Transport for Wales (TfW) is to run additional services and trains across north and south Wales and into England from December.
The next timetable period runs from 10 December to 1 June next year, and changes include:
- almost twice as many services on the Ebbw Vale line, which has recently had seventy million pounds spent on it by the Welsh Government and Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council, which paid for improvements delivered by Amco Giffen and Siemens on behalf of Network Rail;
- new services between Newport and Ebbw Vale Town, also as a result of the investment;
- daytime services every 45 minutes on the Wrexham Central to Bidston line, an increase from every hour;
- the return of the hourly Chester-to-Liverpool services via Liverpool airport.
TfW has also added fifty new trains to its fleet, and will add more than one hundred new trains on its mainline and Metro networks over the next two years.
A full hourly service between Cardiff and Cheltenham Spa will also start next year as more trains become available.
Customers on all TfW services should double check their journey times as your usual time may differ.
Passengers can plan their journeys on TfW's online journey planner.
TfW's Planning and Performance Director Colin Lea said: “We're delighted to be introducing new services on key routes in both the north and south of our network in this timetable period.
“The Ebbw Vale project showed fantastic collaboration with our partners to almost double the number of services on the line, with the new link to Newport, and allows greater opportunities for leisure, learning and commuting.
“In Wrexham and Deeside it gives more choice and better reliability on the Borderlands line to Bidston, while the full return of Liverpool-Chester services is now possible following completion of crew training on our new trains.
“The most important thing is to please check your travel details before you travel.”
Customers can see what the timetable will look like by planning a journey HERE
Since when has Liverpool airport been in Wales?
The TfW service to Liverpool will only be useful if starts its journey from Bangor or Holyhead. If it is from just Chester, it will be of limited use to people on the N Wales coast. It will still mean a change of trains, just like the present change onto Merseyrail.
The trains that go to Crewe are overcrowded due the lack of frequency early in the mornings!! If something happens to the first train you have to wait more than an hour for the next one! You cannot rely on these trains
All very well to timetable extra services but TFW never seem to have enough drivers for existing services…
Wrexham/Wrecsam-Bidston requires a half hour frequency to generate passenger uptake in a reliable way.
I wonder where the train to Liverpool Airport will stop. Last time I was there, I saw no tracks.
I can’t disagree with you there. The new Liverpool service will be useful but not much more useful than the existing slower but more frequent Merseyrail service. Wrexham-Bidston gets a very modest uptick in frequency but not much to shout about.
Meanwhile services the North Wales Coast line are hopelessly overcrowded and long distance trains are far too slow, as there are no local trains to pick up calls such as Conwy and Penmaenmawr.
TfW = Transport FAILS Wales.
When will the service between Mid Wales and the Midlands improve? More coaches and more reliable and regular trains please…
Tfw always overpromising and under delivering. The grinning optisim of the directorate beggars belief and shows they have no actual clue what is happening on their network.
There is this miraculous new thing called the internet which, rumour has it, can be accessed from a smart phone, which is about the same size as a pocket timetable. It even allows you to access live train information so takes the guess work out of travelling by train. Long gone are the days when you were trying to get to Cwmbran and instead, ended up at the Butlins camp in Minffordd, doing the rounds as a Redcoat, waiting for the once-a-week train to take you home. Which of course was a gamble in itself.
Save the planet, you don’t need pocket timetables anymore. :-P
And for people who don’t have a smart phone, what do you suggest?
Some of us would just settle for through services again. So we don’t arrived at Carmarthen and watch the TfW connection leaving the other platform as we cross. There is absolutely NO excuse for this. As ever passengers West of Carmarthen get shafted with atrocious service.
I tried to travel too and from Haverfordwest this past week. Running the existing services would be a start and new management not new trains are what is needed. Shortages of staff and rolling stock are all blamed for a lack of services west of Carmarthen. Dangerously overcrowded and cancelled trains and too few carriages assigned to trains make every journey with TfW a nightmare.
Colin Lea there’s no planning and terrible performance so paper or online timetables are totally pointless.
You claim to have added new trains but that’s only true if old stock hasn’t been taken out of service.
In fact you seem to have brought in new trains without properly training your staff on how to use them.
There’s no point announcing the train destination only after you have departed. Short trains mean they are packed before they start with old and infirm forced to stand. A truly terrible service in any language or as the new train in carriage indicators say “Dim Data”.
Are they still plans to relay the track between Aberbeeg to Abertillery line as was promised we feel left out branching off the Cardiff Ebbw Vale line at Aberbeeg?
So a new English service from Chester to Liverpool but nothing for N Wales coast , TFW are garbage.
It would be a good idea if tfw were able to run their present timetables, especially morning services west of Swansea, often delayed or cancelled.
So true. I travel every Friday between haverfordwest and swansea and there is always a delay or cancellation.
It’s just more trains for them to cancel.
How about the Hereford to carmarthen line need information as I use that line regularly need to know ?
It would be useful if it was possible to get timetables or local pocket timetables for these services in order to plan journeys. even stations no longer show services that operate , so one is left guess when Train run and where’s they stop.
Why do you need that when you can use an online journey planner?