Earlier this week (on Tuesday 29th November 2023) I took a trip up to the top of the Dulais Valley, Onllwyn and the site of the Global Centre of Rail Excellence.
My previous trip had been over five years earlier with MP Christina Rees and colleague Katie Allister to see what was then, Celtic Energy’s Nant Helen open cast mining site. Discussions at that time of a rail test facility were very nascent and perhaps a little far-fetched.
Roll on to 2023 and things are moving, and the scale of the opportunity is clear for all to see.
Let us set some context, and for me in particular three things stand out:
- Whether we like it or not, if we are going to navigate our way through the Climate Emergency (noting COP28 is underway this week), we are going to need a lot more public transport and a lot more rail capacity and trains in the UK. Perhaps 3-4 times that we have today, and all of that, plus our legacy network needs to be decarbonised and kitted out with much more electric rail rolling stock
- Oddly (unlike many other major industries) there are very few, if any, substantive real world and scale facilities to test and commission new trains or to trial innovation in civils, track, OLE, signalling, etc; or do that with multiple integrated systems. Most of that innovation and testing work is either smaller factory scale, and train testing and commissioning is undertaken on live railways. We don’t test new cars that way, or pretty much anything else for that matter
- As I have written before, Levelling Up requires real financial commitment at scale to address the issues and the legacy associated with the loss of a major industry like coal, especially in places like the Heads of the Valleys. However, the UK has a structural problem in that London has and continues to receive far more capital investment per capita (especially for essential economic infrastructure like transport) than anywhere else in the UK.
Given these realities, it seems to me the opportunity presented by the reclamation of the huge open cast mine and its conversion into a globally unique rail test and innovation campus ought to be grabbed – not just by Welsh Government but by UK Government and the rail industry as well. It also presents an opportunity to make real that Levelling Up rhetoric and support high quality jobs in the area.
What is planned at Onllwyn is ambitious and at a pretty eye watering scale as the excerpt from the GCRE website implies:
“The Global Centre of Rail Excellence will be a purpose-built site for world class research, testing and certification of rolling stock, infrastructure and innovative new rail technologies that will fill a gap, not just in UK rail, but across Europe”.
At its heart will be a new 7Km high speed track to test rolling stock and capable of operating at speed of 110mph Figure 1. This loop will be connected using the freight line on the Dulais valley to the South Wales Mainline (SWML) near Neath. Beyond the rail loop, plans include an R&D and innovation centre, rolling stock storage and maintenance facilities as well as a state-of-the-art visitor and conference facilities, a business park and a hotel. I suspect there is also an opportunity to introduce a renewable energy component into longer term strategic thinking for this site.
Figure 1 – GCRE November 2023 “Site Tour”
Now this will not come cheap. The UK Government have so far committed £20M and Welsh Government £50M. A further £7.4m is being provided through Innovate UK for Research and Development.
GCRE really needs I guess (and it is a guess) at least another £100M. Now I know how hard it is to raise money ( I ran a start-up biotech company in a previous life) and can see times are pretty tough right now especially with recent announcements from Westminster re HS2. Whilst GCRE are looking for, and should aim to secure significant private sector backing, I also think Governments have a further role to play.
In doing so, one has to see beyond the short-term challenges and acknowledge the strategic opportunities I set out above. There is undoubtedly a need for a facility such as this to support the UK rail industry so I hope WG, UK Gov and the private sector can work together to secure the further funding necessary to deliver this unique project.
This will benefit not just the UK rail industry, the wider economy but also the local community. That community was also the source of the uplifting story that was the focus of the film Pride. I recall being shown around Westminster in 2011, by the then MP for Swansea East, Sian James, who was a pivotal figure in that story of community and solidarity in the Dulais valley during the 1980s miners’ strike. This project would be a fitting bookend to that story.