, symbol_location = gb , symbol = rail , image = Caersws railway station platform and shelter (geograph 5489017).jpg , borough = Caersws,

Powys Powys (; ) is a county and preserved county in Wales. It is named after the Kingdom of Powys which was a Welsh successor state, petty kingdom and principality that emerged during the Middle Ages following the end of Roman rule in Britain. Geog ...

, country = Wales , coordinates = , grid_name = Grid reference , grid_position = , manager =

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) cons ...

, platforms = 1 , code = CWS , classification = DfT category F1 , original =

Newtown and Machynlleth Railway The Newtown and Machynlleth Railway was a railway company in Wales. It built a line from a junction with the Llanidloes and Newtown Railway near Caersws to the market town of Machynlleth; the line opened in 1862. Newtown had become the hub of r ...

, pregroup =

Cambrian Railways The Cambrian Railways owned of track over a large area of mid Wales. The system was an amalgamation of a number of railways that were incorporated in 1864, 1865 and 1904. The Cambrian connected with two larger railways with connections to the ...

, opened = 3 January 1863 , mpassengers = , footnotes = Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road , embedded = Caersws railway station is a

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in Track (rail transport), tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the ...

on the

Cambrian Line The Cambrian Line ( cy, Llinell y Cambrian), also known as the Cambrian Main Line ( cy, Prif Linell y Cambrian) and Cambrian Coast Line ( cy, Llinell Arfordir y Cambrian), is a railway line that runs from Shrewsbury, England, westwards to Abe ...

in mid-

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 ...

, serving the village of Caersws. It is notable that there is a distance of between this station and Machynlleth, the longest distance between two intermediate stations in Wales.

History

The notable Welsh romantic poet John Ceiriog Hughes was employed as a

station master The station master (or stationmaster) is the person in charge of a railway station, particularly in the United Kingdom and many other countries outside North America. In the United Kingdom, where the term originated, it is now largely historical ...

and Manager of the Van Railway at Caersws railway station from 1868 until his death in 1887. From 1871 to 1940 the Van Railway terminated at Caersws. The station was built by the

of the

in the 1890s. Originally there was a passing loop, a goods shed, a water tower and a ticket office and a

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 latter remained in use until March 2011 as a gate box to supervise the station

level crossing A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line crossing over or under using an overpass or tunnel. The term a ...

(this is now operated from Machynlleth). The station was threatened with closure in 1964 along with all of the other wayside stops on the former Cambrian main line (as a consequence of the

Beeching cuts The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Development of the M ...

), but reprieved by the Minister of Transport

Tom Fraser Thomas Fraser (18 February 1911 – 21 November 1988) was Scottish coal miner and trade unionist, who was a Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for the Hamilton constituency between 1943 and 1967. Life He was the son of Thomas and Mary F ...

in December that year to act as the notional railhead for the town of

Llanidloes Llanidloes () is a town and community on the A470 and B4518 roads in Powys, within the historic county boundaries of Montgomeryshire ( cy, Sir Drefaldwyn), Wales. The population in 2011 was 2,929, of whom 15% could speak Welsh. It is the thi ...

(following the demise of the Mid-Wales Railway that served it directly). In February 2013, Caersws station won the "Wales’ Best Unstaffed Train Station" award, supported by Keep Wales Tidy.

Facilities

Though unstaffed, the station has a ticket machine installed. Train running information is offered via CIS displays, automated announcements, timetable poster boards and a customer help point. There is also payphone available. Step-free access is available from the entrance to the platform.

Services

There is a basic two-hourly service in each direction Mon-Sat, with some additional services in the morning and evening (most of which run between Shrewsbury and only). Sundays also run every two hours, though there is only a limited service (one in winter, three in summer) along the Cambrian Coast line to .

Gallery

File:Caersws station10.jpg,

Bilingual sign A bilingual sign (or, by extension, a multilingual sign) is the representation on a panel ( sign, usually a traffic sign, a safety sign, an informational sign) of texts in more than one language. The use of bilingual signs is usually reserved for ...

at Caersws station in the early 2000s File:Cearsws station 2`.png, Caersws station in the early 2000s File:Caersws railway station MMB 02.jpg, Caersws station in September 2009 File:Ticket machine on Caersws railway station (geograph 5489028).jpg, Ticket machine and station building (2015) File:Caersws railway station buildings (geograph 5489037).jpg, Caersws station and signal box (2015)

References

Sources

External links

{{Transport in Powys Railway stations in Powys DfT Category F1 stations Former Cambrian Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1863 Railway stations served by Transport for Wales Rail Grade II listed buildings in Powys Grade II listed railway stations in Wales