeks, transporting timber from Aberystwyth, via Wrexham General railway station to the Kronospan woodchip factory in Chirk. The trial used a pair of British Rail MPV units sandwiched around a rake of seven open-sided timber wagons.

Closed stations
Although the line survived the Beeching Axe, the number of stations on the lines was heavily rationalised in the 1960s onwards. The stations closed include the following:

Shrewsbury to Dovey Junction:
 * Hanwood
 * Yockleton
 * Westbury (Salop)
 * Breidden
 * Buttington (connection with the Cambrian Railways line to Oswestry)
 * Forden
 * Montgomery
 * Abermule
 * Scafell Halt
 * Moat Lane Junction (connection with Mid Wales Railway to Cardiff)
 * Pontdolgoch
 * Carno
 * Talerddig
 * Llanbrynmair
 * Commins Coch Halt
 * Cemmes Road (connection with the branch line to Dinas Mawddwy)

Dovey Junction to Aberystwyth:
 * Glandyfi
 * Ynyslas
 * Llandre
 * Bow Street

Dovey Junction to Pwllheli:
 * Gogarth
 * Abertafol
 * Llangelynin
 * Black Rock Halt
 * Afon Wen (connection with the Afon Wen - Caernarfon line)
 * The Ruabon bound platforms at Barmouth Junction were also closed in 1965 and the station renamed Morfa Mawddach.

Politics
The line acquired the name "the line of the seven marginals" because it ran in the 1960s through seven Labour marginal constituencies, when a civil servant brought attention of his minister Richard Crossman, Minister of Housing and Local Government, to this fact. As a result, because of the political consequences thought to be attendant on railway closures, though scheduled for such treatment it has continued to survive.

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 for rolling stock at each end of the route, led to severe punctuality problems during much of the first decade of the 21st century. The late 2008 extension of the service to Birmingham International 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 will allow 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 other key rural routes within the UK.

The upgrade is 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 have been trained to operate the new equipment. Ansaldo STS are the principal contractors for the upgrade with Thales as sub-contractors for the Telecomms. Systra is in charge of testing and commissionning the ETCS and interlocking components of the new signalling system.

Ansaldo is installing ERTMS In Cab ETCS (European Train Control System) level 2, class 1, specification V2.3.0. As the name suggests, the driver receives the instructions for movement on the cab display. This level does not require conventional fixed signals - all the existing signals and RETB boards will be removed. Additionally, the line side speed signs will be redundant - drivers are given the appropriate maximum speed on the cab display which shows km/h, not mph.

The Cambrian ERTMS – Pwllheli to Harlech rehearsal commenced on 13 February 2010 and successfully finished on 18 February 2010. The driver familiarisation and practical handling stage of the rehearsal has provided an excellent opportunity to monitor the use of GSM-R voice in operation on this route. The first train departed Pwllheli at 0853hrs 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 of 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 removed. On 18 March 2011, the final commissioning phase for the ERTMS system across the whole Cambrian route commenced including layout alterations at Welshpool and Talerddig which would facilitate a desired increase in service frequency. At 07:20 on the morning of Saturday 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 with passenger operation commencing on the morning of Monday 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.

Llanbadarn level crossing incident
Shortly before 22:00 hrs on Sunday 19 June 2011 a passenger train, travelling from Aberystwyth to Machynlleth, 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 31 metres 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' (his need to observe a screen in the cab at the same time as he should also be observing a lineside indicator), 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 has 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 ERMTS 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.

Service pattern
Presently, trains between Birmingham and the Cambrian Line run at an approximate two hour frequency usually consisting of two two-car units which divide/combine at Machynlleth; one portion continuing to/from Pwllheli, the other to/from Aberystwyth. The new signalling system and other infrastructure changes will allow the frequency of trains to/from Aberystwyth to double.

Birmingham International
After December 2008, most trains are now extended to Birmingham International railway station and make an additional call at Smethwick Galton Bridge railway station.