South Wales valley railways incl Cardiff Barry, Aberdare etc

[editor]

Seeing as this thread has (enjoyably) expanded well past the original topic of Aberdare station, I'm going to move it into railways and give it a shiny new name. Hope that's OK.

 

[editor]

The Coryton line hung on by the skin of its teeth in the 1980's (its always been the least used line) by "connections" and a very good local engineer who used to patch up the track with secondhand material. Had it been declared a candidate for major track expenditure it would have been a goner !

I remember the old Heath signal box and the train having to slow down do the driver could pick up the token for the Cortyton line.

Here's a pic before it got trashed and the old layout replaced by an incredibly steep line to the junction.

http://www.urban75.org/railway/heath-signalbox.html

 

[Poi E]

Seeing as this thread has (enjoyably) expanded well past the original topic of Aberdare station, I'm going to move it into railways and give it a shiny new name. Hope that's OK.

Good oh. Finally, a successful thread.

 

[davesgcr]

The old Heath Jct box was gas lit till the end !

 

[editor]

The old Heath Jct box was gas lit till the end !

I saw an interior picture of the box and there was a really old battered leather armchair in there too.

 

[Isambard]

@ davesgcr, were the SRA bean counters just being VERY conservative in their estimates of the Vale of Glamorgan line or were they simply trying to block it?

Bridgend is a bustling station now isn't it.

 

[davesgcr]

Not at all - (Ii used to work for the SRA as Assistant Director Operations - and have a good track record of running trains in a real world) - we had some "economists" sitting in on the decision meeting to get the scheme through and to cut a long story short we prevailed on them to let the scheme run with the great success it has been.

SOme people were a bit conservative - but my railway experience and overhwelming interest in furthering the cause of Welsh railways won through - basically we had to get them to agree the value for money sign off which of course it did and has.

I travelled on the re-opening special and it was great ! - and yes - Bridgend is indeed a bustliing and well used station -! Back in the 70's it was one train an hour and a few extras - now its up to 5 trains an hour and a lot of traffic plus the buffet is friendly and does a good corned beef and tomato roll !

 

[berniedicters]

The Wales Route Utiisation study gets published tommorrw for consulatation purposes - it will be on the Network rail website.

Watching all the lorries pounding up the A40 to Fishguard, it defies me why nobody's seriously thinking about a piggyback service from (say) Swansea up to the ferry terminal.

Same for Pembroke Dock, if they wanted to reinstate the old line that runs through everyone's back yards until it gets to the docks...

It's crazy, those roads are swamped with trucks at ferry time: no idea of the costings, but the fuel savings MUST be massive...

 

[Isambard]

<drunken gricer hugs for Dave>