Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Flooding Again!
Extremely poor weather conditions have once again had a severe impact upon the transport networks in Mid & West Wales today with extreme flooding affecting roads and railways. This has left the majority of the line from Newtown to Aberystwyth and the Cambrian Coast closed as well as parts of the Conwy Valley Line and roads between Machynlleth to Dolgellau!
Fortunately for those reliant on such transport as Arriva Trains Wales an excellent back up system exists in the form of Lloyds Coaches of Machynlleth. Owner Wyn Lloyd should be praised for his efforts in times of Arriva's crisis by providing a high quality and friendly coach service between stations. The coast at Aberystwyth is also suffering as the walls have literally been battered by the sea and a clean up operation is under way.
From this two key issues stand out, firstly do defences against extreme weather need improving as year on year the area suffers the same issues and the existing system is clearly not adequate to deal with it. Secondly the replacement service by Wyn Lloyd's coach company provided a luxury comfortable service (even though it took slightly longer) - once again highlighting the state of the network in Wales but also on the road transport side is that the rail replacement coaches are much better than the tempos and commanders on the Trawscambria service. There is still a long way to go before Wales has a first class transport network.
# posted by Paul Rogers @ 12:22 pm 
