The project by Transport for Wales (TfW) will be underway on the Core Valley Lines for the Metro during late summer and will bring the £750,000,000 transformation which has been partially funded via the European Regional Development Fund through Welsh Government. The scheme will mean faster and more frequent services running between Cardiff and the Head of the Valleys which includes Aberdare.
The work will mean that the railway between Aberdare and Pontypridd will close from Saturday the 28th of August to Sunday, the 12th of September 2021. The line closure will allow for the safety of the engineering team as they prepare for the introduction of brand new electric train-trams.
The project will include complex work such as repositioning signals, installing and testing equipment, devegetation, realigning track, along with installation of foundations for overhead line equipment. The time scale needed to achieve this stage of the project will mean that work will be underway 24 hours a day and due to the large number of people and plant machinery involved meant the only way to allow the operation to go ahead safely was by closing the line.
During the 16-day line closure, rail replacement buses will be in operation between Aberdare and Pontypridd.
The new electric train trams will be powered by the newly installed overhead lines which will give faster journeys with reduced travel time between Aberdare and Cardiff city centre. These fantastic benefits to passengers also means TfW can bring more services online with four services each hour. The transformation will also bring much improvement to connectivity, which will give access to jobs, leisure and other opportunities for the people of Wales.
Karl Gilmore, TfW's Rail Infrastructure Director, said: “We have a significant amount of work to carry out to create the South Wales Metro. This includes the biggest upgrade to the ageing Core Valley Lines infrastructure to this scale since it was first built, so that we can deliver the faster, more frequent and greener services the people of the South Wales valleys deserve.
“While work is taking place, we'll do everything we can to work responsibly by ensuring our sites are well managed and our people are considerate to our neighbours.”
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So will all the work be completed and the system running properly after September 12th?
There is a lot of confusion over terminology. Tram-train is when the city tram runs onto the main line. No city tram = no tram-train. Running tram-like vehicles on the railway is not the same thing.
The total scheme cost is £750,000,000, not £750,000.
Indeed, it did seem a bit cheap.
Well spotted, not sure what happened to those important extra 0’s. It has now been corrected