Craiglon Bridge Halt railway station may have served the Craig-Lon Colliery and its workers near

Pembrey Pembrey (Welsh: ''Pen-bre'') is a village in Carmarthenshire, Wales, situated between Burry Port and Kidwelly, overlooking Carmarthen Bay, with a population of about 2,154 in 2011. The electoral ward having a population of 4,301. It is in the ...

, but this business was closed in the 1930s.Carmarthenshire LVII.NE (includes: Burryport; Pen Bre.) Revised: 1948 to 1952. Published: 1953
/ref> It continued to serve the inhabitants of the Lando area between 1932 and 1953 and was one of several basic halts opened on the

Burry Port and Gwendraeth Valley Railway :''Note: During most of the period of operation of the BP&GVR the anglicised spellings of Welsh place names were in use, and for consistency are used in this article. The Company's registered name included the incorrect spelling ''Gwendreath'' due t ...

Carmarthenshire Carmarthenshire ( cy, Sir Gaerfyrddin; or informally ') is a county in the south-west of Wales. The three largest towns are Llanelli, Carmarthen and Ammanford. Carmarthen is the county town and administrative centre. The county is known as ...

, Wales. A firing range was located nearby in WWII.

History

The station was opened on 1 February 1932 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 ...

RAILUKForum
/ref> on the Kidwelly and Burry Port section of the line and was closed by the British Transport Commission in 1953 with the last passenger train running on Saturday 19 September 1953. It was on the southern section of the

with

located to the south and Pinged to the north. A public house, the Butchers' Arms, stood across the road bridge to the west. The station is shown as open in 1945 - 1947 after the Craig Lon colliery had been closed. By 1951 - 1961 the station is shown as closed. The railway was originally a freight only line, but stations were established due to pressure from the public. Craig-lon Colliery had opened in the 18th century, was extended in the 19th and joined with others in 1918 to form the Pembrey Collieries Ltd but closed in the 1930s. In WWII part of the site was used as a firing range. The line had been built on the course of an old canal with resulting tight curves, low bridge clearance and a tendency to flooding. The freight service continued for coal traffic until 1996 by which time the last of the local collieries had closed down.

Infrastructure

The station had a one single carriage length wooden platform on the western side of this single track line with a small shelter. The halt lay slightly to the north of the road bridge. The station had no public sidings, but a single siding exchange freight facility was present to the south with an exchange siding for Craig or Graig Lon Colliery and a track ran up to the Craig Lon colliery. The overbridge remains, once a canal bridge prior to the railway and cyclepath and walkway. The Kidwelly route was used for coal trains, resulting in the lifting of track between Trimsaran Road and Burry Port by 2005.Grace's Guide to British Industrial History
/ref>

Services

The station was open for use by the general public and by miners from Craig Lon colliery.

Remnants

The section of the old line between Burry Port and Craiglon Bridge Halt is now a footpath and cycleway, however the old entrance to the halt is still in use.

Routes

References