A new coach service linking north and south Wales will launch this autumn — but there is still no money on the table for the west Wales railway campaigners have been fighting to bring back for over a decade.
The Welsh Government has confirmed £2m to run a daily coach between Bangor and Carmarthen, stopping at nine points along the west coast, including Aberystwyth.
Ministers say the service will cut more than an hour off the current journey, which can take six-and-a-half hours by train via England.
Deputy transport minister Mark Hooper said the coach was “the first step in improving connectivity between the north and the south of Wales”, delivered as part of the new Plaid Cymru government’s 100-day plan.
Eight coaches have already been bought for the route, which will run through Caernarfon, Porthmadog, Dolgellau, Machynlleth, Aberystwyth and Aberaeron before reaching Carmarthen.
The map published by Transport for Wales shows the coach largely following roads already served by TrawsCymru buses — the T1 corridor between Carmarthen and Aberystwyth, and the T2 north to Porthmadog.
The funding was confirmed in the government’s first supplementary budget last week, alongside £8m to extend the £1 bus fare for young people until March next year.
But for campaigners in Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion, the announcement lands as a familiar story — another bus, and still no train.
Efforts to reopen the Carmarthen to Aberystwyth line, closed in the 1960s Beeching cuts, have been running since 2013, led by the campaign group Traws Link Cymru.
A Welsh Government feasibility study in 2018 found that 97% of the original trackbed remains clear, and judged reopening technically feasible — but priced it at £775m and concluded it was not economically viable, only “socially viable”.
That figure has been the sticking point ever since, with the project repeatedly described by officials as a longer-term option subject to value-for-money tests.
In March, a major report by the Centre Think Tank threw fresh weight behind the line, arguing its social benefits would far outweigh the economic costs.
Former first minister Lord Carwyn Jones backed the report, criticising the historical lack of investment and noting that Wales is the only UK nation with no power to direct Network Rail.
The campaign has since become a political flashpoint, with Plaid Cymru repeatedly tying the line’s future to the money Wales is owed after HS2 was classified as an “England and Wales” project, denying Wales hundreds of millions in consequential funding.
Supporters point out that journeys of less than 50 miles across the region can still take hours, with three university campuses, the National Library of Wales and S4C’s headquarters all hampered by poor transport.
Transport for Wales, which will run the new coach, says the service is a step towards its wider “T Network” — a vision for a fully integrated public transport system across Wales.
Executive director Lee Robinson said linking towns along the west coast would create “faster, more reliable connections for work, education and leisure”.
The government says it will assess demand over the coming months before deciding whether to fund the coach beyond its first year.
For those who want the railway back, the wait goes on.
