Carno is a closed railway station in

Carno Carno is a village in Powys, Wales. The community, which is also a parish in the historic county of Montgomeryshire, comprises the townships of Derlwyn, Llysyn, and Trowscoed. It is in the geographical centre of Wales. Geography The Afon Car ...

, on the Cambrian Line, that was part of the

Newtown and Machynlleth Railway The Newtown and Machynlleth Railway was a railway company in Wales. It built a line from a junction with the Llanidloes and Newtown Railway near Caersws to the market town of Machynlleth; the line opened in 1862. Newtown had become the hub of ...

. The station was closed in 1965 as part of the

Beeching Cuts The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised British Rail, railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Develop ...

though there are proposals to re-open it.

History

Carno station was opened by the

which had been incorporated in 1857 to connect the

Llanidloes and Newtown Railway The Llanidloes and Newtown Railway (L&NR) was a railway company between Llanidloes and Newtown, Powys, Newtown in Montgomeryshire, Wales. It was promoted locally when plans for trunk railways passing through the locality were cancelled; local peo ...

with via . The line was leased to the

Oswestry and Newtown Railway The Oswestry and Newtown Railway was a British railway company that built a line between Oswestry in Shropshire and Newtown Montgomeryshire, now Powys. The line opened in stages in 1860 and 1861. It was conceived to open up the area to rail tran ...

and services began on 3 January 1863 from , calling at Caersws Junction, , Carno, and . The line was single with

passing loop A passing loop (UK usage) or passing siding (North America) (also called a crossing loop, crossing place, refuge loop or, colloquially, a hole) is a place on a single line railway or tramway, often located at or near a station, where trains or ...

s at Carno, Llanbrynmair and Cemmes Road. The station was situated to the north of

, which had a population of 717 in 1901. Two platforms were provided with the main station buildings and generously sized

goods shed A goods shed is a railway building designed for storing goods before or after carriage in a train. A typical goods shed will have a track running through it to allow goods wagons to be unloaded under cover, although sometimes they were built ...

situated on the down platform. A

signal box In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...

with 24 levers was erected at the west end of the down platform; it had a staff of four throughout the 1930s. The station was closed to goods traffic on 29 July 1963 and to passenger traffic on 14 June 1965 following the recommendation for its closure in the

Beeching Report Beeching is an English surname. Either a derivative of the old English ''bece'', ''bæce'' "stream", hence "dweller by the stream" or of the old English ''bece'' "beech-tree" hence "dweller by the beech tree".''Oxford Dictionary of English Surnames' ...

. The line remained open and the station buildings were incorporated into the adjacent

Laura Ashley Laura Ashley (née Mountney; 7 September 1925 – 17 September 1985) was a Welsh fashion designer and businesswoman. She originally made furnishing materials in the 1950s, expanding the business into clothing design and manufacture in the 1960s ...

factory complex until its closure in 2005. The signal box remained in service until 21 October 1988 when automatic half barriers were introduced on the

level crossing A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, Trail, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line crossing over or under using an Overpass#Railway, overpass ...

at the west end of the station.

Proposed re-opening

In 2002, the Carno Station Action Group was set up to campaign for the re-opening of the station. An independent report commissioned by the group about the re-opening of the station was positively met by

Arriva Trains Wales Arriva Trains Wales (ATW; cy, Trenau Arriva Cymru) was a British train operating company owned by Arriva UK Trains that operated the Wales & Borders franchise. It ran urban and inter-urban passenger services to all railway stations in Wales, ...

and

Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...

. In 2009 the

Welsh Assembly The Senedd (; ), officially known as the Welsh Parliament in English and () in Welsh, is the devolved, unicameral legislature of Wales. A democratically elected body, it makes laws for Wales, agrees certain taxes and scrutinises the Welsh Gove ...

agreed to examine the proposal as part of the Cambrian Rail Study. In 2014, the Welsh Assembly confirmed Arriva Trains Wales and Network Rail broadly agreed with an independent report recommending the reopening of a station at Carno. However, a new station would need to be built as the original Victorian building (which was incorporated into the former Laura Ashley factory) is in private ownership. In 2015, the Shrewsbury and Aberystwyth Rail Passenger Association released an aims document that mentions the possibility of reopening the station. Along with

Bow Street Bow Street is a thoroughfare in Covent Garden, Westminster, London. It connects Long Acre, Russell Street and Wellington Street, and is part of a route from St Giles to Waterloo Bridge. The street was developed in 1633 by Francis Russell, 4 ...

and

Hanwood Hanwood is a large village in Shropshire, England. It is located SW of Shrewsbury town centre, on the A488 road. The A5 is only a mile away. The Cambrian Line runs through the village but there is no longer a railway station here. It was cl ...

stations. In January 2016, Welsh Transport Minister

Edwina Hart Edwina Hart, MBE (born 26 April 1957) is a Welsh LabourAssem ...

confirmed that Arriva Trains Wales and Network Rail agreed with the conclusions of an independent report in favour of the station's reopening. On the 10th anniversary of the original petition to the Welsh Assembly, the Carno Station Action Group started a new petition to keep the pressure on the Assembly to reopen the station. The Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure for the Welsh Assembly,

Ken Skates Kenneth Christian Skates MS (born 2 April 1976) is a Welsh Labour politician. Skates has represented the constituency of Clwyd South in the Senedd since the election of 2011. He is an alumnus of the University of Cambridge, and worked as a j ...

, confirmed in a letter to the Carno Station Action group in October 2017 that Carno was on the list of stations to go forward to Stage Two of the New Stations Assessment Program. Plans to reopen the station reached the third and final stage in September 2019 when the station was shortlisted for further assessment by Network Rail. If successful, plans for the station will progress to the funding stage.

References

External links

Carno Station Action Group
{{Closed stations Powys Disused railway stations in Powys Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1863 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1965 Beeching closures in Wales Former Cambrian Railway stations Proposed railway stations in Wales