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 platform 1, but we won’t (can’t!) board yet.
We’ll take a few photos before stretching our legs down
Geoff’s Rail Diaries
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.
