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In 1963, Dr Richard Beeching took an axe to the British rail system - and made getting around Wales by public transport significantly more difficult.

Gone within two years would be key lines linking east with west, and south with north.

Once Beeching's cuts were done, just three main lines traversing Wales remained - one stretching along the northern coast, another linking Aberystwyth with Shrewsbury via the towns of Mid Wales, and another stretching from Pembrokeshire to Newport, and on to London.

In addition, the Cambrian Coast line remained to link the towns of Pwllheli, Harlech and Barmouth with the main Mid Wales route, while the Heart of Wales line, cutting down from Shrewsbury through to Swansea, was spared the axe simply because of the number of marginal constituencies it crossed.

Closing it, it was said, would be too politically damaging.

And so Wales was left with a rail system that forced passengers to travel hugely circuitous routes to get between major towns and cities.

The result? A nation where north and south felt increasingly disconnected, as the rail lines which allowed for these crucial connections disappeared, disincentivising trade and collaboration between towns and cities. The retention of routes that flowed west-east, along with the poverty of north-south road links, made it easier for those in the north to look to Liverpool and Manchester, pushed those in mid Wales towards Shropshire and the Midlands, and made London a focal point for those along what is now the M4 corridor.

You can travel by train from Edinburgh to London in the time it takes you to get from Llandudno to Cardiff. Getting to either of those places from Aberystwyth involves going first to Shrewsbury. To those familiar with these journeys, this fact won't initially seem shocking, such is its familiarity.

But find me another country that would require you to cross its eastern border to move between a major town in the west and its capital in the south.

We can moan all we like about the abysmal quality of the rolling stock on many of our existing lines, and the reliability of the services running on them (and we should, they're appalling). But the real scandal of Wales' railway network is that it largely doesn't exist.

For that, we can blame the whims of a former chemical company boss who, in his own words had "no experience of railways", and successive Governments who either failed to recognise the damage, or were too cowardly to admit their errors.

Half a century later, Wales still bears the scars to a quite ludicrous extent, as these three journeys symbolise.

1. Pwllheli to Bangor

There can be few places in the UK that take half the time to travel between by bike than they do by mainline train service. But Pwllheli and Bangor are two of those locations. They were once linked by the Carnarvonshire Railway, a branch of which traversed the neck of the Llyn Peninsula, passing through Penygroes, Nantlle and Bryncir on its way from Caernarfon to Afon Wen, where it connected with the existing Cambrian Coast line to take you onto Pwllheli. The alternative Llanberis branch was scrapped in the 1930s, while Lord Beeching brought an end to the Caernarfon-Afon Wen line in December 1964.

If you fancy testing the bike v train challenge between these two points, you'll probably find yourself riding along Lôn Eifion, a national cycle route which follows the route along much of the old track bed. Google estimates the journey at a leisurely three hours, which is half the time it takes on the main line train alternative, which stops no fewer than 43 times on a journey that traverses Machynlleth, Welshpool, Shrewsbury, Wrexham, Chester, Rhyl and Llandudno before getting to its final destination.

However, there is a way to do most of this journey by train - on the narrow gauge Welsh Highland Railway, which chugs its way alongside Lôn Eifion as it meanders from Porthmadog to Caernarfon (via Pwllheli) over the course of around an hour.

2. Aberystwyth to Carmarthen

Carmarthen is around 45 miles almost exactly due south of Aberystwyth. And yet travelling from the latter to the former by train currently involves spending the first two hours travelling in a generally north-east direction towards, and then across, the English border. After arriving at Shrewsbury, there's time for a quick visit to the waiting room before embarking on a marathon cross-country slog through the likes of Hereford, Cwmbran, Cardiff and Swansea. By the time you arrive, it'll be six hours since you set off (give or take the odd delay), you'll have passed through nine Welsh local authorities and two English counties.

If you'd done the journey by car (1hr 20min) or bike (five hours, says Google), you'd have passed through two. And you'd have aligned yourself very closely to the crow flying the most direct 45-mile route between the two.

You'd have also aligned yourself fairly closely - for the second half of your journey, at any rate - with the train line that linked these two famous Welsh towns until it was closed to passengers in February 1965. That headed initially south east towards Tregaron, and then Lampeter, before moving back to the west through Pencader, Llanpumsaint and down to Carmarthen, where it connected with the route through to Swansea, Cardiff and beyond.

These days, its legacy can be found in another cycle path - the Ystwyth Trail - as well as bits of railway paraphernalia ranging from some preserved platforms in Llanilar, stations that are by turns ruined (Trawscoed) and converted into the local rugby club (Llanybydder), and a large goods shed in Lampeter.

But the story of this route is not quite finished. An ambitious campaign is gaining momentum to re-lay the track and re-open the connection, incorporating new stations at Llanilar, Tregaron, Lampeter, Llanybydder and Pencader, at a cost that could reach £700m.

3. Barmouth to Llangollen

If Michael Portillo had been making television programmes about Britain's most scenic railway journeys in the early 1960s, he would almost certainly found himself taking one of this pastel blazers on board a carriage travelling from Barmouth to Llangollen. Trains on this route left Barmouth hugging the very edge of the stunning Mawddach estuary, before heading from Dolgellau through the southern fringes of Snowdonia, passing Llyn Tegid in Bala, before passing underneath the Berwyn Mountains through Corwen and arriving finally into Llangollen.

The post-Beeching alternative, while no less scenic, shuns the direct route of the line closed by Beeching in favour of the "three sides of a square approach" taking in a jaunt along the coast of Cardigan Bay, an eastward traverse of the country through Machynlleth, Newtown and Welshpool to Shrewsbury, before heading north to Ruabon. You'll have to make your own way to Llangollen from there, since the eisteddfod town's station is now only used for the Llangollen Railway. It's a three hour journey, but only half that by road.

The end came in January 1965, with the track being removed four years later. These days, the only way you can pass along its route is on the Bala Lake Railway or Llangollen Railway, which use sections of its track bed, by bike along the Mawddach Trail from Barmouth to Dolgellau, or on a section of road close to Dolgellau which takes advantage of the earthworks to build the rail line back in the 1860s.