Railway campaigners have hit back at claims that an Aberystwyth to Carmarthen railway line won’t be realised for at least the next 40 years.

Ceredigion councillors were told last week there was ‘no chance at all’ that a railway line connecting two of west Wales’ largest towns will be reopening in the next 40 years.

During a thriving communities committee, councillors were discussing the possibility of building active travel routes on the old railway line.

Professor Stuart Cole CBE asked if there was any definitive answer from Welsh Government on whether the scheme would go ahead any time soon, estimating there was “no chance at all” of it reopening in “the next 40 years”.

Phil Jones, corporate manager highways services, said: “It is something we would like to have a definitive answer on because it is always in the back of our minds.

“But, I think for the purposes of expanding our active travel along these railway lines, if nothing’s going to happen in the next 30 or 40 years, the green light has been given for us to carry on with our proposals.”

Reopening the rail line has long been a call shared by many, including both members of Plaid Cymru and the Welsh Liberal Democrats locally, with campaign group Traws Link Cymru campaigning for the reintroduction of a number of railway lines across Wales including lines connecting Aberystwyth and Carmarthen, and Afon Wen and Bangor for more than a decade.

The line originally closed as a result of the Beeching cuts in February 1965; predicted costs for its reopening are as high as £800 million.

Over the last 60 years, 9.05km of the original west Wales line has been lost to development.

According to a study released by Traws Link Cymru in 2020, 97 per cent of the original track is unobstructed, however, there are specific parts of the track that will pose ‘major’ challenges.

One of the ‘major’ challenges lies within Aberystwyth. Traws Link Cymru said: “The reinstatement of an operational heavy rail system through an urban settlement with the sea on one side and a hill on the other presents one of the major challenges across the route as a whole.”

The original line travelled south from Aberystwyth Railway Station, crossed the river Rheidol, and skirted along the Penparcau Hill, down Felin y Môr road. In order to reinstate the original line, some houses would have to be demolished, as well as the Gerddi Rheidol apartment block.

Traws Link Cymru has also considered building a tunnel under Pendinas, which would reconnect with the original line afterwards, and avoid Felin y Môr road.

The original station in Llanfarian has been turned into the village hall, and although it is accessible, Traws Link Cymru said: “Alternative alignments would be required here to mitigate against potential environmental impacts to humans.”

There are three possible diversions to solve the problem in this area, however, all of them would require embankments, cuttings as well as ‘several’ potential bridges.

Another part of the line which may require a tunnel is an eight-mile stretch between Llanpumsaint and Carmarthen, which is owned by the Gwili Heritage Railway. Whilst the single track is well maintained, using it for the west Wales railway line would be ‘challenging.’

The tracks would need to be widened to allow the rail line to run through, and require the construction of ‘several’ bridges. On top of this, there are parts of the track that turn sharply, meaning trains cannot legally travel along them quicker than 25mph.

Traws Link Cymru suggested the construction of a 3km tunnel to avoid these issues on this part of the line, which would also reduce the overall track length of the line by 3.4km.

The final problem area is the Abergwili road crossing. The crossing bridge runs over the A40 road. It was said that installing even a single track along it would be ‘difficult’, though ‘technically feasible’.

One of the bridge’s embankments could be cleared without affecting the bridge’s safety, allowing tracks to run under it.

Reacting to the claims, Traws Link Cymru, who for the last 10 years has been fighting to reinstate the line, questioned the claim.

Traws Link Cymru chairman Mike Walker said: “This is a deeply disappointing statement from Professor Cole and response from Ceredigion County Council.

“As he is heavily involved with the bus lobby, it is very clear that he does not take the need for reliable rail transport in the western half of Wales seriously.

“New electric buses that take up to three hours to connect two of our most major towns are insufficient and unsustainable.

‘We have worked incessantly for a decade to convince the public of the need for a reliable rail service which will connect the entire nation much more effectively and we remain steadfast in our belief that one of the only ways to solve these issues is to build a rail corridor in west Wales.

“Indeed, this is a railway line that should never have been closed in the 1960s, and almost certainly would still be open today had contemporary economic and social factors been taken into consideration when the closure decision was made. But now this endless filibustering will do nothing to solve the deep problems faced by west Wales in terms of poor infrastructure, poverty, depopulation, and desecration of our communities and our native language.

“We cannot afford to wait a minute longer to ensure that people living in one of the poorest parts of western Europe have access to high quality public transport, with all the benefits that would bring in terms of access, mobility, connectivity and economic regeneration.

“We have only to look at the reopened Borders railway between Edinburgh and Tweedbank so see the social and economic stimuli that a new railway can bring to a region.

“Sadly, the refusal by the Welsh Government to countenance a new rail link in this area is entirely in keeping with its decision not to allocate a single penny to west Wales from the Levelling Up Fund. It would seem that those of us living in the west and north west of the country are no longer on the Cardiff radar.

“In terms of the railway, any proposal to use the former trackbed, of which 97 percent is untouched, should come with absolute guarantees that a reinstated railway will take precedence over any cyclepath or nature trail, which is what Ceredigion County Council now seems to have in mind for the trackbed, and this must be enshrined in law.’

Back in 2020, Traws Link Cymru published a report with new research into the reopening of the Aberystwyth to Carmarthen railway.

The report, entitled ‘A Strategic Rail Corridor for West Wales’, came two years after the Welsh Government published its own feasibility study, citing no major obstacles to reopening, and that the new railway would cost approximately £775m.

The 2018 feasibility study broadly confirmed the findings of an initial scoping study of 2015, notably that 97 per cent of the original trackbed was clear and that reopening was a realistic prospect.