Fundraising effort to boost rail line hopes
A FUNDRAISING bid has been launched to bring back the West Wales rail corridor from Carmarthen to Bangor via Aberystwyth.
In the eight years since it formed, campaign group Traws Link Cymru has been pushing for the return of the railway lines between Carmarthen and Aberystwyth, along with Bangor in Gwynedd and Afon Wen on the Llyn Peninsula.
The two stretches of railway were closed to passengers under the Beeching cuts of the 1960s.
Traws Link Cymru has now launched a crowdfunding drive to raise £5,000 which will be spent on campaigning for the routes to be reinstated.
A Welsh Government feasibility study carried out in 2018 concluded a reopening of the railway between Carmarthen and Aberystwyth was technically feasible along part of the line but at a cost of almost £800m.
Last year Traws Link Cymru carried out their own study which argued the cost of reopening the Aberystwyth to Carmarthen railway could be cut to around £620 million, a sum 20% less than the Welsh Government’s costing of £775m.
Traws Cymru also noted that 97% of the original trackbed was clear and that reopening was a realistic prospect.
A spokesman for Traws Link Cymru said: “A railway line running from Bangor in the north to Carmarthen in the south would not only provide an important transport link between industrial south Wales and the rural north, but it would also bind the country together to produce a more integrated Wales.
“As such, these new railway lines would have considerable strategic and political significance.
“Traws Link Cymru has argued that new railway lines between Aberystwyth
and Carmarthen and Afon Wen and Bangor could provide the stimulus needed to kick-start economic and social regeneration throughout the region. Mid and west Wales are currently some of the most deprived areas of the United Kingdom and, indeed, of Western Europe.
“Yet this region has considerable potential in terms of tourism and agriculture; it has an employment pool that could service a wide range of small and medium-scale industries.
“It has three university campuses and several linked colleges of further education on seven campuses; it has the National
Library of Wales in Aberystwyth; the Royal Commission for Ancient and Historic Monuments; the headquarters of the S4C television channel in Carmarthen; and it has a rich and diverse cultural history.” They went on to say: “Realising the potential of this region requires vision, planning and inward investment. But the poor communications network remains a major drawback.
“The current road system is inadequate for the region’s needs, and while the existing railway links eastwards from Bangor and Aberystwyth, and east and west from Carmarthen, are both well-used, they do little to improve regional connectivity.” Currently a rail journey to reach Aberystwyth and north Wales from Carmarthen is upward of six hours, with passengers having to cross into England and stations such as Hereford and Shrewsbury.
Last September the town of St Clears, to the west of Carmarthen saw the announcement that its train station will reopen for the first time in almost 50 years with £4.7m Government funding. ■ Traws Link Cymru’s Justgiving page can be found at www.justgiving. com/crowdfunding/ trawslinkcymru2.