Cathays railways works was a railway engineering development by the

Taff Vale Railway The Taff Vale Railway (TVR) was a standard gauge railway in South Wales, built by the Taff Vale Railway Company to serve the iron and coal industries around Merthyr Tydfil and to connect them with docks in Cardiff. It was opened in stag ...

to provide its main carriage and wagon works, as well as its main

railway depot The motive power depot (MPD) or locomotive depot, or traction maintenance depot (TMD), is the place where locomotives are usually housed, repaired and maintained when not being used. They were originally known as "running sheds", "engine shed ...

for the entire TVR system, located in the

Cathays Cathays ( ; Welsh: officially ''Cathays'' but also , 'the constant meadow') is a district and community in the centre of Cardiff, capital of Wales. It is an old suburb of Cardiff established in 1875. It is very densely populated and contains ma ...

suburb of

Cardiff Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...

South Wales South Wales ( cy, De Cymru) is a loosely defined region of Wales bordered by England to the east and mid Wales to the north. Generally considered to include the historic counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, south Wales extends westwards ...

. Taken over by the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

, after nationalisation under

British Railways British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

they sold off the carriage and wagon works to the Pullman Company Ltd. Today, both the site of the railway depot and the carriage and wagon works have been redeveloped, mainly with buildings and commercial activities associated with the

University of Cardiff , latin_name = , image_name = Shield of the University of Cardiff.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms of Cardiff University , motto = cy, Gwirionedd, Undod a Chytgord , mottoeng = Truth, Unity and Concord , established = 1 ...

History

The original locomotive works and drawing offices of the TVR were located in the West Yard of

Cardiff Docks Cardiff Docks ( cy, Dociau Caerdydd) is a port in southern Cardiff, Wales. At its peak, the port was one of the largest dock systems in the world with a total quayage of almost . Once the main port for the export of South Wales coal, the Port ...

, co-located there so that use could be made of the local boiler makers skills. However, the TVR towards the end of the 19th century found it commercially advantageous to outsource the heavy industrialised work of building locomotives. Hence the West Yard facility became a heavy overhaul shop, something which the GWR on inheriting the TVR didn't change, as they had access to the

Caerphilly railway works Caerphilly railway works in Caerphilly ( cy, Caerffili) in the county of Glamorgan was the only main railway works in Wales. It was built for the Rhymney Railway in 1899 and taken over by the Great Western Railway at amalgamation in 1923. Mu ...

of the former-

Rhymney Railway The Rhymney Railway was a railway company in South Wales, founded to transport minerals and materials to and from collieries and ironworks in the Rhymney Valley of South Wales, and to docks in Cardiff. It opened a main line in 1858, and a limite ...

. The last locomotive to be built at West Yard was the power unit for No. 1 steam railcar, in 1903. However, the TVR still needed a carriage and wagon works, so reliant were they on the transportation of coal. Ideally located close to Cardiff Docks, the site chosen was just north of

Cathays railway station Cathays railway station is a station on the Merthyr and Rhondda lines in the Cathays district of Cardiff, Wales. It is north of . The station is next to Cardiff University Students' Union and across the road from many Cardiff University buil ...

, as the line headed towards Llandaf railway station, in the

suburb of

Carriage and wagon works

A 6-road facility north of the TVR mainline, the carriage and wagon works were capable of both producing and maintaining the complete TVR and private owner range of rolling stock. The works was assured of work, as the TVR handled some 10,000 coal wagons and a further 3,000 pieces of passenger and other freight stock. The GWR for the same reasons of revenue protection fully maintained the facility, but with the introduction of steel wagons post-

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, British Railways saw no need for the continued use of the facility. They hence sold off the business and leased the site to the Pullman Company Ltd, who maintained their own carriages along with some private owner wagons and BR stock. By the mid-1980s, the site was virtually unmanned, occasionally used for over-day holding of engineers trains that were travelling into or from the valleys.

Cathays depot

Cardiff Cathays Locomotive Depot geograph-2561290-by-Ben-Brooksbank

Located on the southside of the tracks to the carriage and wagon works, parallel to Colum Road, it was the largest

on the TVR. Opened in 1884, it was equipped with a five-road shed and an attached five-road repair shop, each under its own bay built from local brick. The roofs were to a similar pattern, each with extensive glazing on both faces. The GWR had supplied a standard-pattern over-grider pattern

railway turntable In rail terminology, a railway turntable or wheelhouse is a device for turning railway rolling stock, usually locomotives, so that they can be moved back in the direction from which they came. Naturally, it is especially used in areas where e ...

, which was never extended as it could cope with the tank engines allocated to the site. Designated by the GWR as the divisional shed of the Cardiff Valleys Division, under the Loans and Guarantees Act (1929): the track layout was improved; a new corrugated roof installed; and a new ramp added to the GWR standard-pattern single-road coaling stage. By 1950 under

, the combined depots of Cathays and Radyr (Code:88A), had a complement of 82 locomotives, all tank-types: 2x2-8-2T; 62x0-6-2T; 15x0-6-0T; 3x0-4-2T. In 1959 the shed was divided to cope with the introduction of

diesel multiple unit A diesel multiple unit or DMU is a multiple-unit train powered by on-board diesel engines. A DMU requires no separate locomotive, as the engines are incorporated into one or more of the carriages. Diesel-powered single-unit railcars are also ...

s. In 1961 the shed closed to steam, and all steam locomotives were moved to Radyr. The shed closed completely in November 1964, with the opening of the newly diesel-redeveloped

Cardiff Canton TMD Cardiff Canton TMD ( cy, Depo Cynnal a Chadw Treganna Caerdydd) is a diesel locomotive traction maintenance depot in Cardiff, Wales. Its depot code is CF. It is operated by Transport for Wales. The depot is used by Transport for Wales fleet an ...

. Shortly afterwards the site was cleared for redevelopment.

Present

The site of the former depot was left as scrub land until the late 1980s, when redevelopment started with the creation of the new Colum Drive, which runs parallel and adjacent to the railway line. Most of the land was redeveloped with buildings and activities associated with the

. The former carriage and wagon works buildings were still in existence until the early 2000s, when they too were demolished. The site now houses a new kit-built

Lidl Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG (; ) is a German international discount retailer chain that operates over 11,000 stores across Europe and the United States. Headquartered in Neckarsulm, Baden-Württemberg, the company belongs to the Schwarz Group, whi ...

store, and to its north a University optometry unit and student accommodation block.

References

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