Traws Cymru – a trip around North Wales

Introduction

In mid-May 2025, I made a journey that I have had in mind for a number of years – a circular trip around North Wales mainly by inter-urban bus. I had a number of reasons for wanting to make this trip. Firstly it involves travel through some of the loveliest countryside anywhere in Britain. Secondly, it allowed me to indulge my obsession with looking at heritage railway stations, three of which are shown below – I will leave it to the reader to identify them. And thirdly, and for the purpose of this post most importantly, it allowed me to travel on the Traws Cymru bus network. I have watched this network develop from afar over the years, and have often thought I would like to look at it more closely.

In what follows I firstly describe the route that I took and comment on some general aspects. I then consider the vehicles that I travelled on, and then the infrastructure – bus stops and interchanges. Finally I make a number of comments on the good and bad points of the trip.

The route

The first step of my journey was to travel from my home in Oakham in Rutland to Ruabon on the Welsh border by train. This involved changes ta Birmingham New St and Shrewsbury. There were no problems either on the way there or the way out, with all journeys running close to time. At the start of the journey there was the perennial feeling of relief when it became clear my Cross Country train was really running and had not been cancelled, that turned into a feeling of surprise when it actually arrived at Oakham on time. But, as I say, the journey worked well and I arrived at Ruabon around noon as planned.

Traws Cymru network (from the Traws Cymru web site)

The Traws Cymru inter-urban bus network in North Wales is shown in the figure above. My first bus was not however part of the Trwas Cymru network, but rather the Arriva 5 from Wrexham to Llangollen that I boarded at Ruabon. I took this rather than wait an hour and a half for the first Traws Cymru T3 bus, and it gave me time for a brief look around Llangollen and a look at the railway station. On boarding this bus I asked for a concessionary 1bws ticket (£4.70 for all day travel on buses in North Wales for English bus pass holders – excellent value). The driver looked a bit mystified but eventually gave me the correct ticket. The bus was quite full – over 50% loaded – but fairly comfortable and made up some of the time after a 10 minute late departure from Ruabon. From then on my journeys were all (bar one) on the Traws Cymru network as follows (approximate loading given in brackets).

Llandudno 13.39 to Corwen 14.04 – T3 (60%)
Corwen 14.15 to Betws-y-Coed 15.03 – T10 (5%)
Betws-y-Coed 15.05 to Caernarfon 16.23 – S1 (30 to 50%)
Caernarfon 17.05 to Porthmadog 18.05 – T2 (100%+)

And the following day.

Porthmadog 8.05 to Dolgellau 9.02 – T2 (30%)
Dolgellau 9.03 to Bala 9.33 – T3 (5%)
Bala 11.33 to Ruabon 12.39 – T3 (25%)

All the journeys kept time very well, and none was more than 3 or 4 minutes late at the point where I disembarked. Throughout the trip, the drivers were helpful and friendly, which makes a hige difference to the passenger experience. The journey not on the Traws Cymru network was the Sherpa S1. I chose to change onto this, rather than continue on the T10 to Bangor and catch the T2 to Caernarfon and Porthmadog there, simply because the ride up to Pen-y-Pass at the foot of Snowdon must be one of the most spectacular and exhilarating in the country.

The vehicles

I am by no means a bus expert, but from what I could gather from various websites, I travelled on the following vehicles.

5 – ADL Enviro400 City, operated by Arriva
Traws Cymru T2 and T3 – Volvo B8RLE MCV Evora operated by Lloyds Coaches.
Traws Cymru T10 – ADL Enviro200 MMC operated by K and P coaches.
Sherpa S1 – ADL Enviro400 operated by Gwynfor coaches.

Photographs of all but the first of these are shown below

From my point of view as a passenger, the Traws Cymru and Sherpa vehicles were all basically buses – comfortable enough, with nice seats, but not of express coach standards. All vehicles had working USB charging points (something that many rail franchises don’t seem to be able to provide), and two of the Traws Cymru vehicles had WiFi, although this tended to drop out in the more rural areas. Most had screens that could potentially be passenger information screens, although they were not in use. As someone who isn’t terribly well acquainted with the area, the use of such screens to tell me which stop was coming next would have been really useful, and would have meant that I did not have to rely upon Google maps. In general though, I found the buses a pleasant and efficient way to travel, although I doubt I would have found them terribly comfortable for journeys of much more than an hour.

Bus stops and interchanges

Bus stops and interchanges are an integral part of any public transport journey, but in my experience receive far less attention and allocation of resources than they should. These feelings were reinforced on the journey described in this post

At Ruabon the Traws Cymru stop was just outside the station building. It contained basic information about timetables, but no real time information. The shelter was functional but nothing more. I actually only used this stop on my return journey – the Arriva 5 left from a stop at the end of the Station Drive. Here the same information (about northbound buses to Wrexham only) was being displayed in the shelters on either side of the road, which was confusing to say the least. If one didn’t have a basic grasp of the geography of the area, it would be easy to have got on the wrong bus.

At Llangollen I got off and on the bus at the Bridge Hotel stop. This can be seen to be a roadside stop of the most basic sort. Fortunately it wasn’t raining. There was a timetable displayed, but no real time running information.

Llangollen Bridge Hotel stop (from Google Street View)

Corwen was very different. Here there are proper interchange facilities with good, real time information, a solid shelter and space to wonder in the bus stop area. I think I could make out a toilet block too, but didn’t investigate it. This is a nice facility. It would probably benefit from not being branded as “Corwen Car Park” – although it is indeed in the centre of a car park. It is much better than such a name would suggest. My only worry would be that the shelter would not be large enough for all those changing vehicles on a wet day. But this is how it should be done.

Corwen bus stop, waiting area and information panel

Corwen station on the Llangollen railway

Betws-y-Coed interchange (from Google Street View)

Betws-y-Coed is a strange place. It seems to be drowning in an ever expanding sea of car parks that have obliterated whatever it was that attracted folk there in the first place. The interchange is close to the station, and whilst there is shelter and some timetable information, I found the interchange, with four buses parking in an area that simply wasn’t large enough, very confusing and unsettling. Indeed I boarded the wrong bus at my first attempt. I think that there is scope for producing something like Corwen here, but it will cost I guess. Sadly the adjacent railway line, with its not-quite three hour interval service simply isn’t part of the interchange game here, which is based on a regular two hourly frequency.

Caernarfon bus station is simply a row of three of four bus stop and bays along a narrow street. However there is good passenger information and the provision of shelters is adequate. No problems here from my perspective.

Porthmadog Australia (from Google Street View)

I began my second day at the bus stop outside the Australia in Porthmadog. It is simply a roadside stop. Passenger information and creature comforts are minimal. Porthmadog deserves better.

With my trip almost over, it reached its low point – Eldon Square in Dolgellau. This was perhaps the most chaotic bus interchange I have ever experienced with four buses double parked in wholly inadequate, highly trafficked space. There may have been public information systems, but such was the chaos I couldn’t find anything. The place is simply not fit for purpose. It is clear from a web search that its inadequacy is well appreciated and there have been long term discussions about how to overcome the issues. Maybe something will be sorted out in future, but of all my memories of the trip, Eldon Square is the one that remains with me. I will do my utmost to avoid ever having to use it again.

My final change of buses was at Bala – simply alighting at the stop in the centre and getting on the next bus in two hours time. again, it was a simple roadside bus stop. with only a paper timetable provided, amongst a sea of notices pasted to the stop itself. Very oddly, one of these was advertising a vacancy for a clergyman in East Sussex!

Some closing thoughts

On balance I was quite impressed by the Traws Cymru network. The regularity and timekeeping were impressive (although I suspect the latter might suffer when the traffic is busier in the high season) and the tickets were excellent value. The buses were comfortable, at least for journeys up to an hour or a little longer. It would be good if more use could be made of the on board information screens, particularly for passengers who don’t know the area well. The bus stops and interchanges were not so impressive however, with only just tolerable information provision (and hardly any in real time) and shelter provision in most places. I suspect if the weather had been wet, I would have been less impressed by the experience. The contrast between my experience at the well thought out interchange at Corwen and the chaos of Eldon Square in Dolgellau was quite stark. Something really does need to be done about the latter.

A recent news item indicates that an express North / South Wales coach service is under consideration, over the route of the current T2 to Aberystwyth and the T1 from there to Carmarthen, which would only have a relatively small number of stops in the larger towns. From my perspective this is to be welcomed, but I would urge anyone involved in implementing such a scheme not to forget the passenger infrastructure where the coach calls. If a premium service is to be provided by high quality coaches, then this must be matched by higher quality passenger facilities at its calling points, with good quality shelter and information systems – and ideally toilets and access to refreshments. Good interchange with the rail network should also be provided, with something better than a bus stop in the station carpark, Without such provision I fear any such experiment will fail.

The Cross City Line – 1962 to 2024

Introduction

I have been a collector of old bus and railway timetables for many years, with no particular end in view, other than to put them in boxes for some unspecified future use. However, the assembled timetables seem to be too good a resource not to make use of in some way, and I used some of them to compile a recent post on the development of public transport in Oakham in Rutland. This went down surprisingly well with readers, which shows there are some very odd folk out there. But the reception has encouraged me to press ahead with a series of posts that will use my stash of timetables to look at the development of public transport services in particular places or on particular routes. This particular post will consider the development of the Cross City railway line that runs from Lichfield in the north, through Birmingham, to Redditch and Bromsgrove in the south. There is an excellent Wikipedia article that describes the history of the line, and there is little point in reproducing that, and in this post I will concentrate on the development of the timetable on the line from the early 1960s (when it didn’t exist as one route) through to the present. It will be seen that it is in some sense a story of ambition that has never been quite fulfilled because of operational issues.

In what follows we will track this timetable development through the use of timetable extracts – usually for the weekday morning post peak period, but sometimes for other parts of the day where the (lack of) availability of information makes that necessary. This shows the broad outline of the timetable, but cannot of course capture the full detail.

September 1962 to June 1963

We first of all consider the situation in the early 1960s. Extracts from the timetables for the routes that were ultimately to form part of the Cross City line are shown above, for the early afternoon weekday period (taken from the London Midland Region timetable for September 1962). It can be seen that there is broadly a half hourly service from Lichfield city to Birmingham New Street. Connections are provided to Lichfield Trent Valley (where the current Cross city line crosses the West Coast Main Line) by a Burton on Trent – Lichfield – Walsall service, with occasional through services from Trent Valley to Birmingham. Some trains started and terminated at Four Oaks, but there was no regular pattern. South of New Street, the service to Redditch was somewhat sporadic, with some trains extending to Evesham and Ashchurch for Tewksbury. Note that trains did not at that stage call at Five Ways (which was closed) or University (which didn’t exist).

September 1964 to June 1965

By 1964, the first wave of the Beeching cuts had taken place and the timetables above (again from the London Midland Region timetable) such trains as there were to Redditch from New Street terminated there. North of New Street, the service to Lichfield varied between a thirty minute and an hourly frequency, with hourly trains starting at Four Oaks. Again, there were connections to Lichfield Trent Valley from Lichfield City on the Walsall to Burton service.

May 1969 to May 1970

The May 1969 timetable (from the London Midland Region timetable downloaded from Timetable World) shows a more regular service on the north end of the route, with an hourly service from Lichfield City and a thirty minute service from Four Oaks to New Street. South of New Street the trains to Redditch were again somewhat sporadic, with one, two or three hour intervals between them.

May 1978

The Cross City line opened in something like its current form in 1978. The graphic above (a screenshot from a rather fuzzy ebay photo) shows that it was marketed as a service between Longbridge and Four Oaks, with a fifteen minute interval service between the stations. There were in fact hourly trains to Lichfield City that were not referred to in the timetable shown, and sporadic trains to Redditch in the south. The route was operated at this stage by Class 116 DMUs. Five Ways station had been re-opened and a new station built at University.

May 1980 to May 1981

The May 1980 service (shown above from the national BR timetable) is similar to the 1978 service. Here the extract shows no services to Redditch although there were again some sporadic, mainly peak hour services down the Redditch branch.

May 1983 to May 1984

By May 1983 the situation to the south had become more satisfactory with hourly trains to Redditch, with Lichfield City also having hourly trains, and four an hour from Four Oaks to Longbridge.

May 1984 to May 1985

One year further on, in May 1984, the situation is again similar, but with one of the Four Oaks trains per hour extended to and from Blake street.

July to September 1991

By 1991 there were significant changes. Two trains per hour ran south from Lichfield Trent Valley (which had been reopened in 1988), four trains per hour from Lichfield City with some peak services running from Blake Street.. To the south there were four trains per hour to Longbridge, two of which were extended to Redditch.

September to November 1992

The BR national timetable showed that the situation in September 1992 was very similar to the previous year, but was only timetable to extend to the end of November 1992, when a different timetable came into operation (see below).

December 1992 to May 1993

The December to May 1993 timetable is very odd, with the services being split at New Street, with four trains per hour from Lichfield Trent Valley to Birmingham, and four to Longbridge, with two extended to Redditch. There is no rationale given for this but may well have been something to do with the electrification works that were going on at the time.

June to September 1997

My more intimate involvement with the Cross city line began in 1997/8 when I began working at the University of Birmingham, whilst living in Lichfield, and travelling on the line daily. I thus began collecting the Cross City pocket timetables at this point. It will be seen below that the art work / size / format changed continually over the years that were to follow. The route had been electrified in 1993 and was thereafter, until 2024 operated by Class 323 EMUs, up until 2020 in mainly three car formation, with some six car trains at peak times. The situation was similar to the early 1990s with four train per hour frequency between Lichfield City and Longbridge , with two trains per hour extended to both Redditch and Lichfield Trent Valley.

June to September 2002

In the summer of 2002 we have a very similar looking timetable and frequency, albeit with some slight changes of times. But in general we can see the timetable pattern has remained stable over at least five years.

September 2002 to January 2003

In September 2002, there was something of a revolution. The number of trains was increased to six per hour, with four beginning their journeys at Lichfield Trent Valley, and two at Lichfield City and four ending their journeys at Longbridge and two at Redditch. The stopping pattern was complex with not all trains stopping at all stations. To try to make life easier for passengers, trains were to carry a headcode (that can be seen on the above timetable) indicating their destination and the stopping pattern. To put it bluntly, the service was an absolute disaster. A very frequent service with variable stops needs to be highly reliable – and that has never been the case for the Cross City line, largely due to congestion at New Street. My memory is of confused and angry passengers, very late running and many cancelled trains. Although the ambition was laudable, the pattern was never going to work. My memory is that it was replace by an emergency timetable within only a few weeks of its implementation, but I can’t be certain about that. At any rate, a new timetable was issued from January 2003.

January to May 2003

The new timetable again had six trains an hour, two beginning at Trent Valley, two at Lichfield City and two at Four Oaks, with four an hour terminating at Longbridge and two at Redditch. With only minor exceptions (Shenstone and Duddeston), all trains stopped at all stations. From a personal perspective, this led to an unbalanced departure schedule at Lichfield City, with twenty and ten minute intervals, but this pattern was to persist, in essentially the same form until 2018.

May to December 2009

The 2009 timetable is very similar to that from 2003, with very minor changes of timing.

May 2015

Similarly the 2015 timetable was of the same form, but Redditch was now served by three trains per hour following the opening of a passing loop at Alvechurch that increased the capacity of the branch.

May to December 2019

The main change in 2019 was the extension of two of the three services that terminated at Longbridge to Bromsgrove, following electrification of the line through Barnt Green, with some other slight timing modifications. Then in 2020 COVID happened.

May to December 2022

During the COVID lockdown, the services on the cross city line were scaled back to four per hour, with two starting at Lichfield Trent Valley and two at Four Oaks, with two terminating at Bromsgrove and two at Redditch and this pattern was to persist. These four trains used four of the six paths from the earlier six train timetable resulting in unbalanced intervals between trains along the line. Stations north of Four Oaks suffered particularly, with the service being reduced to half hourly, the lowest level of service since the mid-1980s. To make up for this all services were six coaches however.

December 2024 to May 2025

In the present 2024 winter timetable, this situation persists, for good or ill. The quality of the rolling stock has however increased with the use of Class 730 EMUs.

Journey times and leaf fall timetables

Finally, before I close, I will brielfy discuss journey times and leaf fall timetables, which are quite closely connected. I take the journey time between Lichfield City and Birmingham New Street as a comparative value through the years. In the 1960s, when the service was operated by Class 116 DMUs, the journey time was around 45 minutes, but by the close of the decade it had reduced somewhat to between 40 and 42 minutes. . After electrification with the introduction of Class 323 EMUs , this time fell to between 35 and 37 minutes. Current times with the Class 730 are still around 37 minutes.

From the early 2000s a “leaf fall timetable” has operated on the Cross City line between October and December, when track conditions can become difficult. A typical example for 2005 is shown below. At the time the normal timetable consisted of six trains an hour, with two starting at Lichfield Trent Valley, two at Lichfield City and two at Four Oaks, with four terminating at Longbridge and two at Redditch. The revised timetable shows four trains an hour, with two starting at Lichfield Trent Valley and two at Four Oaks, with two terminating at Longbridge and two at Redditch. Journey times from Lichfield City to Birmingham New Street were 45 minutes. There was thus both a significant reduction in service frequency and a significant increase in journey time in the interests of maintaining reliability.

Closing remarks

As I said at the start of this blog, the history of services on the Cross City line show a commendable ambition on behalf of the operators, but with this ambition compromised by lack of operational reliability. The six train per hour service that operated from 2003 was notoriously unreliable, with this unreliability in the peak leading to significant overcrowding as two trains worth of passengers often tried to squeeze onto one, with most trains having only three coaches. Perhaps the current less frequent timetable, but with longer trains, is more satisfactory in that regard. The unbalanced timetable, with alternating ten and twenty minute gaps between trains is far from satisfactory however. If one is optimistic, one might say that this will allow six trains per hour to be reinstated in the future, but if this is not going to be the case, the timetable really does need recasting with a consistent fifteen minute interval.