Loughor viaduct brings more trains to Gowerton

Arriva Trains Wales (ATW) has announced additional services and improvements across west Wales.

Network Rail is due to complete a £48m project to replace the Loughor railway viaduct near Swansea and redouble the line through Gowerton to Llanelli.

ATW says the additional line means it can add a further 14 services with a new platform at Gowerton station.

All single carriage train services will be doubled on the "busy route" between Swansea, Carmarthen and Pembroke Dock.

And a Cardiff to Swansea service will be extended to Llanelli in the afternoons with a new morning service between the two cities.

'Efficient'

"These changes are good news for passengers in west Wales," said ATW commercial director Mike Bagshaw.

"These improvements demonstrate Arriva Trains Wales' continued commitment to enhance services across Wales, making full use of Welsh government's investment in new infrastructure and efficient use of our fleet of trains."

The project is jointly funded by Network Rail and the Welsh government in partnership with the South West Wales Integrated Transport Consortium (Swwitch).

The new Loughor viaduct opens to rail traffic on Monday.

It will carry the west Wales line across the River Loughor adjacent to the Loughor road bridge.

The project includes redoubling the railway line five miles (8km) to Llanelli.

Mark Langman, Network Rail's route managing director for Wales, said: "The difficult and exciting task of replacing the Loughor viaduct is now complete and progress with the redoubling of the five-mile stretch of line is going to plan.

"This new viaduct and redoubling of the railway through Gowerton will remove the current bottleneck created by the stretch of single line and provide capacity to run more trains in the future."

The service improvements are set to start on 19 May.