Plaid Cymru’s Elin Jones is helping the campaign to reopen the Aberystwyth-Carmarthen line


Campaigners calling for the 56-mile-long rail line from Aberystwyth to Carmarthen to be reopened were encouraged this month when over 100 people attended a meeting in Aberystwyth.

Reinstating the line (and putting Lampeter back on the rail network) could cost around £650 million and campaign group Traws Link Cymru is trying to get funding for a feasibility study.

Modern equipment means that a Cambrian Express journey between the two towns could take one hour 30 minutes, compared to the three hours it took when the line, which served more than 20 stations, closed in 1965.

The meeting heard that around 3% of the track bed has been built on but Traws Link Cymru said that was no obstacle to reopening the line.

Now the group hopes to show politicians the enormous economic benefit of bringing back the tracks to west Wales.

Elin Jones, the Welsh Assembly member for Ceredigion, who was born the year after the line closed, attended the meeting.

She said she would arrange for members of Traws Link Cymru to meet Edwina Hart, the minister for the economy, science and transport, during the next few months.

Ms Jones, who is a member of Plaid Cymru, was born near Lampeter and gained an MSc in Rural Economics at Aberystwyth University. She became Aberystwyth's youngest mayor in 1997-98.

Information from: BBC

Traws Link Cymru