…in the heart of WALES
PAUL BIGLAND travels along the Heart of Wales Line, on a quest to visit a little-used and quirky station that welcomes only 150 passengers a year
I leave the station on the northbound 1611 service which works through to Crewe. As it approaches I stick out my arm to hail it, as you would a taxi. As I board, the conductor shouts to the driver: ‘That’s only my third [passenger] in ten years,’ which makes me feel rather special.
I’m beginning to think that whenever the folk at RAIL come up with an idea for a story that’s wackier than the norm, they immediately say: “Let’s get Paul Bigland to do it!”
The latest mission improbable I chose to accept was to journey to the heart of Wales, to travel on a line that has only four trains a day, to sign a visitor’s book at a station that only receives 150 passengers a year.
My odyssey begins at Llanelli in South Wales, where the Central Wales Line was first built way back in 1834 by the Llanelly Railway and Dock company to move coal from pits in the Amman valley to the dock. The coal was exported throughout the British Empire (the East India Company was a major customer).
Gradually, the line expanded north - first to Llandeilo and then to Llandovery. Between 1861 and 1868 a succession of small companies (backed by the London and North Western Railway) extended the line until it reached Craven Arms, where it joined the line from Shrewsbury to Hereford.
Nowadays the dock and mines have all gone ( bar one). The line survived the Beeching cuts because it passed through several marginal constituencies, and it still provides an important transport link, carrying tourists and locals.
Single-car Class 153s normally work the four trains a day service, but on the morning I am travelling a two-car Class 150 turns up to take me north because the Royal Welsh Show is taking place in Builth Wells.
I’d assumed that visitors to an agricultural show would be the ‘wellies and tweeds’ brigade, so I am surprised to find groups of teenagers carrying tents and cases of beer waiting for the train, alongside the pensioner couples and families I had expected.
There’s a jolly atmosphere on board as we head inland along the western shore of the River Lougher to Morlais junction, where we swing left onto a single-track line.
First stop is at Pontarddulais, where the woodland surrounding the simple platform is so dense that it manages to hide the adjacent steel works.
At Pantyffynnon, we stop by the line’s last working signal box to exchange tokens. The whole of the route as far as Craven Arms is controlled from this old GWR box, which guards the adjacent junction for the single- track freight-only Garnant branch to Gwauncae-Gurwen opencast mine.
Continuing northwards, we call at several small but well-kept stations before arriving at my first port of call - Llandeilo, which possesses one of five passing loops on the line.
The Central Wales route has been designated a community rail line and has a very active Community Rail Partnership (CRP). Local Community Rail Officer Gill Wright has volunteered to act as my guide, and our first stop is the ‘hub’ in the station yard.
This is a long wooden building built with funding from the Welsh Government. The idea is to bring unstaffed stations with no buildings back to life, by installing low-cost self- sufficient structures that can be used either by local enterprises to sell produce or as shared office space.
Moving on by road, Gill takes me to another community venture - the excellent cafe located in the fine old station building at Llandovery. After many years of disuse, the building (dating from 1858) was reopened by the Prince of Wales in 2011. The cafe is run by volunteers from the local community, and also contains a small art gallery, while the adjacent building is home to the local model railway society. But it’s not just the local community and the Welsh Government putting resources into the line. Network Rail is also investing in the route, as our next port of call demonstrates.
The Heart of Wales Line is famous for some of its viaducts, and a few miles up the line is the magnificent Cynghordy Viaduct. Built in 1867, the 100ft-high and 850ft-long Grade 2 listed structure has only just undergone a yearlong £ 3.5 million strengthening programme.
Stainless steel bars to give greater structural integrity were bonded into cut slots at pre-determined levels in the masonry, before be disguised by mortar. Each pillar also been jet-cleaned to remove years of grime, leaving the structure looking almost ‘as new’. The work was finished in March, and it’s an amazing sight from ground level as it curves gracefully across the valley - one that you don’t really appreciate when you pass