A strange thing has happened to me over the two years since I moved to Wales.I have become susceptible to a novel and disturbing sensation: pride in myadopted country. England, the land of my birth, means nothing to me. The samegoes for Britain. I despise nationalism. But I have been overtaken by anirrational impulse. I find myself supporting Wales in rugby, football(someone’s got to do it, and we did beat Liechtenstein) and all its competingclaims against other nations.
This impulse arises from a number of observations, viz:
1. In two years of walking through the valleys and over the hills here, I havenever been shouted at.
2. The café in the local leisure centre serves smoothies in measures labelled"small" (about a pint) and "regular" (about two pints).
3. When I wrote to a very active councillor, asking his permission to recommendhim for a gong, he replied, "I would prefer not to seek such an honour."
Through such observations, I have begun to form the impression that Wales isless socially stratified, less grasping, more liberal than the rest of Britain.Though I am an outsider, from the colonial power, with an unerring ability towind people up, I have never been made to feel unwelcome here. And it seldomrains here, and then only at night. (That’s not strictly true, but this iswhat nationalism does).
In this spirit I have to record that something is missing. Its absence offendsmy new-found national pride. It mocks our attempt to become a coherent country.It means that the Gogs (of North Wales) and the Hwntws (of South Wales) willforever be at each other’s throats. It means that the greenest nation in theUK is locked into unsustainability. It is also bleeding ridiculous. As far as Ican discover, this is the only country in Europe which you cannot traverse byrail without spending most of the journey passing through another. The only raillink which allows you to travel from north to south crosses the border nearLlangollen and doesn’t re-enter Wales until it approaches Abergavenny, 100miles away.
The railway map of Wales is a classic indicator of an extractive economy. Thelines extend either towards London or towards the ports. As Eduardo Galeanoestablished in The Open Veins of Latin America, the infrastructure of a countryis a guide to the purpose of its development(1). If the main roads and railwaysform a network, linking the regions and the settlements within the regions, theyare likely to have been developed to enhance internal commerce and mobility. Ifthey resemble a series of drainage basins, flowing towards the ports andborders, they are likely to have been built to empty the nation of its wealthfor the benefit of another. Like Latin America, Wales is poor because it was sorich. Its abundant natural resources gave rise to an extractive system, designedto leave as little wealth behind as possible.
Just as the railway network was developed largely for the benefit of anothereconomy, it was dismantled for the same purpose. Wales was hit very hard by theBeeching cuts of the 1960s. Before that, one of the lines which could have beenused as part of a North-South railway was flooded by Llyn Celyn, a reservoirwhich drowned the village of Capel Celyn in order to supply water to Liverpool.It was this act of enclosure which inspired RS Thomas’s famous poemReservoirs, in which he mourned "… the smashed faces/Of the farms with thestone trickle/Of their tears down the hills’ side." The dam wall was builtacross the Bala to Ffestiniog line.
Before Beeching, a handful of minor routes existed, which could have enabled adetermined passenger who was prepared to make a few changes to travel from northto south, but there was no line either conceived or used as a long distancerailway connecting the nation. Could such a railway be built? Thanks to theefforts of a remarkable man, the idea is beginning to seep into the nationalconsciousness.
Archimandrite Deiniol is the only Orthodox priest serving in North Wales.Bull-headed, magnificently bearded, he is the spokesman for Yn Ein Blaenau, agroup set up to lobby for the regeneration of Blaenau Ffestiniog, one of thecountry’s poorest communities. Unlike many other depressed Welsh towns,Blaenau has a way out: but it is blocked. It is surrounded - hideously - by thewaste from its slate workings. The British government has a policy of replacingvirgin building stone with mining spoil and rubble. The slate waste aroundBlaenau would supply Britain with roadstone for years, but it’s stuck thereuntil the Conwy Valley railway line is upgraded. Father Deiniol has beennegotiating with the byzantine network of railway companies, authorities andregulators, and has so far been frustrated.
But in doing so, he has learnt a good deal about how the railways of the UnitedKingdom work - or don’t. He has also discovered that a railway can be criticalto a region’s regeneration, and that the north-south roads in Wales are closeto gridlock.
There are plenty of lobbyists calling for new roads, but Father Deiniol’s planis likely to be cheaper and more sustainable. His survey of the disused railwaylines of Wales shows that there is one route - from Rhyl through Denbigh,Rhuthun, Corwen, Newtown, Llanidloes, Rhaeadr and Builth Road to Dowlais - whichwould require only two miles of new formation to link Holyhead to Cardiff(2).The rest of the way makes use of current and former railways. He proposes thatshort feeder lines also be built connecting this trunk route to Mold,Llangollen, Oswestry, Bala, Hay-on-Wye and Brecon(3).
The One-Wales Line could not only offer a much faster journey than the currentlong detour through England, it would also knit the other railways of Wales intoa coherent network, as it uses the north coast railway and crosses the Cambrianline and the Shrewsbury to Swansea line. It would help to regenerate adesperately poor region in the south called the Heads of the Valleys. Theproject would look rather like the Western Railway Corridor in Ireland, which isreopening 184km of disused lines between Limerick and Sligo(4).
The least the Welsh Assembly Government should do is to commission a feasibilitystudy and cost-benefit analysis of Father Deiniol’s plan. His railway wouldhelp Wales looks like a country again, rather than a depot for someone else’sempire.
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References:
1. Eduardo Galeano, 1971. Originally published as Las Venas Abiertas de AméricaLatina. Siglo XXI Editores.
2. Tad Deiniol, 3rd February 2008. Proposal for a Direct, All-Wales, Holyhead toCardiff Fast Rail Link. Yn Ein Blaenau. If you would like a copy of thisdocument, I can send it to you.
3. Tad Deiniol, 2008. Map of Proposed North South Rail Link and Feeder Lines. YnEin Blaenau. If you would like a copy of this document, I can send it to you.
4. See westontrack.com
