Valley Lines

Valley Lines (also Valleys & Cardiff Local Routes) is the commonly-known name for the Cardiff and Valleys network of suburban railway services within Cardiff, the Vale of Glamorgan and the South Wales Valleys. The services are currently operated by Arriva Trains Wales. In total, it serves 81 stations in six unitary authority areas: 20 in the city of Cardiff, 11 in the Vale of Glamorgan, 25 in Rhondda Cynon Taff, 12 in Caerphilly, 8 in Bridgend and 5 in Merthyr Tydfil.

Services on these routes are provided with class 121, 142, 143 and 150 DMUs, and are typically end-to-end, in that they run from one branch terminus, through Queen Street station (the notional 'hub' of the network), to another branch terminus, e.g. from Pontypridd to Barry Island.

Reopening of the Vale of Glamorgan Line

The old Vale of Glamorgan Line, on which passenger services were closed under the Beeching Axe, re-opened for passenger service, with services from Cardiff Central to Bridgend, via Barry, Rhoose Cardiff Intl. Airport and Llantwit Major. These services were originally advertised to start in April 2005, but commenced on 12 June 2005.

Routes

The colours used below are from the official network map (see External links). Stations in bold are major interchanges for the network

ee also

*List of railway stations in Wales

External links

* [http://members.aol.com/Walesrails/crcva.htm Detailed summary of all the Valley Lines]
* [http://www.arrivatrainswales.co.uk/ Arriva Trains Wales]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/4662304.stm BBC News: New stations in £155m rail plans]