December 2024 timetable change FAQs

Railway timetables change twice a year across the UK to allow for any changes that need to be made. These might not be directly related to your service, but still have an impact – for example, a new freight train in the timetable might require a passenger train to be retimed around it. On the ‘mainline’ we now have our new mainline fleet in service. 
Services on many of our routes were planned around the capabilities of older trains. Now we’ve replaced them with new trains, we need to re-plan some of our timetables to take advantage of their better performance.

• South Wales is seeing a significant change to train times and you should check before you travel.
• There’ll be a later service back to Maesteg from Cardiff on Monday – Saturday (after 23:15).
• The Cardiff <> Swansea local services will increase to one train per hour during most hours, and call additionally at Pontyclun, Llanharan and Pencoed. This gives these stations a new commuting opportunity to and from Swansea.
• The extra calls at Pontyclun, Llanharan and Pencoed now mean these stations have two trains per hour in most hours.
• Some Swanline services will now be using Platform 0 at Cardiff Central.
• Additional carriages will be running on key mainline services between Holyhead or Manchester and Cardiff or Swansea.
• Two additional services will run between Carmarthen and Milford Haven, and there’ll be a better distribution of services at Fishguard.
• Services on the Heart of Wales line will be reduced to four trains per day between Swansea and Shrewsbury (in each direction) as part of our wider future timetable review.
• Two early morning services will be removed from the Cambrian line between Pwllheli and Machynlleth (one in each direction) year-round and two evening services between Pwllheli and Machynlleth (one in each direction) will be removed from December to March only*.
• There’ll be some changes to the calling pattern on certain services between Cardiff and Manchester Piccadilly.

We’ve now brought all our new mainline trains into service (excluding those going on the Cambrian line in 2025). In partnership with Network Rail, we’ve been able to reduce journey times between key stations, helping us achieve the potential of the new trains. These changes will allow us to create a more standardised timetable for customers, on a clockface basis wherever possible (e.g. your train will run a XX minutes past the hour, every hour).

It’s even more important to check before you travel. We’d always recommend this anyway.

As we run more than 1,000 passenger services from Monday to Saturday it would be impossible to list all the changes in one place. It’s also important to remember that other train operators may also be making changes which could affect your onward journeys.

Therefore we recommend using a journey planning website or app including TfW Plan a Journey. The new timetables are now in the system ahead of the change on 15 December - you can search for train times after this date to see what they’ll be.

We did actively seek feedback on our future timetable reviews and our stakeholder managers and customer relations teams regularly pass on feedback to our internal timetable working groups.

We’ve also worked closely with Rail User Groups who are there to represent customers.

Because of the complexities of the timetable process, we have to work closely with industry partners to look at what is possible.

As a publicly run train operator, we’re committed to making public transport as accessible as possible to everyone in the communities we serve. We’ll always strive to run a service that best meets demand and our service level agreements.

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the way people use public transport for work, education and leisure has changed significantly.

TfW has also changed too, becoming a public railway in the truest sense of the word. Nearly every service TfW runs requires some form of public subsidy at a time where budgets are increasingly stretched. Every penny made beyond the operating costs, goes back into reducing the subsidy received. As a responsible operator, we need to balance the requirement for a regular, robust and reliable service within budget against the need to deliver more sustainable transport.

As part of our future timetable review, we considered some of the least used services and initially identified some services that would be cut on the Heart of Wales line.

The outcome of that review was the decision to reduce Heart of Wales line services from five through services to four per day from December 2024 and remove two late evening services to Llandovery and Llandrindod.

The line will benefit from the introduction of newly refurbished walking and cycling trains, while the timetable change will see train crew swap at Llandrindod Wells rather than at Llanwrtyd, which will improve customer experience in the event of disruption.

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the way people use public transport for work, education and leisure has changed significantly. TfW has also changed too, becoming a public railway in the truest sense of the word. Nearly every service TfW runs requires some form of public subsidy at a time where budgets are increasingly stretched. Every penny made beyond the operating costs, goes back into reducing the subsidy received. As a responsible operator, we need to balance the requirement for a regular, robust and reliable service within budget against the need to deliver more sustainable transport.

As part of our future timetable review, we considered some of the least used services and initially identified some services that would be cut on the Cambrian line.

We then sought feedback from key user groups on the likely impact of these proposals.

After exploring several alternative options, including the removal of a later service, we found a solution that sees us retain the 08:52 Machynlleth > Pwllheli and 11:37 Pwllheli > Machynlleth services all year. 

Passenger numbers will be monitored, and this decision will be reassessed after a year.

We’re removing the 05:07 Machynlleth > Barmouth and 06:45 return service, which has very low customer numbers.

The 20:26 Pwllheli to Machynlleth and 21:47 Machynlleth to Pwllheli will now only run from April to December.

The 06:30 Shrewsbury to Aberystwyth will now start from Welshpool.

The savings made are being reinvested to help strengthen additional services during the busy summer season on the Cambrian coast.

We’re currently planning to introduce six additional services between Shrewsbury and Aberystwyth (three in each direction) during the May 2026 timetable period.

These stations will see a significant daily increase through additional calls, meaning two trains per hour in each direction for most of the day. This represents 21 additional trains per day for these stations.

There’ll be an increase in services during peak periods towards both Swansea and Cardiff, with seven extra calls per day (Monday to Friday) in total. This include the new later night service from Swansea to Cardiff at 23:30. Some services will now be using Platform 0 at Cardiff Central.

Cardiff Central is an incredibly busy station with eight platforms, with some trains passing through and others terminating there. With so many trains coming and going, it’s important that we make best use of the space we have in the most efficient way possible. Platform 0 is one of our shorter platforms, suitable for trains up to four carriages, while platforms 3 and 4 can accommodate longer trains such as the nine or ten carriage GWR services from London and our five carriage services from Manchester. Platform 0 backs onto a car park for convenience and is also accessible via a lift from the main station concourse.

From December, the majority of our Manchester services will run as five carriages. However when the service reaches Swansea, the rear two carriages will detach and continue on to West Wales. The remaining three will terminate at Swansea, ready to couple to a two carriage train coming from West Wales and run as a five carriage train back to Manchester.

This allows us to keep the bulk of carriages on the busiest routes.

If you’re travelling to stations west of Swansea and are on a five carriage train, you should make your way to the rear two carriages before you get to Swansea.

Don’t worry though, our Train Managers will be making announcements onboard.

The times of these trains are almost identical to the departures of the GWR services from Carmarthen to Cardiff, Bristol and London. Rather than crowd this time of day with two services that may not have huge demand, it makes sense to work together here.

For the same reason - there are some periods in the day the GWR train from London to Carmarthen is running at an almost identical time as our Cardiff to Milford. Again we’ve worked together at these times of day to deliver a clear service for customers.

The change was made so we can offer some longer trains to both Ebbw Vale and Maesteg, where they are most needed; and to improve performance through the congested Cardiff Central area. We know that the very few customers travel direct from Maesteg to Cheltenham so this is unlikely to have a significant impact. However for those who do with to make the full journey, connections are very simple at Cardiff Central. For example, the 08:07 from Maesteg arrives into Cardiff at 09:02 and the Cardiff to Cheltenham service departs at 09:10.

Unfortunately, not every service can stop at every station, particularly on our long distance services. We have to balance the number of calls with likely demand and the need for intercity services to offer a faster journey time.  We still run a regular service from Craven Arms and Church Stretton to Shrewsbury, Chester and Manchester which meets the Train Service Requirement from the DfT.

There are seven services towards Shrewsbury before 9am for instance. The timetable change will also see both Craven Arms and Church Stretton gain some additional daily calls towards Hereford.

We’ve noted an issue raised by local stakeholders about a lack of calls mid-morning, and we’re exploring options to add an additional call at these stations from May 2025.

As an operator we understand the importance of the nighttime economy and the need to give people an option to travel home later. This has to be balanced with the likely demand, the impact on any public subsidy needed to run the train and the fact Network Rail carry out their track inspections and maintenance in the evenings.

We’re delighted to have been able to offer later services from Cardiff Central back to Maesteg after 23:15.

We’ve also worked closely with Network Rail to be able to run a later service from Swansea back to Cardiff at 23:30 on Monday to Friday, to allow more people to travel home later after evening events. That service calls at Llansamlet, Skewen, Neath, Briton Ferry, Baglan, Port Talbot Parkway, Pyle, Bridgend and Cardiff Central.

We’re actively increasing the capacity on some of our busier mainline services, particularly between North and South Wales, and to and from Manchester. 

We’re still in the process of introducing new trains to the network so some routes will see the introduction of these. The Aberdare and Merthyr lines will start to see the introduction of electric trains towards the end of this year for example. These are three and four carriage trains, which will be replacing the older two carriage trains currently running.

We have completed the introduction of new trains on the mainline (these trains will be introduced on the Cambrian line in 2025/26). In addition we have also begun the introduction of the Class 756 electric fleet on the Treherbert, Merthyr and Aberdare lines. The Heart of Wales line is seeing the introduction of refurbished active travel trains during this timetable period and these can transport up to 12 bikes, which we hope will help develop the line for leisure journeys in particular.

In the wake of Covid-19 we had to review our future timetable commitments given the changing travel patterns and the economic conditions we’re operating in. We have done our best to tailor resource to demand, whilst acknowledging that some of the plans we hoped to put into place have had to be postponed.

Where possible, in the areas where services have been reduced we have looked to reinvest some of the savings into improving other services on the line.

The Cambrian line for example, the savings made from reducing some trains with very little use in the winter has allowed us to strengthen more services to four carriages during the much busier spring and summer months.