Pontarddulais railway station serves the town of
Pontarddulais
Pontarddulais (), also known as Pontardulais (), is both a community and a town in Swansea, Wales. It is northwest of the city centre. The Pontarddulais ward is part of the City and County of Swansea. Pontarddulais adjoins the village of Hendy ...
and village of
Hendy
Hendy ( cy, Yr Hendy) is a village in the community of Llanedi, Carmarthenshire, Wales. It is situated at the Carmarthenshire and the City and County of Swansea border. It lies on the Afon Gwili just across the River Loughor from Pontarddulais ...
in
Swansea,
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...
. The station is located at street level not far from the town centre and the
Loughor
Loughor () ( cy, Casllwchwr) is a Welsh town in the City and County of Swansea, within the Historic counties of Wales, historic county boundaries of Glamorgan, Wales. It lies on the estuary of the River Loughor. The town has a community (Wales), ...
estuary. All trains serving the station are operated by
Transport for Wales
Transport for Wales (TfW; cy, Trafnidiaeth Cymru; cy, TrC, label=none) is a not-for-profit company owned by the Welsh Government and managed at arms length by its appointed board. TfW oversees the Transport for Wales Group (TfW Group) consi ...
.
History
Before the arrival of the railway, due to the local rivers, Pontarddulais was already a noted local industrialised town, with two mills and two factories in existence, alongside home-based woollen looms.
The station was built in 1840 on the original
Llanelly Railway (LR) main line, from to . There a direct connection was made with the
Central Wales Railway
The Heart of Wales line ( cy, Llinell Calon Cymru) is a railway line running from Craven Arms in Shropshire to Llanelli in southwest Wales. It serves a number of rural centres, including the nineteenth-century spa towns Llandrindod Wells, Llang ...
, which along with other lines was controlled by the
London and North Western Railway (LNWR), enabling the LNWR to connect the South Wales coast with industrialised Northwest England, via ,
Shrewsbury and
Crewe.
In 1868, the LR made the mistake of not renewing its right to the lease of the Vale of Towy. The LNWR subsequently negotiated a track-access agreement with the LR, enabling it to gain running powers to , which helped the LNWR's strategic plan to reach the South Wales coast and hence break into
Great Western Railway (GWR) territory. The completed Central Wales line was opened in June 1868.
LNWR dispute, and junction development
From 1 July 1871, the LNWR was granted by the LR running-rights onwards into Llanelli. This enabled the LNWR to then reverse its trains at Llanelli, and run under agreement with the GWR into Swansea via the
South Wales Main Line
The South Wales Main Line ( cy, Prif Linell De Cymru), originally known as the London, Bristol and South Wales Direct Railway or simply as the Bristol and South Wales Direct Railway, is a branch of the Great Western Main Line in Great Britain. ...
.
However, the LR and LNWR ran into a legal dispute over payments, and eventually the LR approached the
House of Lords
The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminste ...
to cancel the agreement. The LNWR counter-sued by proposing taking over the entire LR line, arguing that the "success" of the LR was only to be found in the development of the Central Wales route. The House of Lords agreed with the LNWR, and a subsequent 1873 an
Act of Parliament
Acts of Parliament, sometimes referred to as primary legislation, are texts of law passed by the Legislature, legislative body of a jurisdiction (often a parliament or council). In most countries with a parliamentary system of government, acts of ...
authorised the Llandeilo to Carmarthen and Llandeilo to Swansea sections of the LR to become a separate company, to be called the Swansea and Carmarthen Railway. Subsequently, transferred to the LNWR, they amalgamated the line into a new company called the Central Wales and Carmarthen Junction Railway, with the LR retaining running powers over its own ex-mainline.
Now reverted and restricted to its original Llanelli to Llandovery route, from 1 January 1873 the GWR took over the operation of the remaining LR section, running passenger trains to Llandovery as a branch from Llanelli - an arrangement which continued until 1964 when the steam hauled services ended. The LNWR wanted direct running access rights into
Swansea Docks, and hence began construction of direct line via the
Gower peninsula
Gower ( cy, Gŵyr) or the Gower Peninsula () in southwest Wales, projects towards the Bristol Channel. It is the most westerly part of the historic county of Glamorgan. In 1956, the majority of Gower became the first area in the United Kingdom ...
. This direct line opened in 1866/7 and terminated for passengers at , turning the original station at Pontarddulais into a junction with four platforms.
Industrial period: 1850s-1950s
With better connections and an ample supply of natural resources, from the mid-1800s the town became highly industrialised, through both the extraction of coal, but mainly the development of various competing
tinplate
Tinplate consists of sheets of steel coated with a thin layer of tin to impede rusting. Before the advent of cheap milled steel, the backing metal was wrought iron. While once more widely used, the primary use of tinplate now is the manufacture ...
works. By 1910 there were six works across the area, with workers coming from as far away as
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
, resulting in the GWR connecting its freight bypass route the
Swansea District Line just to the south of Pontarddulais in 1912.
The entire line was taken over by the
Western Region of British Railways
The Western Region was a region of British Railways from 1948. The region ceased to be an operating unit in its own right on completion of the "Organising for Quality" initiative on 6 April 1992. The Region consisted principally of ex-Great We ...
post-Nationalisation in 1946, although the LNWR influence remained through the hauling of Crewe-Swansea through trains wholly by LMS locomotives, especially the
LMS Black 5. In the 1950s, new large-scale tinplate works were established in nearby
Trostre
Pemberton is an area situated east of Llanelli in Carmarthenshire, Wales. It is part of the Llanelli Rural (Welsh-Llanelli Wledig) community bordering Llanelli and the villages of Cwmcarnhywel, Dafen, Carmarthenshire, Dafen, Cefncaeau and the out ...
and
Felindre
Felindre is a rural village in southern Wales. Felindre is located in the far north of Swansea, in the electoral ward of Mawr.
The nearby Lower Lliw Reservoirs are a popular venue for walking and fishing. The water mill in the village was workin ...
, rendering the old works in Pontarddulais obsolete. This brought about a huge reduction in both the size of the town, and consequently of passenger and freight traffic through the station.
The LNWR's direct Swansea Victoria line along the Mumbles peninsula fell victim to the
Beeching Axe in June 1964, and its bridge just south of Pontarddulais was removed in 1974 to allow construction of the
M4 Motorway westwards. All trains now reach Swansea via Llanelli, with the trackless platforms of the direct line still in place but heavily overgrown.
The 80-yd (72 m) long tunnel immediately south of the station is the oldest surviving rail tunnel still in use in Wales, having originally being built for horse tramway use around 1839 and subsequently converted for the standard gauge railway link to Llandeilo.
Slab track
A ballastless track or slab track is a type of railway track infrastructure in which the traditional elastic combination of ties/sleepers and ballast is replaced by a rigid construction of concrete or asphalt.
Characteristics
In ballastless ...
was laid through it in 1984 to resolve long-standing issues with flooding & poor drainage there.
Facilities
The station has one remaining active platform, which has had a
section raised in 2015 to assist passengers boarding or alighting. This was funded by the
Welsh Government
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.
No ticket machine is available (the station is unstaffed), so these must be purchased on the train or prior to travel. There is a standard plexiglass and metal shelter provided, along with a CIS screen and timetable information board but no other permanent buildings. Level access is available between the car park and platform.
Services
Pontarddulais is a
request stop, whereby passengers have to give a hand signal to the approaching train driver to board or notify the guard when they board that they wish to alight from the train there.
There are seven trains a day in each direction on weekdays, six on Saturdays and two services on Sundays. Five run through to northbound, with two more to on Monday to Fridays (and one on Saturday evenings), whilst southbound trains run to Llanelli and Swansea.
References in popular culture
Pontarddulais station was featured in the
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
series ''
Paul Merton's Secret Stations'' Season 1 Episode 2 broadcast on 8 May 2016. This series features comedian
Paul Merton
Paul James Martin (born 9 July 1957), known under the stage name Paul Merton, is an English writer, actor, comedian and radio and television presenter.
Known for his improvisation skill, Merton's humour is rooted in deadpan, surreal and somet ...
visiting various request stop railway stations around Britain.
References
External links
{{Transport in Swansea
Railway stations in Swansea
DfT Category F2 stations
Former Great Western Railway stations
Former London and North Western Railway stations
Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1840
Heart of Wales Line
Railway stations served by Transport for Wales Rail
Railway request stops in Great Britain