The post A Trip to South Wales (Part 1) describes my journey as far as Swansea and the post A Trip to South Wales (Part 2), describes the remainder of my journey.
Historical Background
The Shrewsbury and Hereford railway was developed between 1850 and 1853, linking the named towns. It was in an area of interest to both the Great Western Railway and the London and North Western Railway so the railway became a joint line. There's more information here.
Hereford was joined to Newport in South Wales by the Newport, Abergavenny and Hereford Railway, as described here.
Additional lines were constructed by the Pontypool, Caerleon and Newport Railway, as described here.
After various closures and alterations, today these three lines form the modern Welsh Marches Line, mainly operated by Arriva Trains Wales services, as described here.
The Central Wales Line (noe the 'Heart of Wales Line') was the creation of the LNWR in its efforts to reach Swansea. The process proved complicated and involved a number of railway companies and several financial disasters. At the southern end it was the Llanelly Railway, one of the earliest in Britain (founded in 1829) which opened a line as far as Pontardulais in 1839. By 1857 the railway had reached Llandilo. A separate company, the Vale of Towy Railway, completed its line between Llandilo and Llandovery in 1857 and this line was leased to the Llanelly Railway.
Meanwhile at the northern end of the line, the Knighton Railway was formed in 1858 to build a line from Craven Arms, on the north/south Shrewsbury to Hereford line, as far as Knighton. A year later the Central Wales Railway was formed to take the railway on to Llandrindod, and in 1860 a further company, the Central Wales Extension Railway was formed to make the link with the Llanelly at Llandovery. Behind the scenes of all these developments was the LNWR.
It took until 1868 to complete the line with a branch from Pontardulais to Swansea. In the same year the LNWR took over the Knighton, Central Wales, and Central Wales Extension Railways and took a half share in the Vale of Towy Railway. Part of the reason for the time taken was the difficulty of construction of the Sugar Loaf tunnel and the Cynghordy Viaduct just to the north of Llandovery on the Extension line. The Cynghordy viaduct had eighteen arches built in sandstone and lined with brick and is 259 m (850 ft) long on a gentle curve and 31 m (102 ft) above the valley at its highest point. From that date the LNWR had access to Swansea.
Preserved LNWR composite signal box at Llandrindod Wells.
For more information, refer to 'A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain: Volume 12 South Wales' [reference 4].
Layouts and Illustrations of Selected Stations
Oxford Publishing Co. published a series of three volumes of drawings and photographs of selected Great Western stations R. H. Clark. These books (details are given in 'Book References' below and they are still available second-hand, if not new) have historical details of a number of stations (or former stations) I passed through on my trip to South Wales and I've listed these below. Note that the numbers refer to the Key Map in each volume, not page numbers: the actual drawings are in alphabetic order by station name.
Volume 1 [reference 1]:
67 HerefordVolume 2 [reference 2]:
89 Moreton-on-Lugg
102 Pontrilas
107 St. Devereux
119 Tram Inn
101 LeominsterVolume 3 [reference 3]:
116 Ludlow
128 Neath General
6 Abergavenny Junction'GWR Junction Stations' reference [5] has sections describing Leominster and Wellington stations.
66 Craven Arms
81 Gowerton
116 Llandilo (Llandeilo)
Shrewsbury is described in book reference [6].
Book References
[1] 'An Historical Survey of Selected Great Western Stations - Layouts and Illustrations' by R.H. Clark, published by Oxford Publishing Co. (SBN 0 902888 29 3).
[2] 'An Historical Survey of Selected Great Western Stations - Layouts and Illustrations - Volume 2' by R.H. Clark, published by Oxford Publishing Co. (ISBN 0 86093 015 7).
[3] 'An Historical Survey of Selected Great Western Stations - Layouts and Illustrations - Volume 3' by R.H. Clark, reprinted 1987 by Book Club Associates.
[4] 'A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain: Volume 12 South Wales' by D. S. M. Barrie, published by David & Charles (ISBN 0-7153-7970-4).
[5] 'GWR Junction Stations' by Adrian Vaughan, published by Ian Allen Ltd. (ISBN 0 7110 1790 5).
[6] 'Rail Centres: Shrewsbury' by Richard K. Morriss, published by Booklaw Publications (ISBN 1-901945-20-0).
Related articles on other sites
Shrewsbury and Hereford railway (Wikipedia).
Newport, Abergavenny and Hereford Railway (Wikipedia).
Pontypool, Caerleon and Newport Railway (Wikipedia).
Welsh Marches Line (Wikipedia).
Heart of Wales Line (Wikipedia).
Related articles on this site
A Trip to South Wales (Part 1).
A Trip to South Wales (Part 2).
My pictures
General:
Swansea.
Newport, Gwent.
Railway pictures:
Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury Line.
Shrewsbury area railways.
Heart of Wales Line.
Swansea area railways.
Cardiff's railways.
Newport Station, Gwent.
Shrewsbury-Hereford line.
