Wales expands community rail

Wales and Borders is set to become the first rail franchise with Community Rail Partnerships for almost all of its routes. The existing CRPs, for routes with relatively low service frequencies, will be augmented by seven new ones under the 15-year Operator and Development Partner contract awarded to KeolisAmey (LTT 08 Jun). There will be two new CRPs for the Valley Lines and two for other “Metro” services in South East Wales. West Wales will have its own CRP. Two CRPs will be created for the Marches Line, which runs from Newport to Hereford, Shrewsbury and Crewe and is primarily in England. Boundaries have yet to be fixed. Transport for Wales told LTT that this expansion represented “a move to essentially full network coverage”. It appears that the exceptions are routes where Wales and Borders operates jointly with other franchises, such as the main lines in South and North Wales and Shrewsbury to Birmingham.