Four years after they last ran, and a year after summer services returned to the resorts of Newquay and Skegness, now it is the turn of Tenby in Pembrokeshire to see the restoration of summer specials, as part of a major expansion of GWR services in West Wales.
Nor only has the timetable introduced on 21 May 2023 seen a substantial increase in the number of direct weekday services between Carmarthen and Paddington rise from one round trip a day to six, but summer Saturdays see a direct service from the capital to Tenby and Pembroke Dock at 08.48, with return services from Pembroke Dock at 10.00 and 15.00.
It is almost exactly 70 years since British Railways established the name Pembroke Coast Express on 8 June 1953 to promote its direct service from London, and although its original incarnation only lasted until September 1963, the name was revived by First Great Western (now GWR) in 2006, when a number of its services bore historic names, a practice now sadly discontinued.
To mark the welcome improvement in rail services to this attractive region, an overnight stay in Carmarthen on Friday, 9 June 2023 meant the chance to see some of the weekday GWR Class 80x-worked services as they passed the doomed semaphores at Pembrey & Burry Port and Ferryside, then a Saturday trip to ride and photograph the summer workings on the Pembroke Dock branch.
Alas, on what was only the third Saturday of the revived GWR services to Pembroke Dock, the curse of weekend engineering work meant that these new services were only operating as far as Swansea, with rail replacement coaches in operation between Cardiff Central and Bristol Parkway, due to a closure of the Severn Tunnel.
Beginning my brief return to West Wales with a call at Pembrey & Burry Port, it was a shame to see that the renowned private ticket office is no more and the footbridge just east of the station that was a fine vantage point has been closed off – apparently due to its unsafe decking.
Delays seemed to affect pretty much every service on 9 June, including the 11.08 from Swansea that should have got me to Pembrey in time to see one of the up Carmarthen-Paddington services. But a 25 minute late departure meant the only IET action l saw here was 800016 with the delayed 1B09 from Paddington (09.14).
Moving on after an excellent pint of Felinfoel Brewery Dragon’s Heart (4.5% and still just £2.50 a pint at the Portobello Inn across the road from Pembrey station), my next port of call was Ferryside, a delightful spot that, like Kidwelly, is no longer one of the two request stops on this scenic stretch of line.
What I did learn during a couple of hours here was that the re-signalling project that will see the end of semaphores at Pembrey and Ferryside has been delayed from this autumn until at least Spring next year, and possibly for longer. A pleasant surprise as I feared this would be the last opportunity I would have to appreciate them.
After a comfortable night at the Rose & Crown Hotel (£60.50 room only) I took a TfW service towards Milford Haven as far as Whitland, in order to see the signaller there handing over the single line token for the section to Tenby to the driver of 1B00 from Swansea (07.25), operated by IET unit 800023.
Taking this train as far as Tenby it was interesting to see how its delay increased when after the up train had departed the driver seemed to have some difficulty in extracting the single line token for the route to Pembroke Dock.
From Tenby a path close to the railway on its seaward side takes you past Tenby Golf Club and, after passing an over-bridge, brings you to a foot crossing of the line about a quarter of a mile east of Penally station and a good vantage point from which to see the up service 1E19 (10.00 from Pembroke Dock).
Penally (pictured above) was a Beeching closure in June 1964, but re-opened seasonally in summer 1970 and permanently in February 1972. It is one of five request stops on the Pembroke Dock branch, but curiously the GWR IETs don’t acknowledge request stops, so all are mandatory calls in the 07.25 from Swansea and 15.00 from Pembroke Dock, while the other two Saturday IETs run limited stop and miss out the request stops.
Next up was a visit to Manorbier, which was once a request stop and is confusingly still described as such by TfW on-train announcements. Like Kidwelly and Ferryside, however, it is now shown in TfW timetables as a mandatory stop, so a place to photograph 800013 as it arrived to pick me up with 1B08 from Swansea (11.40), as seen above.
Finally, I reach the end of the line and 286 miles from Paddington at Pembroke Dock. On a wet Saturday afternoon I struggled to find much to enthuse about the place – the listed station building is an impressive survival, but the renowned Station Inn has closed down and there are no decent pubs within walking distance of the station.
My tortuous return home was aboard 800013 and the 15.00 departure (1E29) for Swansea (normally Paddington) I did a quick passenger count on our hour-long trip up the branch. There were about a dozen of us aboard on departure, with 15 joiners at Pembroke, 12 at Manorbier and 31 at Tenby along with small numbers at the other stops, giving a modest total of about 80 passengers by the time we reached Whitland.
It will be interesting to return on a day in the peak season when trains are running through to Paddington to see how passenger numbers have picked up, and it will also be interesting to see how much of a boost to Carmarthen is given by its new weekday direct services, particularly given the arrival of competition from Grand Union at the end of next year (2024).
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