Look at a rail map of Cymru and youâll notice a pattern. All of the main railway lines run horizontally. Look closer and youâll also notice a cluster of lines in the Valleys.
Remarkably, thereâs not a single line that spans the length of Cymru, connecting north & south.
Remarkably, thereâs not a single line that spans the length of Cymru, connecting north & south.
In order to travel from Caerdydd to Conwy, then you first have to take a long detour through England.
This makes Cymru unique in Europe in being the only country that you canât traverse by train without having to spend most of the journey passing through the country next door.
This makes Cymru unique in Europe in being the only country that you canât traverse by train without having to spend most of the journey passing through the country next door.
So why does Cymru lack a unified rail network? And what might our lack of rail infrastructure reveal to us about the economic history of our country?
The reason why our rail network looks the way it does today is due to the conditions under which it was constructed during the 19th century.
In contrast to most European countries at the time, not a penny of govt money was invested in the construction of national rail projects.
In contrast to most European countries at the time, not a penny of govt money was invested in the construction of national rail projects.
This meant that the task of building railways was left instead to wealthy industrialists whose decisions about where to lay down track were motivated purely by commercial interests.
At the time, this meant connecting the former coalfields of the Valleys and the slate quarries of Gwynedd to nearby ports, such as Caerdydd and Porthmadog as well as to populous areas of Englandâ especially the booming metropolis of London.
This economic pattern of harvesting and exporting the natural resources of a country for sale or trade abroad is known as an extractive economy.
Because our railroads were initially constructed with the purpose of transporting natural resources, no careful deliberation or planning was invested into designing and constructing a coherent national rail network that would bring the people of Cymru closer together.
As the editor of the âWelsh Outlookâ lamented in 1920, âFrom the national point of view our rail system is the worst in the worldâ.
The integrity of our rail network was dealt a further blow by the Beeching Cuts, which axed the few miles of vertical track that once existed between Caerfyrddin and Aberystwyth and Pwllheli and Bangor, further compounding the difficulty of travelling around the country.
As a result, to make the journey by train from Caerfyrddin to Aberystwythâ some 40 miles as the crow fliesâ takes an astonishing 7 hours!
Although a lot has changed over the past 50 years, our rail network, sadly, remains inadequate to this day. With the advent of Devolution, and with a nascent Parliament, we are now better placed than ever to begin creating a truly national rail networkâ fit for the 21st century.