Fennant Road Halt railway station served the Fennant Road area of

Ponciau Ponciau is a village within the community of Rhosllanerchrugog, Wrexham County Borough, Wales. It is close to the villages of Legacy, Pentre Bychan and Johnstown and is overlooked by Ruabon Mountain. The village name is also applied to a la ...

,Bartholomew, half-inch, England and Wales, 1919-1924.
/ref> a village that lies within the

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...

Rhosllanerchrugog RhosllanerchrugogDavies, Jenkins and Baines (eds) ''The Welsh Academy Encyclopedia of Wales'', 2008, p.752 (also spelled Rhosllannerchrugog, or simply Rhos) is a village and community in Wrexham County Borough, Wales. It lies within the histor ...

. Opened in 1905 it had closed by 1915, partly as a result of WWI and also through road transport competition. On 1 August 1861 the GWR had opened a mineral branch from just north of

Ruabon Ruabon ( cy, Rhiwabon ) is a village and community in Wrexham County Borough, Wales. The name comes from ''Rhiw Fabon'', ''rhiw'' being the Welsh word for "slope" or "hillside" and ''Fabon'' being a mutation from St Mabon, the original church ...

to serve the blast furnaces of the iron works at Aberderfyn and

. This line was extended to Legacy on 27 August 1876.

History

The station opened in June 1905 on the

Wrexham Wrexham ( ; cy, Wrecsam; ) is a city and the administrative centre of Wrexham County Borough in Wales. It is located between the Welsh mountains and the lower Dee Valley, near the border with Cheshire in England. Historically in the count ...

to Ponkey (Ponciau) Branch of 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 ...

.Wignal (1983), Page 1 It was one of three halts on the line south from Wrexham and Legacy, the others being at Aberderfyn and Ponkey Crossing. The Ponkey (Ponciau) to Legacy line closed to all traffic on 18 January 1917 whilst the

portion of the Ponkey (Ponciau) branch continued to serve private sidings.OS Map 1938-49. Published:1951
/ref>

Services

To try and cater for falling passenger numbers railmotors were introduced on 1 May 1905. These consisted of a carriage with a miniature locomotive at one end, partly contained within the body of the coach. Passenger services never ran south to

as indicated by the 1919-1924 map which shows a mineral line running south from Ponkey (Ponciau) Crossing Halt. The 1906 timetable shows the line working as the 'Wrexham and Ponkey Crossing' branch, served by rail motors on weekdays only and only accommodating a single class. Trains from

first stopped at Rhostyllen and then Legacy before running down to Fennant Road, Aberderfyn and Ponkey Crossing.Rhostyllen - A History Through Pictures
/ref> An impressive fifteen trains a day ran in each direction, roughly one an hour with a short stop over at Ponkey Crossing before returning to

. The three halts were very close to each other, with two minutes allowed between Fennant Road and Aberderfyn and only a single minute between Aberderfyn and Ponkey Crossing.

Infrastructure

The halt was located on a single track section of track just north of Fennnant Road and its level crossing. Given the early morning and late evening train times lighting would have been provided at the halts.

The site today

Few signs remain of the trackbed to the north and south of Fennant Road (datum 2019).

Notes

References

External links

{{end box Disused railway stations in Wrexham County Borough Former Great Western Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1905 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1915