As I understand it Diesil trains use more energy than electric ones and and DMU's are much louder inside for the passengers.
Also there's the additional cost of designing/building/maintaining extra types of rolling stock. From the reports I've seen, in the long run they think it would be cheaper to electrify lines rather than build and maintain extra trains.

Boo hoo for Swansea. They're electrifying the GWML to Bristol, but anything beyond (Taunton, Plymouth, Cornwall etc) is screwed too.

that was never going to happen anyway they haven't even got ATPS beyond Bristol.


Another interesting point is that Cardiff doesn't have a train depot Swansea does. I suspect that will cause a few problems.

Well they could roll it out. Besides, I can't see why that would prevent electrification - just because the line is electrified doesn't mean the train has to do the full 250MPH, and I can't see anything like the same frequency of trains running from Paddington to Penzance as Paddington - Cardiff Central or Paddington - BTM.

And TBH unless they re-laid all the tracks beyond Exeter, the train would struggle to get above 100MPH without flying off the rails anyway.

What annoys me most about electrifying as far as BTM is that it means passengers bound from London for Taunton, Devon and Cornwall are probably be doomed to change at Bristol forevermore.

The Cardiff depot is Canton, owned by ATW I think.

Not the sort of engineering depot those brutes would need