Ebbw Vale (Low Level) railway station was a station which served

Ebbw Vale Ebbw Vale (; cy, Glynebwy) is a town at the head of the valley formed by the Ebbw Fawr tributary of the Ebbw River in Wales. It is the largest town and the administrative centre of Blaenau Gwent county borough. The Ebbw Vale and Brynmawr con ...

, in the

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...

county of

Monmouthshire Monmouthshire ( cy, Sir Fynwy) is a county in the south-east of Wales. The name derives from the historic county of the same name; the modern county covers the eastern three-fifths of the historic county. The largest town is Abergavenny, with ...

History

The origins of the railway in

can be traced to the Beaufort Ironworks Tramway which opened in 1798 between the ironworks as far as Crumlin. The tramway was converted from to gauge in 1806. On 23 December 1850, the

Monmouthshire Railway and Canal Company The Monmouthshire Railway and Canal Company was a canal and railway company that operated a canal and a network of railways in the Western Valley and Eastern Valley of Newport, Monmouthshire. It started as the Monmouthshire Canal Navigation and op ...

introduced a regular passenger service between and . Services were extended to Ebbw Vale on 19 April 1852 after improvement works had been carried out to the section between and Ebbw Vale. The initial passenger service consisted of three trains either way at 7.00am, 12.00pm and 4.45pm from Newport, and at 9.00am, 2.15pm and 6.45pm in the other direction. The tramway was relaid as a

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in Ea ...

line in 1855. A single platform station was provided with a brick station building facing the road. Situated in a slight

cutting Cutting is the separation or opening of a physical object, into two or more portions, through the application of an acutely directed force. Implements commonly used for wikt:cut, cutting are the knife and saw, or in medicine and science the scal ...

, it was conveniently located to the town centre. It was also convenient for the

Ebbw Vale Steelworks Ebbw Vale Steelworks was an integrated steel mill located in Ebbw Vale, South Wales. Developed from 1790, by the late 1930s it had become the largest steel mill in Europe. Nationalized after World War II, as the steel industry changed to bulk han ...

at Pont-y-Gof which were connected to the line by the

Rassa Railroad The Rassa Railroad was a horse-drawn tramroad in south Wales, running between Sirhowy Ironworks and Beaufort Ironworks, with connections also to the Trefil Rail Road and the Ebbw Vale Ironworks. It was later served with a tram engine. History ...

. This connection was in use until 2 November 1959. Adjacent to the station building was a 46-lever

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'' ...

. The line continued north to a remotely situated

goods yard A goods station (also known as a goods yard or goods depot) or freight station is, in the widest sense, a railway station where, either exclusively or predominantly, goods (or freight), such as merchandise, parcels, and manufactured items, are lo ...

and an untimetabled stop for miners at

Beaufort Beaufort may refer to: People and titles * Beaufort (surname) * House of Beaufort, English nobility * Duke of Beaufort (England), a title in the peerage of England * Duke of Beaufort (France), a title in the French nobility Places Polar regions ...

. To the south, a road overbridge crossed the line. The single platform was subsequently doubled in size and the platform buildings rebuilt. The station boasted a staff of 44 in 1923 and 62 in 1937. A second station was opened in Ebbw Vale by the

London and North Western Railway The London and North Western Railway (LNWR, L&NWR) was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. In the late 19th century, the L&NWR was the largest joint stock company in the United Kingdom. In 1923, it became a constituent of the Lo ...

on 2 September 1867. To distinguish the two Ebbw Vale stations,

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 ...

added the suffix "High Level" (the L&NWR station) on 23 May 1949 and "Low Level" (the GWR station) on 19 July 1950. The rundown of the line began in 1939 when the Beaufort Ironworks line fell out of use. Next came

dieselisation Dieselisation (US: dieselization) is the process of equipping vehicles with a diesel engine or diesel engines. It can involve replacing an internal combustion engine powered by petrol (gasoline) fuel with an engine powered by diesel fuel, as o ...

in 1958 and then closure to passengers on 30 April 1962. The line was then singled in 1964 and the signal box was taken out of use on 17 August in the same year. Closure to goods traffic came on 1 December 1969.

Present

The station site was cleared after closure and only the station house and a short section of the retaining wall which supported the cutting side remains. A road occupies part of the trackbed.

References

Notes

Sources

* * * * * * * * *{{Quick-Stations Disused railway stations in Blaenau Gwent Former Monmouthshire Railway and Canal Company stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1852 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1962 1852 establishments in Wales 1969 disestablishments in Wales