‘Wales on Rails' is a new project designed to encourage people to travel around Wales sustainably, by using the national rail network, heritage railways, and buses.
The project is jointly funded by Transport for Wales's Community Rail Partnerships and Visit Wales. It aims to promote public transport as the best and most sustainable way to visit key tourist attractions and offers visitors the chance to experience some of the most scenic railway networks in the world.
Visitors can plan their trip around Wales by using the website www.walesonrails.co.uk.
The website offers everything a visitor needs to plan their trip, including itineraries, a list of attractions, rail and bus routes. Among the visitor attraction are themes such as fantastic food, awesome adventures, heroic heritage, glorious gardens, and obtainable outdoors.
The project is being managed by the Great Little Trains of Wales, which is a partnership promoting the 12 heritage railways in Wales and is supported by five Community Rail Partnerships.
Minister for the Economy, Vaughan Gething, said:
“This is an excellent partnership which encourages safe, sustainable, and scenic adventures around Wales and showcases the wealth of experiences that are accessible by public transport. This new initiative makes it easier for people to plan their trips – while also using sustainable modes of transport.”
James Price, Transport for Wales CEO added:
“'Wales on Rails' brings together our Wales and Borders rail network, 12 heritage and steam railways, and our bus routes, offering people the chance to use this sustainable transport network to travel around the country to a range of tourist attractions.
“It's not only a safe and sustainable way to travel around Wales, but the journeys themselves are a major part of the attraction, as some of our rail routes are the most scenic in the world.”
“This project is another example of the importance of our Community Rail Partnerships at TfW and how they are working collaboratively to bring social and economic benefits to the communities we serve.”
David Jones, Bala Lake Railway general manager and Chair of Great Little Trains of Wales, added:
“Wales has some of the most scenic railways in the world. As we start to travel more, it would be great if people would consider visiting Wales in a sustainable way and make public transport part of their visit or their main reason to visit Wales.”
Hugh Evans, Head of Community Rail at TfW said:
‘This has been an exciting collaboration between Great Little Trains of Wales and our Community Rail Partnerships. A big thanks to all involved and we look forward to delivering more exciting projects across Wales and the borders.”
Yes improved rolling stock might improve things but if you can’t get reasonable access to full timetables, it is very difficult.
TfW record of displaying the same is not good.
CAF Class 197 Civity and Stadler Class 231, Class 398 and Class 756 rolling stocks will improve the railways in and around South Wales and Cardiff. As Wales goes greener.
This of limited use.No direct access to TfW timetables
There is no direct access to TfW timetables only the journey planner.
The walesonrails website confirms what I suspected from doing my own weeks of searching: we will not be able to tour Wales by public transport because many attractions are not adequately served, and the bus and train schedules are not coordinated. What a pity.
My husband and I would like to be able to tour Wales by train and bus. I hope this scheme will also have places where, for a suitable fee, travelers can stash their luggage while they visit a town or village for a few hours on the way to their final destination. Without a place to store luggage, we will have to forego many smaller stops along the route.
An excellent idea but it does rather rely on TfW running the trains it is supposed to.
Take the Heart of Wales line: in the last 21 days we’ve had 13 days with no trains south of Llandrindod; the last date all trains ran and were on time at Llandovery was 16 January – and that was a Sunday with only 4 trains.
TfW are continuing to use the Omicron Covid variant as an excuse for not running enough trains when they don’t actually have enough units or staff.
Very sad really as people will try to use the scheme and find it a complete failure (apart from the Little Trains who, I have little doubt, will step up to the mark and make the bit work).
Also, the crossing gates at Llandrindod, newly installed about three years ago, break down every other week (literally) and the train often has to proceed unprotected with its horn blowing.