Urgent repairs to a bridge near Cardiff Queen Street

Mainline services into and out of Cardiff have largely returned to normal following a structural issue with an Intersection Bridge, however disruption to services on the Valley Lines will continue until Monday morning.

A routine inspection of the intersection bridge between Cardiff Central and Cardiff Queen Street at the weekend revealed some structural problems. The bridge connects Cardiff Central to Queen Street, running over the lines linking Cardiff Central to Newport and beyond. Safety is our first priority, so services were immediately suspended and engineers sent to site.

Extensive repair works have enabled mainline services between Newport and Cardiff to largely reopen with the exception of local services to Ebbw Vale which will only run between Ebbw Vale and Newport for the remainder of this week, with connections at Newport for Cardiff.

Work on the bridge will continue this week with service amendments expected until Monday. Bus replacements are in place for Caerphilly and some Coryton services, and other services are diverting via the City line. Additional train services will be added as phases of the work complete this week. There is also ticket acceptance on Cardiff Bus and Stagecoach.

We apologise to customers for the inconvenience caused.

 

Service changes

Friday 25, Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 April

  • Aberdare and Merthyr services will operate via the City Line, to Cardiff Central. They will not stop at Cardiff Queen Street.  
  • Treherbert services will operate hourly via Llandaf, Cathays, Cardiff Queen Street and Cardiff Central .
  • Services between Caerphilly and Penarth will run hourly.
  • Buses will replace trains between Cardiff and Caerphilly, and onwards to Rhymney.
  • Ebbw Vale services will run hourly to Newport, with connections at Newport for Cardiff (on Sunday 27 April rail replacement buses will run until the end of service on Thursday 1 May).
  • Trains from Cardiff Central to Barry Island and Bridgend (VoG) will run as normal.
  • Coryton services will run half hourly to Cardiff Queen Street, and onwards to Cardiff Bay (no services on a Sunday).

 

Rail Replacement timetables:

Rail Replacement bus depart times from Thursday 24 to Saturday 26 April:

Caerphilly - Cardiff

  Direct service* Non-direct (stopping at each station in between) 
Caerphilly to Cardiff Central XX:00, XX:30 XX:15, XX:45
Cardiff Central to Caerphilly XX:25, XX:55 XX:10, XX:40

*Direct services run from 06:25 to 19:25

Radyr - Cardiff (via Llandaf and Cathays)

  Stopping at Llandaf, Cathays and Cardiff Queen Street
Radyr to Cardiff Central XX:35
Cardiff Central to Radyr XX:30

 

FAQs

Are you doing ticket acceptance whilst trains aren’t running?

Your ticket can be used at no extra cost on the following local buses:

All Cardiff Bus routes to Coryton, Lisvane, Llanishen, Cathays and Llandaf, Cardiff Bay and Penarth

Caerphilly:

120 Caerphilly - Treherbert and Bargoed / Rhymney - Merthyr 132 Cardiff (only as far as Porth)

When will services be back to normal?

We are planning for a return to normal services for Monday morning (28 April). But please keep checking journey planners before you travel in case anything changes.

What about compensation and do I still need a ticket? 

We know that the disruption is far from ideal but you do still need a ticket to travel on our services, even if they are replacement road transport. Please keep hold of your tickets and you may be entitled to compensation under our Delay Repay scheme on our website - search “TfW delay repay”. You can apply for a refund for any wholly unused tickets if you elected not to travel because of the disruption. You will need to apply to the original ticket retailer e.g. TfW, Trainline, other website.