TfW Future Timetable Review

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As announced last year, we’ve spent time reviewing our longer-term rail timetable commitments to ensure they best meet the demands of customers and are fit for the needs of passengers. We’re pleased to now be able to share this work with you, our key stakeholders and customers.

Please note, this information is relating to the Wales and Borders services, and not the South Wales Metro / Core Valleys Lines (CVL) which includes Treherbert, Aberdare, Merthyr, Rhymney, Coryton, City, Bay and Penarth. More information about the June 2024 timetables for these lines will be issued shortly.

Our future planning is based on a number of evidence-based factors including demand and growth trends, as well as social and economic factors. Our long-term strategy was developed by giving careful consideration to all of these.

In the wake of the Covid 19 pandemic, the way people use public transport for work, education and leisure has changed significantly. We’ve changed too, becoming a public railway in the truest sense of the word. Nearly every service we run requires some form of public subsidy at a time where budgets are increasingly stretched. Every penny we make above and beyond our operating costs, goes back into reducing the subsidy we receive. As a responsible operator it is imperative that we balance the needs for a regular, robust and reliable service within our budgets and against our targets to deliver more sustainable transport.

We have developed our future timetable to better align with the new travel habits and requirements of customers, whilst becoming a truly multimodal operator. That means we’re looking at demand and the opportunities for growth across bus and rail together. On the railway, some routes will see little change, others will see slightly different calling patterns better targeted to current needs, but in other areas we have had to make some tough decisions in order to ensure we provide capacity where most needed, grow revenue and ultimately reduce public subsidy. Regular stakeholder feedback on our timetables has fed into this, alongside passenger counts and close consideration of alternative travel options.

The review outcomes will see TfW;

  • Running 87 more services on mainline routes than when TfW took over in 2018 and more carriages added to some of our busiest services; to help meet growing demand

  • Removing a small number of services that have very low passenger demand currently

  • Deferring some of our earlier-made commitments for more services on certain routes.

As part of this review process differing levels of subsidy saving options were considered and it was agreed to proceed with a modest set of changes to the Wales and Borders rail timetables, which we outline in more detail below.

The new timetable includes:

  • Additional calls to/from Milford Haven and Haverfordwest giving the towns 13 services per day in each direction

  • Hourly service between Aberystwyth and Shrewsbury to run from May to September from May 2026

  • Additional peak time services on the Vale of Glamorgan line by 2026, but the increase to 2tph throughout the day deferred

  • Cardiff <> Cheltenham services are going to be enhanced by June 2024 to hourly services throughout the day time.

  • Extra services between Swansea and Tenby between May and September from 2025, subject to agreement with Network Rail

  • Liverpool to Chester service extended to Llandudno from 2026, subject to agreement with Network Rail and work completed to level crossings

  • Heart of Wales services planned to cross at Llandrindod Wells to give much better customer experience in event of disruption (services currently cross at Llanwrtyd Wells).

Some of the more difficult decisions we’ve taken include:

  • Reducing Heart of Wales Line services from five through services to four per day from December 2024 and removal of the two late evening services to Llandovery and Llandrindod. Bus options are currently being explored.

  • Removal of four services between Machynlleth and Pwllheli (two in each direction). Two further services will be retimed and will run between March and December.

  • Amending four journeys to end at Carmarthen (instead of Cardiff Central as of today), though these will connect into GWR services Carmarthen <> London Paddington. (Connection times can be found in our timetables).

  • To defer the introduction of some additional evening services between Cardiff and Cheltenham Spa.

  • To defer a previous commitment to increase trains between Cardiff Central and Bridgend, via the Vale of Glamorgan line, to two trains per hour. However, we will introduce an additional peak service in each direction.

  • To defer a previous commitment to introduce a new Cardiff Central <> Shrewsbury <> Liverpool Lime Street service, owing to the levels of Network Rail infrastructure enhancement required.

  • To defer a previous commitment of increasing our services between Cardiff and Swansea to one train per hour at off peak times. However, this service remains hourly during the peak.

We intend to deliver these timetables over the next few years, however, it is still vitally important that we take your feedback on board. Whilst we’re unable to make fundamental changes to the approach we’ve outlined, some timing and service adjustments could still be made. We’re particularly interested to hear if there are things you think we could do differently to help people in your areas make better connections either onto other trains or onto local or national bus routes.

It is also important to reflect that when we began serving the people of Wales and the Borders in 2018, we ran 441 mainline (excluding CVL) services per day. Our future timetable under the new plans will see 528 services a day in the Summer and 512 in the Winter. Those journeys are increasingly being made on newer, longer, more reliable trains which will give customers confidence to travel on the Wales and Borders rail network.

Thank you for your patience as we carefully worked thought this timetable review process. We now encourage you to fill in the feedback form found on this page.


As announced last year, we’ve spent time reviewing our longer-term rail timetable commitments to ensure they best meet the demands of customers and are fit for the needs of passengers. We’re pleased to now be able to share this work with you, our key stakeholders and customers.

Please note, this information is relating to the Wales and Borders services, and not the South Wales Metro / Core Valleys Lines (CVL) which includes Treherbert, Aberdare, Merthyr, Rhymney, Coryton, City, Bay and Penarth. More information about the June 2024 timetables for these lines will be issued shortly.

Our future planning is based on a number of evidence-based factors including demand and growth trends, as well as social and economic factors. Our long-term strategy was developed by giving careful consideration to all of these.

In the wake of the Covid 19 pandemic, the way people use public transport for work, education and leisure has changed significantly. We’ve changed too, becoming a public railway in the truest sense of the word. Nearly every service we run requires some form of public subsidy at a time where budgets are increasingly stretched. Every penny we make above and beyond our operating costs, goes back into reducing the subsidy we receive. As a responsible operator it is imperative that we balance the needs for a regular, robust and reliable service within our budgets and against our targets to deliver more sustainable transport.

We have developed our future timetable to better align with the new travel habits and requirements of customers, whilst becoming a truly multimodal operator. That means we’re looking at demand and the opportunities for growth across bus and rail together. On the railway, some routes will see little change, others will see slightly different calling patterns better targeted to current needs, but in other areas we have had to make some tough decisions in order to ensure we provide capacity where most needed, grow revenue and ultimately reduce public subsidy. Regular stakeholder feedback on our timetables has fed into this, alongside passenger counts and close consideration of alternative travel options.

The review outcomes will see TfW;

  • Running 87 more services on mainline routes than when TfW took over in 2018 and more carriages added to some of our busiest services; to help meet growing demand

  • Removing a small number of services that have very low passenger demand currently

  • Deferring some of our earlier-made commitments for more services on certain routes.

As part of this review process differing levels of subsidy saving options were considered and it was agreed to proceed with a modest set of changes to the Wales and Borders rail timetables, which we outline in more detail below.

The new timetable includes:

  • Additional calls to/from Milford Haven and Haverfordwest giving the towns 13 services per day in each direction

  • Hourly service between Aberystwyth and Shrewsbury to run from May to September from May 2026

  • Additional peak time services on the Vale of Glamorgan line by 2026, but the increase to 2tph throughout the day deferred

  • Cardiff <> Cheltenham services are going to be enhanced by June 2024 to hourly services throughout the day time.

  • Extra services between Swansea and Tenby between May and September from 2025, subject to agreement with Network Rail

  • Liverpool to Chester service extended to Llandudno from 2026, subject to agreement with Network Rail and work completed to level crossings

  • Heart of Wales services planned to cross at Llandrindod Wells to give much better customer experience in event of disruption (services currently cross at Llanwrtyd Wells).

Some of the more difficult decisions we’ve taken include:

  • Reducing Heart of Wales Line services from five through services to four per day from December 2024 and removal of the two late evening services to Llandovery and Llandrindod. Bus options are currently being explored.

  • Removal of four services between Machynlleth and Pwllheli (two in each direction). Two further services will be retimed and will run between March and December.

  • Amending four journeys to end at Carmarthen (instead of Cardiff Central as of today), though these will connect into GWR services Carmarthen <> London Paddington. (Connection times can be found in our timetables).

  • To defer the introduction of some additional evening services between Cardiff and Cheltenham Spa.

  • To defer a previous commitment to increase trains between Cardiff Central and Bridgend, via the Vale of Glamorgan line, to two trains per hour. However, we will introduce an additional peak service in each direction.

  • To defer a previous commitment to introduce a new Cardiff Central <> Shrewsbury <> Liverpool Lime Street service, owing to the levels of Network Rail infrastructure enhancement required.

  • To defer a previous commitment of increasing our services between Cardiff and Swansea to one train per hour at off peak times. However, this service remains hourly during the peak.

We intend to deliver these timetables over the next few years, however, it is still vitally important that we take your feedback on board. Whilst we’re unable to make fundamental changes to the approach we’ve outlined, some timing and service adjustments could still be made. We’re particularly interested to hear if there are things you think we could do differently to help people in your areas make better connections either onto other trains or onto local or national bus routes.

It is also important to reflect that when we began serving the people of Wales and the Borders in 2018, we ran 441 mainline (excluding CVL) services per day. Our future timetable under the new plans will see 528 services a day in the Summer and 512 in the Winter. Those journeys are increasingly being made on newer, longer, more reliable trains which will give customers confidence to travel on the Wales and Borders rail network.

Thank you for your patience as we carefully worked thought this timetable review process. We now encourage you to fill in the feedback form found on this page.


  • TfW Future Timetable Review Feedback Form

    Dear Partner,

    Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts on the future timetable update through the following form. The future timetable position has been developed carefully based on data and we intend to start delivering this timetable from December this year.  

    We are unable to make significant wholesale changes; the fundamentals - such as number of services per day and class of train servicing each route – are set.  However, it is still vitally important that we take your feedback on board and make refinements where possible.  

    Some timing and service adjustments could still be made if there are things you think we could do differently to help people in your areas make better connections either onto other trains or onto local or national bus routes.  We’d be keen to hear about how we might make changes to correspond to specific local needs in your area - such as school or college traffic - considerations for better integrated transport networks and how we can encourage communities to choose more sustainable modes of transport moving forward.  

    We encourage you to keep your responses to each question to 300 words maximum. This is to ensure input is concise and to allow for clear understanding, enabling us to thoroughly analyse the data gathered.  

    Once again, we would like to thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us. You can find the five survey questions on the next page. Thank you.  

    Complete Form
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Page last updated: 16 Apr 2024, 09:27 AM