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Heart of Wales Line
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The Heart of Wales Line is the railway line from Llanelli in South Wales to Craven Arms in Shropshire and runs through, as the name suggests, some of the heartlands of Wales. It crossed the earlier Mid Wales Railway at Builth Road, but was unable to get any nearer to the town of Builth Wells.
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at Craven Arms - here it joins the Welsh Marches Line]]
The Heart of Wales Line is the railway line from Llanelli in South Wales to Craven Arms in Shropshire and runs through, as the name suggests, some of the heartlands of Wales. It crossed the earlier Mid Wales Railway at Builth Road, but was unable to get any nearer to the town of Builth Wells. It serves several other fashionable spa towns en-route, as well as more rural centres. The line outlasted the Mid-Wales route, which closed in the 1960s.
History
Historically the line was known as the Central Wales Line and also included routes through Gowerton, where the railway crossed the West Wales Line and ran through Dunvant and Killay then down through the Clyne Valley to Blackpill, and then along the sea wall to Swansea Bay station, (near the former slip bridge) before finally reaching Swansea Victoria. This section, originally built by the Llanelly Railway and Dock Company to compete with the Great Western Railway and break the monopoly they held on Swansea Dock, closed in 1964. Nationalisation of the railways had removed the need for competing routes, and the running down and closure of Swansea North Dock ended the need for freight services on this section. Trains now use the original LR main line to reach the West Wales Line at Llandeilo Junction and thence Llanelli and (after a reversal) at Swansea station.
North of , the route was opened in stages between 1861 and 1868 by a number of different companies (all backed by the LNWR) - the Knighton Railway, the Central Wales Railway and Central Wales Extension Railway.
As a rural branch line the remainder of the Heart of Wales Line survived the Beeching axe since it carried extensive freight traffic and served the steelworks at Bynea and industrial areas such as Ammanford and Pontarddulais, linking them with the docks at Llanelli. It also passes through six marginal constituencies, which was the main reason why Harold Wilson saved the line from closure. During engineering work the line is still occasionally used as a diversionary freight route. The basic service over the line since the seventies has remained more or less constant, with four or five trains per day in each direction on weekdays and two or three on Sundays (although the latter ran in summer only until quite recently).
The line is single track throughout (save for a few miles at the southern end shared with the Swansea District Line) and has been operated under a Light Railway Order since 1972. There are five passing loops, at , , , and . Normally the Llanwrtyd passing loop is in use on the Monday - Saturday service and the Llandrindod passing loop is in use on the Sunday service. The signalling was modernised in 1986, when a system known as No Signalman Token Remote working was introduced. This is overseen by the signaller at , with the token instruments at the aforementioned five passing loops being operated by the train crew (the surviving signal boxes at each station having been closed as part of the modernisation scheme and the points converted to automatic operation).
Services today
As of 2009, there are four trains per day in each direction on weekdays and two on Sundays. Trains are one or two carriages each, with a small team of staff and a buffet trolley. The Heart of Wales line proper runs between Llanelli and Craven Arms, however train services normally terminate at and . One train a day originates at . Some stations are request stops.
At Craven Arms, the line joins the Welsh Marches Line to Church Stretton and Shrewsbury.
Passenger services are operated by Arriva Trains Wales using Class 150 or Class 153 diesel multiple units, although Class 175s have been used on rare occasions. The continued use of Class 153 DMUs has received criticism, notably from Kirsty Williams AM, who says "The 153 units have a poor reliability record, can carry few bicycles, little bulky luggage, and offer poor visibility, and this on a line that is supposedly promoted as scenic"
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