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I’ve decided to do this set of reports on more than just the trains. I want to write this more like a journal of the trip.
Bold = Haulage, RED = Winner, All others are sightings.
To be honest we almost slept in. It’s been a long two years for the family with health issues and stress so this break was one of two that was putting us on the right route to feeling better.
We had decided not to book a hotel breakfast as we had not decided on what trains we were catching so wandered up and had a McDonalds. Then up the hill to Swansea station.
Swansea has a nice station with four platforms and it a terminus station. With that being said it does have “through” trains from the Cardiff direction to Llanelli and Carmarthen as they reverse here to go onwards. It was originally opened in 1850 by the South Wales Railway co. which was absorbed in to the Great Western Railway in 1863. It originally had five platforms but lost its original Platform 1 in 1973 and they were renumbered 1 to 4 and remain that way today.
Our train out of Swansea was to be one of the new class 197s .
2B52 Swansea to Cardiff Central 197021 winner [45m 56ch].
We had decided to catch the local train rather than the GWR fast train as we had already caught on of the class 800s the day before. The wife understood that I’d prefer a new train rather than one I could theoretically catch out of Paddington. The journey took about an hour and ten minutes and no delay thankfully.
When planning this trip we discovered that the line through Penarth, Barry and around to Bridgend via Rhoose were closed due to major engineering works. Thankfully there were rail replacement coaches laid on. It was very well organised at Cardiff Central. We had arrived on platform zero to had to enter the station and walk through the subway to the other side of the station to catch the coach. There were separate areas to queue up in for each bus and a very good number of staff there to guide people to the right place.
On to the bus and forty minutes late we arrived in Barry Island. The wife being a big Gavin and Stacy fan had been looking forward to visiting Barry Island since our initial planning of the trip. We did head down past the fun fair to the beach. It looks lovely, although on our day there it was a little cloudy with quite a bit of wind. Not gale force but you knew it was there. It’s a nice sandy beach and there is a peninsular called Friars Point which when we were on it was very windy but does give very lovely views of the beach.
Back on the beach front the wife had to have a go in “Nessa’s Slots” and take photos of “Marco’s café” both of which feature in the TV show. It was then time to grab a bite to eat. We found a nice little place called ‘Coastal Coffee’. Very much like another Coffee chain with a similar name. Both partook of a Jacket Potato to fill a gap. Once the wife had bought a few souvenirs we headed up to the station to catch the bus back to Cardiff.
In Cardiff we went through the station and up to the high street (stopping at the Wetherspoons of course) and managed to get a few items that the wife wanted to get and then back to the station. This is where it could have gone dreadfully wrong. I had wanted to hang around to be able to catch the cl.67 and MkIV coaching stock train back to Swansea but there had been signalling problems in the Bristol Parkway area and the Carmarthen area. We got up on to he platform to see 231005 which is named “Gavin and Stacy” which was a nice little surprise. Then we decided to catch a train straight away back to Swansea and avoid any problems.
1B17 Cardiff Central to Swansea 800036 winner [45m 6ch]
This train was 119 minutes late. We jumped on it and got back to Swansea before any further delays or cancellations happened.
Back in Swansea we went to ‘The Bank Statement’ (Wetherspoons) for something to eat as it was just around the corner from our hotel.