Heart of Wales Line

Heart of Wales line (Central Wales line)
The Heart of Wales line south of Sugar Loaf
Overview
Type	Heavy rail
System	National Rail
Locale	South West Wales Mid Wales Shropshire
Termini	Llanelli Craven Arms
Stations	29
Operation
Opened	1868
Owner	Network Rail
Operator(s)	Arriva Trains Wales
Technical
Number of tracks	Mainly single track
Track gauge	4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge

The Heart of Wales line (Welsh: Rheilffordd Calon Cymru) is a railway line running from Craven Arms in Shropshire to Llanelli in southwest Wales. It runs, as the name suggests, through some of the heartlands of Wales. It serves a number of rural centres en route, including several once-fashionable spa towns, including Llandrindod Wells. At Builth Road, two miles (3.3 km) from the town of Builth Wells, the line crosses the former route of the earlier Mid Wales Railway, which closed in the 1960s.

Historically, the line was known as the Central Wales line (Welsh: Rheilffordd Canol Cymru) and also included routes through Gowerton, where the railway crossed the West Wales lines and ran through Dunvant and Killay then down through the Clyne Valley to Blackpill, and then along the sea wall to Swansea Bay station, (near the former slip bridge) before finally reaching Swansea Victoria. This section, originally built by the Llanelly Railway and Dock Company to compete with the Great Western Railway and break the monopoly they held on Swansea Dock, closed in 1964. Nationalisation of the railways had removed the need for competing routes, and the running down and closure of Swansea North Dock ended the need for freight services on this section. Trains now use the original LR main line to reach the West Wales lines at Llandeilo Junction and thence Llanelli and (after a reversal) Swansea.