Bargoed railway station
Bargoed railway station serves the town of Bargoed in the county borough of Caerphilly, South Wales. It is a stop on the Rhymney branch of the Valley Lines network; the station, the northernmost on the double-track section of the branch, has seen the reinstatement of a second platform. The station was opened on 31 March 1858 by the Rhymney Railway and was once a busy junction, serving lines to Newport and Brecon as well as the current route, but the latter pair were both closed to passengers on 31 December 1962 and in 1963/5; the junction site and trackbed of the old Brecon line is still visible north of the station. In 1905 it was renamed Bargoed and Aber Bargoed reverting to its original name in 1924 There was another similarly-name station, Aber Bargoed, opened by the Brecon & Merthyr Junction Railway & located on the now defunct Newport line south of Bargoed South Junction. On Mondays to Saturdays there are departures every 15 minutes southbound to Cardiff Central and Penarth, with an hourly service in the evenings.
Sunday trains serve Barry Island rather than Penarth. Northbound there is an hourly service to Rhymney on Mondays to Saturdays with a two-hourly Sunday service; the ongoing re-signalling scheme on the Valley Lines network has seen the signal box here closed and a new passing loop constructed at Tir-Phil. The plan for a half-hourly service through to/from Rhymney was due to be implemented at the December 2013 timetable change, but this has been postponed due to there being insufficient rolling stock available. Train times and station information for Bargoed railway station from National Rail
Coryton railway station
Coryton railway station serves Coryton and Pantmawr in Cardiff, Wales. It is the terminus of the Coryton Line 5 miles north of Cardiff Central via Cardiff Queen Street. Passenger services are provided by Transport for Wales as part of the Valley Lines network; the station was opened by the Cardiff Railway on 1 March 1911 as Coryton Halt. It survived; the line beyond here closed to all traffic in 1952. The station was renamed Coryton on 5 May 1969. There is one platform with benches; the station has two entrances, one wheelchair accessible from Park Crescent and one down a flight of steps from the A4054 road bridge over the track. Monday to Saturdays there is a half-hourly service along the City Line to Radyr, calling at Whitchurch, Birchgrove, Ty Glas, Heath Low Level, Cardiff Queen Street, Cardiff Central, Ninian Park, Waun-Gron Park, Fairwater and Radyr. Evenings there is an hourly service and there is no Sunday service. Journey time to Queen Street is Central 19 minutes and Radyr 39 minutes. Connections can be made at Queen Street for other Valley Lines services and at Central for main-line destinations across the country.
Services are operated by Class 142 and Class 143 Pacer units and sometimes Class 150 Sprinter units. Saturdays see single-carriage Class 153 Super Sprinter units, as services are less busy and two-car units can be freed for busier services. List of railway stations in Cardiff Rail transport in Cardiff Media related to Coryton railway station at Wikimedia CommonsTrain times and station information for Coryton railway station from National Rail
Treherbert railway station
Treherbert railway station is a railway station serving the village of Treherbert in Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales. It is the northern terminus of the Rhondda Line 23 miles north west of Cardiff Central, it was first opened on this site by the Taff Vale Railway in 1863, was the connecting point of the Rhondda and Swansea Bay Railway with the collieries of the Rhondda Fawr via a 1 mile 1683 yard tunnel, one of the longest in South Wales. The TVR had opened its Rhondda Fawr branch from Dinas in 1856 and began running passenger trains to the town seven years later. Services over the R&SB via Aberavon to Swansea ended in December 1962, but the route through the Rhondda Tunnel and on to Maesteg and Bridgend via a connection at Cymmer Afan remained open until 1968, when the tunnel was closed due to roof distortion caused by mining subsidence. A replacement bus service operated to Cymmer until the L&O route was formally closed to passenger traffic in June 1970; the tracks northwards remained in use for mineral traffic to the collieries at Blaenrhondda until 1978, but have since been lifted.
The TVR route towards Porth was singled in stages between 1972 and 1981 and today only one platform remains, though there is a run round loop still in existence north of the station and four carriage sidings for the Valley Lines DMU fleet. The foundation stone for the Rhondda Tunnel portal has been relocated to the station in preparation for the re-opening of the tunnel as a cycle route; the basic service pattern on the route provides a departure every 30 minutes during the day Mondays to Saturdays, dropping to hourly in the evening. Trains run to Cardiff Central via Porth and Cardiff Queen Street, serving all stations except Trefforest Estate en-route. One early morning service continues to Penarth. On Sundays, the frequency is two-hourly. On 20 July 2018, previous franchise operator Arriva Trains Wales announced a trial period of extra Sunday services on the Rhondda Line to Cardiff and Barry Island; this was in response to a survey by Leanne Wood and the success of extra Sunday services on the Merthyr Line and the Rhymney Line.
Services are operated using Class 143 and Class 150 Diesel Multiple Units. Train times and station information for Treherbert railway station from National Rail
Taff's Well
Taff's Well, considered part of the Cardiff area is a semi-rural village and electoral ward located 6 miles to the North of Cardiff, the capital city of Wales. Known locally as the'Gates to the Valleys', it is located at the south easterly tip of Rhondda Cynon Taf, it is separated from Gwaelod Y Garth by the River Taff. Taff's Well is distinguished; the tepid water is thought to rise along a fault-line from the Carboniferous Limestone, in somewhat similar manner to the warm springs at Bristol and Bath. Various religious groups regard it as a spiritual site; the Garth Mountain overlooks the village and was the inspiration for the fictional "Ffynnon Garw", featured in the book, film The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain. The name "Taff's Well" is derived from the situation of the village alongside the River Taff and the presence of the warm spring within Taff's Well Park. Taff's Well Park is the site of the Taff's Well Thermal Spring, a well that reached its height of popularity for visitors to the village in the mid to late 1800s.
It enjoys temperatures which average 21.6 degrees C. The Well at Taff's Well is Wales' only natural thermal spa.. Taff's Well is situated just off Junction 32 of the M4 Motorway and at the southern end of the A470 Part of the Cardiff Area. Though administratively represented by Rhondda Cynon Taff Council, Taff's Well is a commuter town for the City of Cardiff where many of its residents work. Taff's Well grew into an important railway junction during the mid- to late nineteenth century, when Cardiff was a major global exporter of coal. Taff's Well is a growing community which includes numerous districts: Glan-Y-Llyn, Rhiw Ddar and Glan Y-Frodd. Taff's Well is next to Castell Coch; the actor David Jason spent much time in Taff's Well and based the situation comedy Open All Hours based upon Arthur's shop, one of many buildings to have been dismantled and sent to the St Fagan's Museum of Welsh Life. Taff's Well is the original location of the story that inspired the film The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain, by Ivor Monger and Christopher Monger.
Taff's Well has featured in the Sky sitcom Stella Starring Ruth Jones. The post office in Nantgarw is a filming location in the sitcom, although it is just outside the village. Taff's Well is an electoral ward coterminous to the community boundaries and elects a county councillor to Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council. Jill Bonetto has represented the ward since 2012. Taff's Well and Nantgarw are represented locally by the Taff’s Well & Nantgarw Community Council, which has 10 members; the Council hit the headlines in 2010 when it was criticised by the Wales Audit Office for breaching financial and corporate governance regulations with its financial records. Described as'The Worst Run Council in Wales', there were calls for the'wholesale sacking' of the ten members for breaching'financial and corporate governance regulations because of its “inadequate” financial records, supporting paperwork and minutes between 2002 and 2006'. Taff's Well A. F. C. are the local football team. Taff's Well RFC are the local Rugby union team.
Taffs Well railway station, which opened in 1863, is situated on the Merthyr Lines. Services are provided by Transport for Wales northbound to Treherbert, Merthyr Tydfil via Pontypridd and southbound to Cardiff Queen Street and Cardiff Central; the average journey time to Cardiff Central is 20 minutes at a frequency of 6 trains per hour. Stagecoach South Wales bus service 132 between Maerdy and Cardiff Central bus station stops in the village every 15 minutes at peak times; the A470 road runs through the village between Cardiff Llandudno. Taff's Well is situated 2 miles north of Junction 32 of the M4 motorway. There are plans to integrate Taff's Well into the South Wales Metro. Taff's Well has two active churches: The Anglican church of St Mary and St James dates from c. 1897 and is located on Church Street. It is a chapel of ease to St Michael's in Tongwynlais; the minister is Rev Zoe King. The Nonconformist Taff's Well United Church is located on Cardiff Road, it was founded as a Wesleyan Methodist chapel and took on its current name when it merged with the Taff's Well Baptist Church in the late 20th Century.
The minister is Rev Cathy Gale. Like the neighbouring community of Tongwynlais, Taff's Well had a number of other churches which have ceased to function and have either been converted into other purposes or been demolished: The Tabor Calvinistic Methodist Church was built on what became Tabor Street in 1843, it was rebuilt in 1864. It is now a commercial premises; the Glandwr Taf Welsh Independent Chapel was built in 1859. It was modified in 1898 and was rebuilt in 1905, being capable of seating 250, it is now a private residence. The Tabernacle English Baptist Chapel on the corner of Garth and King Streets was built in 1906, its congregation merged to form Taff's Well United Church. After the merge, the chapel was demolished and the site is now occupied by housing. See Category:People from Taff's Well
Rhymney Valley
The Rhymney Valley is one of the South Wales valleys. After the abolition of the counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire in 1974, Rhymney Valley was created as one of the districts of Mid Glamorgan; the valley encompasses the villages of Abertysswg, Pontlottyn, Tir-Phil, New Tredegar, Rhymney, Ystrad Mynach and Llanbradach, the towns of Bargoed and Caerphilly. Created as a glacial valley, now the Rhymney River flows south to Rumney, a district of Cardiff; the river is the ancient boundary between Monmouthshire. Groesfaen, Deri and Fochriw are located in the Darran Valley and not the Rhymney Valley; this valley joins the Rhymney Valley at Bargoed Llanbradach is a large village in the Rhymney Valley between Ystrad Mynach and Caerphilly, This valley is one of the South Wales Valleys, its history follows theirs: sparsely populated until the nineteenth century. The Rhymney Valley produced a miner poet, Idris Davies of Rhymney, famous for his poems associated with the locality and the struggles of its people.
The 1990s brought improved road connections to the valley—a dual carriageway running north from Caerphilly—increasing access to and from Cardiff and the M4 motorway, increasing the numbers of commuters from the valley to Cardiff. The area is now one of the most populous in Wales; the Rhymney Valley hosted the National Eisteddfod in 1990. There is a legend to explain, it is said. They asked help from an owl; as the fairies burnt the giant's body, the ground burned away. The Rhymney Valley Gorsedd Stones are located above Byrn Bach park, Tredegar on the site of the 1990 National Eisteddfod of Wales hosted by the Rhymney Valley; the stone circle consists of 12 standing stones arranged in a circle 25m across with the tallest being 1.8m high a thirteenth stone marks the entrance to the circle. In the center is a flat stone known as the Logan stone. Stone circles of this type were erected on all sites of the National Eisteddfod until 2005 when as a cost cutting exercise fibre-glass stone circles were used for the first time.
51°46'35.6"N 3°16'46.1"W The Rhymney Valley railway runs through the valley. Davies, John; the Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. ISBN 978-0-7083-1953-6. Evans, Marion, A Portrait of Rhymney with cameos of Pontlottyn, Princetown and Fochriw, volume 1. ISBN 1-874538-40-9. Evans, Marion, A Portrait of Rhymney with cameos of Ponylottyn, Princetown and Fochriw, volume 2. ISBN 1-874538-70-0. Evans, Marion, A Portrait of Rhymney with cameos of Pontlottyn, Princetown and Fochriw, volume 3. ISBN 1-874538-41-7. Evans, Marion, A Portrait of Rhymney with cameos of Pontlottyn, Princetown and Fochriw, volume 4. ISBN 1-874538-02-6. Evans, Marion, A Portrait of Rhymney with cameos of Pontlottyn, Princetown and Fochriw, volume 5. ISBN 978-1-905967-20-9. Evans, The History of Andrew Buchan's Rhymney Brewery. ISBN 978-1-905967-07-0
Barry Island railway station
Barry Island railway station is a railway station, 9¼ miles south-west of Cardiff Central, serving Barry Island in South Wales. The station has been the terminus – and only remaining active station at the end of the Barry branch of the Cardiff Central to Barry Island line since the closure of Barry Pier station in 1976. Passenger services, operated by Transport for Wales as part of the Valley Lines network use the first half of platform 1. In 1896 the railway line was extended along the newly built raised road causeway from Barry Station onto the Island to provide a service to the newly opened and developing Barry Island Pleasure Park day tripper leisure facilities; the Barry Island station opened in time for the August Bank holiday 1896. The new rail line crossed to the Island at road level and a level crossing was needed where the line crossed Plymouth Road; when premises on Station Approach Road were being renovated in the late 1990s, traces of the original track were discovered in the basement.
To give improved passenger access to the P & A Campbell's White Funnel steamers that plied the Bristol Channel in 1899, the line was continued past Barry Island station through a 280-yard double-line tunnel to the new Barry Pier railway station. The peak years for passenger numbers at Barry Island were in the 1930s. From 1924 on most peak-time August Bank Holiday Mondays between 80,000 and 100,000 visitors arrived at the Island and by train. After the 1926 General Strike, reports in the local and national press described the scenes over the 1927 August Bank Holiday weekend at Barry Island as'organised chaos', it was estimated that in excess of 120,000 arrived at the island with packed trains arriving and leaving Barry Island Station at five-minute intervals. In excess of 75 special excursion trains, each carrying an estimated 500-600 passengers arrived from Cardiff's Riverside Station during that morning and early afternoon. A report in the local press on one Bank Holiday Monday, when an estimated crowd of over 150,000 arrived at the Island, described the scene as follows - "When it was time for visitors to leave the Island a queue started to form just before 6 pm and by 9.30 pm was still over a quarter of a mile long, it snaked around the fairground with people waiting to board their trains.
Excursionists from the Midlands and places other than Cardiff and the Valleys using one entrance and boarding their non-stop return trains and "Locals" having to wait for a space to return to Cardiff." In 1927 the GWR decided to issue special day return tickets from Cardiff General at one shilling each and sold over 82,000 tickets. Demand during the morning was so great that temporary ticket booths had to be set up at the Riverside concourse to cope with the high level of sales. Additional trains and rolling stock were laid on, over and above the planned timetable, to transport the additional visitors to Barry Island. By 12 noon, the station ticket office ran out of tickets and were forced to use hand amended tickets, dated for the following day. Traffic levels started to fall in the 1950s and 1960s with the spread of greater car ownership in the UK after the Severn Bridge opened in 1966. A further sudden drop occurred between 1968 and 1970 with the removal of the Taff Vale railway branch line from Cardiff via Penarth as a result of the Beeching Axe.
The wholesale closure of rural rail links all over the country accelerated the switch to private car use by holidaymakers. In its heyday, the station had four operational platforms - one long main platform on the'up' side divided into 2 sections and an island platform on the'down' side. There were several carriage sidings at the east end of the station opposite platform 2, with a signal box at each end of the station to control the layout. The'East' ’box was closed in 1964 and replaced by two groundframes, "A" and "B", "A" being housed in a ground-level cabin, bearing single-line token apparatus for any workings over the single tunnel line to Barry Pier but with the former'West' ’box taking over responsibility for the passenger service to & from the station; the branch from Barry was built as double track, but was singled in 1969. The remaining signal box at the station was damaged by fire in 1976 and was out of service for repairs for more than a year - this coincided with the final closure of the Pier branch and the abolition of platform 2, leaving only 3 platforms in use.
The two faces of the island platform were thereafter only used during the summer for excursion traffic, with the ’box "switched out" and all trains using platform 1. This method of operation continued right up until the ’box was permanently abolished in March 1998, though main line connections to the tracks serving platforms 3 & 4 had been disconnected for some years by this time. Following the closure of the ’box, half of the redundant track through platform 3 was lifted, platform 4 track abandoned and platform 1 track was curtailed at a buffer stop halfway along the platform. Platform 4 track was absorbed into the Barry Tourist Railway's infrastructure and east of the footbridge, all former BR permanent way was removed but with extended track from platform 4 to the BTR Plymouth Rd shed, platform and run-around loop for the Tourist Railway's use; the remaining bi-directional single line to & from Barry was henceforth operated using ‘One Train Working’ regulations from Barry Station signal box (since abolished - the
Rhymney railway station
Rhymney railway station serves the town of Rhymney in Wales. Situated on the Valley Lines network 23 miles north of Cardiff Central, it is the terminus of the Rhymney Line; the station has sidings to the west of its single platform which are used for the overnight stabling of the diesel multiple unit trains – from classes 142, 143, 150 – which are used on the line. The railway south from here was opened by the Rhymney Railway in 1858 as far as Hengoed and Walnut Tree Junction, with a link northwards to Rhymney Bridge following in 1871; this was operated jointly with the North Western Railway. In the same year the current route through Caerphilly was opened by the Rhymney company, removing the need for its trains to use TVR metals to reach Cardiff. Services to the north ended in 1953 with the closure of the joint line to Rhymney Bridge to passenger traffic; the section down to Bargoed was subsequently singled and the station reduced in size, with the decommissioning of the old island platform.
This remained intact but disused for many years, but was demolished in 2007 when the stabling sidings were relaid and re-aligned. On Mondays to Saturdays there is an hourly service from Rhymney to Penarth at xx29 every hour calling at Pontlottyn, Tir-Phil, Bargoed, Hengoed, Ystrad Mynach, Energlyn & Churchill Park, Caerphilly and Thornhill, Heath High Level, Cardiff Queen Street, Cardiff Central, Dingle Road and Penarth. Journeys to Cardiff take 55 -- 75 minutes to Penarth. From December 2013 the train service frequency was due to be upgraded to every 30 minutes off-peak each weekday due to the construction & commissioning of a loop at Tir-Phil, the extra service being a continuation of one of the 3 trains per hour that terminate at Bargoed; however a lack of rolling stock has prevented this taking placed as planned and the frequency will remain hourly for the immediate future. On Sundays, services run to Barry Island on a two-hourly frequency. Train times and station information for Rhymney railway station from National Rail RAILSCOT - Photographs of Rhymney
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