New bus service introduced in Powys to mitigate the reduction of the services on the Heart of Wales line.
A new bus service has been introduced in Powys to attempt to mitigate the reduction of the services on the Heart of Wales line.
The X48 is running between Craven Arms station, linking up with trains from Manchester, North Wales and Cardiff, to Knighton and Llandrindod Wells with some going onto Builth Wells and Llanwrtyd Wells.
It is additional to bus services already in place.
The bus runs Mondays to Saturdays, bank holidays excepted, four times a day, supplementing the rail service.
Knighton Town Councillor Tom Taylor, a long-time advocate for more bus services said: “It is six minutes faster than the train between Knighton and Llandrindod and only slightly longer than the train to Craven Arms from Llandrindod Wells and the last bus leaves Craven Arms at 21.25, restoring the evening train service which was axed in December.
“I have used the new X48 service and it is very good, unfortunately for the first two weeks there were no publicly available timetables so patronage is very poor. I have been told that timetables will be posted at bus stops and now the timetable is on bustimes.org
“It promises to be a very useful addition to the Heart of Wales rail service by filling in the long gaps in the train timetable and restores the late evening service which was axed in December. Also for the first time ever Bleddfa has a regular bus service
“There are one or two things which need to be clarified the most important being whether or not the 21.25 departure from Craven Arms will wait for the arrival of the south bound train from Manchester, arriving at 21.15, and the north bound train from Cardiff, arriving at 21.17.
“At present the bus drivers have told me they have had no instructions to delay departure in the case of late running trains. This more or less renders the service useless, because very few people will want to risk being stranded at Craven Arms late at night. I have emailed Transport For Wales about this but so far not had a reply.”
The registered timetable is available on Llandrindod Wells and Knighton Town Council’s websites.
