Three Welsh Operators: Valley Lines, Wales & West and Wales & Borders | Failed franchises #23

In memory of the one person sadly killed in the 2024 Mid-Wales train crash which occurred on the 21st October 2024. This video was planned and made prior to the crash, and whilst the content may not feel appropriate in light of recent events, I want to acknowledge this tragedy with the upmost of respect and please be assured that my thoughts go out to anyone affected or involved in the incident.

Hello & welcome to the twenty-third episode of my Failed Franchises series. In this series I look at train companies that no longer operate and determine whether they should be viewed as a failure or not! Today is the first episode of my Welsh operators mini-series where I look at the operators in Wales. We are looking at three different operators/franchises: Valley Lines, Wales & West and Wales & Borders who all helped to create the joint Welsh franchise we know today!
Apologies for today's video having three different operators - I had to cover these three operators as there was not enough content to cover each one separately!
Also, some of the footage does not line up with the operator I am talking about and some clips feature Arriva Trains Wales. This is due to there being scarce amounts of footage on the individual operators (There is far more Wales & Borders footage than Wales & West for example); apologies for any confusion.

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Full Failed Franchises playlist:    • Failed Franchises/Franchise Videos  
Full Welsh playlist:    • Welsh Franchises  

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Any content featured in this video has been accredited to the correct author, where possible, with permission. However, I may sometimes mistakenly miscredit content (or label it as 'unknown' if I can't find the author), so please let me know if I have got credits wrong for authors of content featured in this video.

A huge thanks to those who have allowed me to use their footage for todays video - whom without this video would not be possible to make;
fmnut:    / @fmnut  
Mark Appleby:    / @markappleby3282  
James Underwood:    / @james143611  

Any views mentioned in this video are of my opinion and my opinion only. I am impartial and will never be swayed by a company to not tell the truth, however will sometimes speak from my own viewpoint. I always attempt to use sources that are from sites that I personally trust; BBC, Sky News etc. and I will always attempt to portray the whole picture of the subject in my videos. If you feel I haven't, or if I've mistakenly missed something - do let me know in the comments, on my Discord or my Twitter/Instagram & I'll be sure to look into it! Thanks for watching!

References (including accredited sources):
Wikipedia
BBC
Wales and Borders website
The Guardian
Railfuture
The Telegraph
Railhub

Thumbnail Image Credit: Steve Jones, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons 143607 at Cardiff Canton on 15th July 2002

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