Pantyffynnon 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 tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prep ...

serving the village of Pantyffynnon, in

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 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 ...

. It is situated on the

Heart of Wales Line 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, Lla ...

at its junction with the branch lines to Brynamman and Abernant.

History

The station was originally fairly large and built adjacent to the Dynevor

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 and included station buildings, signal box, freight yard and from 1931 a small railway locomotive shed. The signal box (formerly one of three at the station and dating from 1892) is the only surviving example on the HoW route and since 1986, it has supervised the entire line north of here to using a system of working known as ''No Signalman Token Remote'' (NSTR). It is also a 'fringe box' for the power box at , which controls the line south from here towards and supervises access to the freight branch to Gwaun-cae-Gurwen (which is worked under 'One Train Working' regulations). The

Llanelly Railway The Llanelly Railway and Dock Company was an early Welsh railway system. It opened its first short line and a wet dock at Llanelly in 1834, and soon went on to build a longer line from Llanelly to serve pits in the Amman Valley, and then on to Lla ...

first reached the village as long ago as 1839, continuing eastwards to

Garnant Garnant is a Welsh mining village in the valley of the River Amman in Carmarthenshire, north of Swansea. Like the neighbouring village of Glanamman it experienced a coal-mining boom in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but the last big col ...

following within a year and the main line being extended to ''Duffryn'' (the current Ammanford) in May 1841. The station on the current site was first built at this time, although it has undergone several significant alterations since then. Brynamman would be reached (under GWR auspices) in 1886, some 45 years after the opening of the mineral line from Garnant to

Gwaun-cae-Gurwen Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen ( cy, Gwauncaegurwen) is a village and community in the borough of Neath Port Talbot, South West Wales. Historically a part of Glamorgan, Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen is a parish made up of the electoral wards of Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen and Lower ...

, whilst the network of routes reached from Pantyffynnon would be completed in 1922 with the opening of the short branch to the colliery at Abernant. This was planned to be a through route to connect the coalfield with the Swansea District Line but was never completed. Neither it nor the GcG branch was ever used by passenger services, even though a number of stations were built on both lines. The old Brynamman branch closed to passengers in August 1958 (complete closure following five years later) and the old branch platform has been disused since then (the GcG branch line remains in use for freight traffic - see below). The former northbound platform is also derelict - this was abandoned in March 1966 after the closure of the former North signal box (traffic henceforth using the former southbound line & platform in both directions). The station's Grade II listed historic waiting room was restored by

Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...

with support from Carmarthenshire's Built Heritage Team and a significant grant funding from the Railway Heritage Trust. A plaque was unveiled at the station on 19 January 2018. Network Rail was awarded the Railway Heritage Trust Conservation Award for the ‘best restored structure’ at the National Rail Heritage Awards.

Facilities

The station is unstaffed and has no ticket machine (as is the case for almost all stations on the line), so all tickets must be purchased on the train or in advance of travel. The main building is Grade II-listed and dates from 1857, but had been disused since the 1960s - it was restored and refurbished by Network Rail (with assistance from the Railway Heritage Trust and the local community) in 2013-14. It is provided with the standard amenities - help point, CIS screen, payphone and timetable poster board. Step-free access is available from the

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 ...

at the north end - this still has manually-operated metal gates rather than the automatic barriers used elsewhere on the line.

Services

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 ...

, who also manage it. There are five trains a day to Shrewsbury northbound from Monday to Saturday (plus two more to ) and seven southbound to

Llanelli Llanelli (" St Elli's Parish"; ) is a market town and the largest community in Carmarthenshire and the preserved county of Dyfed, Wales. It is located on the Loughor estuary north-west of Swansea and south-east of the county town, Carmarth ...

and Swansea (the first train in each direction does not run on Saturdays); two services each way call on Sundays.

Amman Valley branch

Coal train joins the Amman Valley railway branch - geograph

The old Amman Valley branch line through Ammanford and

which joined here to the other side of the current platform was closed in its entirety along with the yard after the closure of

Abernant Colliery Abernant Colliery was a coal mine in the River Amman valley at Pwllfawatkin, north of Pontardawe and north of Swansea, West Wales. Development Abernant was developed by the National Coal Board as one of the West Wales "super pits" alongside Cyn ...

in 1988. The railway shed (closed 1964) and turntable are also gone, with nothing to reveal their former existence. The junction was reinstated for freight services only in 2006 as EWS requested that part of the line be reinstated to serve the opencast site at Tairgwaith Colliery. The Amman Valley Railway Society has also been attempting to reinstate the Amman Valley line as a heritage railway, although EWS plans prevent this in the short term. EWS started running coal trains to

Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen ( cy, Gwauncaegurwen) is a village and community in the borough of Neath Port Talbot, South West Wales. Historically a part of Glamorgan, Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen is a parish made up of the electoral wards of Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen and Lower ...

in 2009.Railway Herald
Issue 163, 26-01-2009

References

Bibliography

*Body, G. (1983), ''PSL Field Guides - Railways of the Western Region'', Patrick Stephens Ltd, Wellingborough,

External links

Amman Valley Railway Society

{{Transport in Carmarthenshire Former Great Western Railway stations Heart of Wales Line Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1841 Railway stations in Carmarthenshire DfT Category F2 stations Railway stations served by Transport for Wales Rail Grade II listed buildings in Carmarthenshire Grade II listed railway stations in Wales