Scenic Heart of Wales service shows continued improvement
One of the most picturesque rail routes in the UK has shown consistent improvement in performance and reliability for passengers this year.
The latest figures for the Heart of Wales line, which connects Swansea with Shrewsbury via Llandrindod Wells, show that the reliability rate of services along the route stood at 97.5% between 22 June and 19 July. During this period, 283 services were scheduled to operate and 276 services ran. There were seven cancellations.
Punctuality of these services arriving within 3 minutes of their advertised time also increased to 81.2% up from 64% at the beginning of the year, bringing reassurance and an overall better experience to local passengers and day travellers.
Reliability
Since January 2025, the reliability of trains run on this line has consistently been above 90%.
The Heart of Wales line travels through some of Wales’s most breathtaking landscapes, including rolling hills and beautiful rural villages. The route offers not just a means of transport but an experience, attracting customers from near and far and acting as a lifeline for work, education, and leisure.
Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales Ken Skates said: “Delivering better transport is a priority for this government and I’m pleased to see this encouraging improvement on the Heart of Wales line.
“It’s good to see improvements in the experience of passengers and I’d like to thank all those involved in delivering this.”
“Encouraging”
Colin Lea, Planning and Performance Director at Transport for Wales said: “These figures are encouraging and reflect the work we and our partners at Network Rail have been doing to deliver a consistently reliable train service.
“We recognise the importance of the service to those communities along this line and that there have been times recently where our service hasn’t been to the standard expected by customers.
“Whilst it’s pleasing to see performance improving and heading in the right direction, there are still improvements to be made”.
The improved figures are thanks to the hard work of our staff and Network Rail partners who maintain the track and trains with exceptional dedication.
It’s also a result of the passion of all those involved in our Local Railways and Community Rail initiatives, who work closely together to improve the railway experience across Wales.
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The rolling stock used on the Heart of Wales line is the 153s, old cast-offs, built in 1991 and recently refurbished after TfW purchased them outright from a defunct leasing arrangement. Now upgraded to a two-car set up to cope with extra demand. They were due to be replaced with the 170 class rolling stock, modern versions built in 2005, but all those in existence are owned by a leasing operation who refused to sell them to TfW. Obviously, the newer trains would have been much more reliable and fuel efficient and enabled more services to operate, making the Carmarthenshire… Read more »
The reliability and capacity issues are mainly down to track maintenance issues and design limitations which sit with Network Rail, aka Whitehall to fix, not TfW.
That said TfW could do more from the rolling stock side as there should be a Swiss style tourist class of trains alongside the workhorse 153s. There could also be a permanent and complimentary bus service that calls at all the stations as well as other villages and points of interest so there’s always an alternative but slower option in the event of problems or just a missed connection.
The RosCos are just a profit machine spitting out dividends to their owners and not really investing. There is stock sitting waiting to be leased but there does not appear to be any open source list of what is currently available, is there any? Seems that the Welsh Government would have to purchase new, outright not via a lease with obvious cost implications.
I assume they exist as an accounting fiddle to keep public debt off the government books. But we should be looking at “net debt” as a share of the economy not total debt because this is discouraging investment in infrastructure which makes an economy stronger and more resilient.
The reason why Class 170s couldn’t be used is because of several size restrictions on the line, notably the Down platform at Llandovery. Of course nobody at TfW thought to check with Network Rail before the arrangement to use the 170s was made. When this happened in Spain a couple of years ago, the people responsible we summarily sacked. Did this happen in Wales? No…
What was the size restriction? The 153s are slightly wider than the 170s.
That’s not true. TfW have retro-fitted 153s for modern disabled access regulations which includes a wider footplate and ramp pins, refurb of last stock completed this month. Now have the same horizontal gauge as 170s. This was done concurrently with Network Rail upgrades of the platform surfaces, full cooperation, to include re-alignment of coping stones and inserting tactile paving at all stations where it was needed. This should now be visible at Llandovery. Includes changes to car stop markers and some extensions to platform down-ramp protections. Will be interested to know if the ‘won’t fir’ rumour was started by politician… Read more »
Adequate funding and our fair share of UK money would also help, but I suppose Labour in Cardiff are happy with £400 million over a ten year period for the whole of Cymru, while Cambridge to Oxford have to be happy with the paltry sum of £6.6 Billion for the new line they are getting.
And that sum was just to plug the historic gap the Cons created so there’s actually nothing new from London Labour.
Oxford-Cambridge was actually closed by Labour (January 1968), while Barbara Castle was Minister of Transport – and against Beeching, who wanted it to stay open.
Couldn’t agree more and flippant remarks by Darren Jones in reply to Liz Saville-Roberts suggesting that Wales should be grateful for what it gets will cost the Labour Party a lot of support in Cymru!
Gareth you are forgetting the huge amount given to the Welsh government to upgrade Cardiffs suburban railway with a complete new train fleets with improvements continuing across Wales and new train services. The 153s may have a unit designed to carry cycles specially modified.. I will find out soon!
Of course by cutting the number of trains and thus creating huge gaps in services, things are bound to improve. As I live near the line, my observations of the trains are firstly: it is still the case that very few people are actually travelling because of the unreliability and timetabling of services even if they have supposedly improved, and secondly, I doubt the accuracy of TfW’s claims with too much fudge room allowed for the definition of “cancelled” and “late”, and no mention of people being bussed between Swansea and Llandrindod or Llandrindod and Shrewsbury when things go wrong.… Read more »
One of the greatest improvements to this line would be to re-connect the line at Gowerton (Great Western) to the Swansea District Line through Gorseinon. Currently mostly a cycle path at the moment but the great majority of the line still exists.
The Heart of Wales line already connects the Swansea District line and GWR mainline at Llanelli. Actually the bike path (soon to open over Gowerton station) is on the old Heart of Wales disused section. I campaigned for this bike path for 12 years, and delighted to see it opening from Pontarddulais to Gowerton any day now. With the new 153 cycle carriages also being used on HoW trains regularly in 2026 we ll be able to bike and train travel much easier. Well Done TfW