Rail
Leaders from across South Wales and Western England are collaborating to improve the area’s train services. Currently the area lags behind other parts of the UK with slow train times in-between major cities and rural communities. Cardiff in particular has been identified by the Government as having the “least well directly connected major city” in the UK.
The Western Gateway 2050 Rail Vision promotes increasing capacity to allow up to four trains per hour between Bristol and Cardiff, reducing journey times between the cities from 50 to 30 minutes. It also suggests that journey times between Swansea and Bristol could be dramatically reduced from one hour and a half once an hour to 60 minutes with three trains an hour, through funding Transport for Wales proposed improvements to the South Wales Main Line and upgrading the Severn crossing.
The plans estimate that improvements would cost between £1-2bn in the short term to deliver already committed and planned developments up to 2035. In the long term, the full range of development up to 2050 has been estimated to cost a further £7-8bn.
A fully functioning and efficient rail system is essential if we are to reach our carbon emission targets and improve our below average productivity. Your support for this initiative will be instrumental in helping us achieve our goals to:
- Provide transformational benefits for local communities at risk of being left behind with travel times between urban and rural centres nearly halved and greatly improved connections to London and beyond.
- Offer a deliverable programme of work – with a new robust strategic partnership and a pipeline of schemes already in planning and business case phases, deliverable by 2035.
- Provide the opportunity to unlock huge potential. If we can overcome productivity hurdles, our research shows we could add at least £34bn to the UK economy by 2030.
Become a leader in rail innovation with the new Global Centre for Rail Excellence, Bristol’s Station Innovation Zone plus industry leaders like CAF (Newport) and SIEMENS (Chippenham).
‘Good rail services support modal shift and carbon reduction, they support and sustain the local and regional economy and they promote equality of opportunity and access. They are essential for delivering prosperity and sustainability and we need the strength of ambition set out in the Western Gateway’s Rail Vision 2050 to keep the communities of the Gateway thriving’.
Mark Hopwood - Managing Director, Great Western Railway