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@@leonblittle226 They’re built to the same crashworthy standards as modern mainline trains and far superior to British Rail generation multiple units which do not have any sort of crash worthiness. In fact, these units may be superior to mainline rail vehicles in a crash with a mainline vehicle due to the constantly low centre of mass (light body shell, heavy underslung batteries) preventing the cars rolling over. There are also many more doors and larger windows which is excellent for fast evacuation.

to charge the batteries which hadn't been charged for a long while

No, because entry to service is in 2025.

@@dillonyeardley6270 The Class 399 units that operate the Sheffield Super-tram do indeed feature the same design foundation from the same manufacturer but they are completely different in all other aspects. TfWs 398s are high floor, the supertram 399s are low floor. TfW’s 398s have 25kv and long range battery packs for traction, Supertram has 750v & 25kv but no batteries. The wheelsets and powertrain is also completely different. TfW’s Tram-Trains will be operated on primarily heavy rail lines with little sections of tramway, while supertram is predominantly tramway and only a little bit heavy rail. TfW’s 398’s are closer to Manchester Metrolink than Supertram

From what I understand the second line there is just to increase capacity along the Butetown branch line. The connection from the line to central is a separate project which forms part of Cardiff Crossrail, with funding coming largely from Cardiff council.

The track is being doubled to Queen Street, there is no way of connecting to Central at the moment.

Oh, but there WAS an electric railway ..... the Swansea & Mumbles, a most significant company in the annals of railway history. In 1804, it carried the world's very first scheduled passenger rail services (horse drawn), then after a half century of steam operation, was sparked up in 1928/9. Closed in 1960, with traffic lost to roads, there are those who believe that those same, now constipated roads mean the time is ripe for it's return.

@@TheHoveHeretic OK- you got me there! Even though the stock looked like trams, I know that Swansea folk called them trains and it was officially a railway. A sad loss, but perhaps to be expected as the final owners were a bus company. There were also a couple of power stations in South Wales that used electric locos- Upper Boat and Cardiff Power Stations.

​@@MervynPartin Most definitely "tramish" in appearance .... OK, they were larger than average, high capacity trams, dammit!! One survived at the Middleton Railway (Leeds) but, most unfortunately, was heavily vandalised before being lost in a fire several years ago. Of the many schemes to reopen Welsh railways, traffic conditions favour a revived SMR ..... the condition of the economy, not so much.

I don't know about specific areas but from what I understand the electrification is discontinuous to avoid the engineering works that would be needed in areas where space is restricted. I can see the logic behind the decision but I have reservations about the trains being more complex than they would be otherwise - if the dual mode and especially the triple mode trains end up having a high rate of failure and a high cost to repair then it could have been false economy. Also the metro lines intersect the main line, which is owned and maintained by Network Rail, and apparently TfW would rather keep their electrification work separate from whatever Network Rail is doing (or not doing lol)

@@thesenamesaretaken That is also as I understand it, but it has introduced complexity in areas where it doesn't make sense. Short neutral sections between Network Rail and TfW systems would enable the trains to keep the pantographs raised through Cardiff Central and up the gradient to Queen Street. Neutral sections are used throughout Network Rail anyway, and European nations have managed all right for years (long before the EU). The electricity has to be paid for regardless of TfW or Network Rail supply.

Electric trains in general are far less complex and more reliable than diesel trains. Adding batteries does add a degree of complexity to basic electric trains, however in this case it has allowed a viable business case to be made for the valleys, and the 398s will also be able to operate on-street without needing wires - just like many trams do today. These tram-trains benefit from the technology advances seen in the last decade.

They are putting in 'discontinues electrification'. In some cases because of a low bridge - but why not just a neutral section - but in other places apparently just for the sake of it.

15 minute frequencies, so currently there are two trains per hour with the longest wait being 30 minutes, with the improvements there will be four trains per hour with the longest wait being 15 minutes. The current journey time end to end between Treherbert and Cardiff is 1hr 5mins, this will drop to around 50 minutes with the new trains

@@WalesRails thank you mate now i do understand that now also why is it that you only stopping at Treherbert then coming up to the old train station at Tynewydd the last stop of that line because we still got the platform where the trains use to stop.

TfW's Issue is that large swathes of their fleet were set to go off lease back to their ownership company or to other UK train operators once they were properly rolling out new stock, the new stock was delivered late and in a poor condition by the manufacturer and TfW were left with a massive unit shortage which has led to dangerous overcrowding, cancellations and reliability issues. TfW is far from perfect, but a lot of their issues are down to what they inherited from Arriva and the UK-wide rolling stock issues and underfunding.

Also 20mph is being talked about? It was voted in by all parties in the Senedd and was in Manifestos that the public voted for, for the vast majority of the day your overall journey duration will be dictated by the traffic on the roads, going 10mph faster for 30 seconds before having to stop in traffic again isn't going to do much. If a child runs out into the road, in the distance it would take for a car at 20mph to make a complete stop, a car at 30mph would hit the child at 24mph. I do think there should be more exemptions but the Welsh Government is already running consultations for these areas.

Ha ha!, I must admit this video is already quite out of date with how much work has progressed, you can expect a more up to date version from this channel in a few days time. TfW's industry consultation on the new electric trains concludes on January 25th so you might see some fancy new electric trains in your neck of the woods shortly after the line reopens in February.

Thank you! In and around the city centre is going to be a battery power zone due to the increased cost of electrifying near close structures and track junctions, as well as to keep the Valley Lines Electrification completely separate from the Mainline Electrification for operational reasons, Cardiff Central and surrounding is owned by Network Rail, not TfW, and because of concerns from the universities about their sensitive lab equipment being affected by EMF emission from overhead lines. www.openrailwaymap.org is a fantastic resource, set to "Electrification" in the top left and have an explore of all the Catenary Free Sections (CFS) indicated in black.

@WalesRails looks like a great resources. Thank you very much.

They’ve been tested a significant amount since this was uploaded :)

Rhondda & Merthyr Valley lines, from termini at Treherbert, Aberdare and Merthyr Tydfil through Pontypridd to Radyr and then via both the Cathays route and the City Line route via Ninian Park to Cardiff Central and Cardiff Bay

@@WalesRails thanks! does the city line include up to coryton?

@@amo-kd9cn With the new trains there will be a massive service shake up. The Radyr-Coryton City Line shuttle will be no more, being replaced by Radyr - Cardiff Central via fairwater being operated as a branch of the valley lines and Coryton services shuttling to Penarth instead, with class 756 FLIRT rolling stock

They currently have all of the new platform sections on-site it seems. Work slowly progressing it seems indeed!

Due to some issues with the top headlights and how they are required to have a non-yellow front they have temporarily yellowed the noses of each train, not permanent:)