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The Heart of Wales Line ((ウェールズ語:Rheilffordd Calon Cymru)) is a railway line running from Craven Arms in Shropshire to Llanelli in southwest Wales. It runs, as the name suggests, through some of the heartlands of Wales. It serves a number of rural centres en route, including several once-fashionable spa towns, including Llandrindod Wells. At Builth Road, two miles (3.3 km) from the town of Builth Wells, the line formerly crossed the route of the earlier Mid Wales Railway, which closed in the 1960s. ==History== Historically, the line was known as the Central Wales Line ((ウェールズ語:Rheilffordd Canol Cymru))〔Network Rail (still use the name for the line ), in an infrastructure sense.〕 and also included routes through Gowerton, where the railway crossed the West Wales Line and ran through Dunvant and Killay then down through the Clyne Valley to Blackpill, and then along the sea wall to Swansea Bay station, (near the former slip bridge) before finally reaching Swansea Victoria. This section, originally built by the Llanelly Railway and Dock Company to compete with the Great Western Railway and break the monopoly they held on Swansea Dock, closed in 1964. Nationalisation of the railways had removed the need for competing routes, and the running down and closure of Swansea North Dock ended the need for freight services on this section. Trains now use the original LR main line to reach the West Wales Line at ''Llandeilo Junction'' and thence and (after a reversal) . North of , the route was opened in stages between 1861 and 1868 by a number of different companies (all backed by the LNWR) - the ''Knighton Railway'', the ''Central Wales Railway'' and ''Central Wales Extension Railway''. The 1963 Beeching Report proposed the remainder of the Heart of Wales line for closure. As a rural branch line, it survived the Beeching Axe since it carried freight traffic, serving the steelworks at Bynea and industrial areas such as Ammanford and Pontarddulais, linking them with the docks at Llanelli. It also passed through six marginal constituencies. During engineering work, the line is still occasionally used as a diversionary freight route. The basic service over the line since the seventies has remained more or less constant, with four or five trains per day in each direction on weekdays and two or three on Sundays (although the latter ran in summer only until quite recently). The line is single track throughout (except for a few miles at the southern end shared with the Swansea District Line) and has been operated under a Light Railway Order since 1972.〔(Central Wales Railway Light Railway (Amendment) Order 1990 ) www.opsi.gov.uk; Retrieved 2003-03-02〕 There are five passing loops, at , , , and . Unless "Out of Course" working occurs the Llanwrtyd passing loop is in used on two of the Monday - Saturday services and the Llandrindod passing loop is in use on the other two and also on the Sunday services. The signalling was modernised in 1986,〔(NSTR Signalling ) www.railsigns.co.uk; retrieved 2009-02-27〕 when a system known as ''No Signalman Token Remote'' working was introduced. This is overseen by the signaller at , with the token instruments at the aforementioned five passing loops being operated by the train crew (the surviving signal boxes at each station having been closed as part of the modernisation scheme and the points converted to automatic operation). For more than two years only two of the loops (Llandrindod and Llanwrtyd) were operational as Network Rail were unable to source spare parts for the points mechanisms used at all five: the design used is now obsolete. Parts had to be taken from the three decommissioned loops to keep the other two operational.〔News Article in RAIL Magazine, Issue 614, p.15〕 In 2009 NR stated their intention to install new conventional electric point machines at all five loops and restore the three out-of-service ones to full working order (after being heavily criticised by the chairman of the South Wales branch of ''Railfuture'' at the organisation's recent Annual General Meeting)〔(Heart of Wales Line In Danger ) Wales Online; Retrieved 2009-03-28〕 but were unable to give a timescale for this to be carried out as design work on the new equipment was still ongoing. NR began the replacement works for the points after first installing the system on the line to Pembroke Dock, at the Tenby loop, on 7 December 2009 and then making minor alterations in Feb 2010. was the first on the line to be modernised, the rest followed. The £5 million project was completed in October 2010.〔News Article in RAIL Magazine, Issue 656, p.19〕 In 2014 Network Rail added exit indicators at the trailing end of each loop to aid in the reversing of services: a decision taken so that all moves have an active indication of the status of the motor points. In 1987 tragedy struck the line near Llandeilo when the Glanrhyd Bridge collapsed following heavy flooding, and an early morning northbound train plunged into the swollen River Towy, killing four people. For a while the future of the line was in doubt (the equally rural Carmarthen - Aberystwyth line had been closed in 1965 following serious flood damage as the cost of repairs was deemed unacceptable) but political forces of all sides rallied to ensure the line's survival. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Heart of Wales Line」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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