Heart of Wales day ranger
Central Wales circular
9 April 2025
I think of it as the Central Wales line - but I
imagine ‘Heart of Wales’ has a stronger
appeal to the marketing people at Transport
for Wales. “We ought to do it soon - while
the fine weather lasts, and before the leaves
are fully out on the trees”...
My friend and companion for this outing will
be on the train when I board at Church
Stretton - in the buffet car. It’s a TFW loco-
hauled service from Manchester to Cardiff, so we’re travelling in great
comfort on the first leg. The bacon bap for breakfast goes down well
too...
We have time to kill at Cardiff. Last time I was here, Paddington-bound
services were in the hands of HSTs, while local services relied heavily
on some of the oldest second generation multiple units - ‘Pacers’ and
class 150s (“hope we don’t get one of those from Swansea...”). Today,
the Stadler ‘Flirt’ units are strongly in evidence for the locals, and
GWR-branded class 80x electric units run under the wires - eastwards,
that is. They have to run on diesel power to get to Swansea or
beyond...
...and that’s exactly how we continue our journey. No shortage of
seats, but sit down carefully - or land with a bump! At least the hard
unsprung seat wadding hasn’t broken up into lumps (unlike my ride
from Edinburgh to Dunbar a couple of years ago)
Once again, we have time to kill. Out train’s already standing in
Geoff’s Rail Diaries
platform 1, but we won’t (can’t!) board yet.
We’ll take a few photos before stretching
our legs down the High Street, as far as the
castle and back. Can’t speak for the rest of
the town, but Stryd Fawr has seen better
days...
So - back to the station where, armed with
refreshments for the journey (no buffet cars
on the Central Wales line!), we join our train. It’s truly a scenic journey
- we skirt the Loughor estuary as we approach Llanelli, and follow the
river upstream for some way. The Tywi provides us with more fine
riverside views, then we take to the hills to pass through the notorious
Sugar Loaf tunnel (its single bore must have been hell for the crew of a
hard-working steam locomotive). The Irfon valley takes us down
towards the Wye at Builth Road; soon we’re in Llandrindod Wells (in the
Ithon valley) for a photo stop. I think perhaps the timetabled 15 minute
pause is to help make up any lost time and, as services cross here, to
exchange crews.
Leaving Llan’dod, we’re soon back to more famailiar territory -
Llangunllo tunnel and the descent, via Knucklas viaduct and the Teme
valley to Knighton - and Shropshire. We left Broome on time - and
stopped for 15 minutes or so just short of Craven Arms, to allow a late-
running express to get ahead of us (we are, of course, a ‘stopper’). We
reckoned that, if we’d been allowed out, we wouldn’t have held up the
other train, but it wasn’t for us to decide. Despite the last-minute lost
minutes, what a great day it had been.
