Abermule railway station served the village of

Abermule Abermule () is a village lying on the River Severn 6 km (4 miles) northeast of Newtown, Powys, Newtown in Powys, mid Wales. The A483 road, A483 Swansea to Chester trunk road, the Cambrian Line railway, connecting Aberystwyth to Shrewsbury, ...

(Abermiwl in Welsh) in Wales. Served by the Oswestry and Newtown railway, it was situated on the English border. Until 1956 it was the junction for the short branch to Kerry, which had a passenger service until 1931 but was largely built for the local

timber Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...

traffic.

History

Opened by the

Oswestry and Newtown Railway The Oswestry and Newtown Railway (O&NR) was a British railway company that built a line between Oswestry in Shropshire and Newtown, Powys, Newtown Montgomeryshire, now Powys. The line opened in stages in 1860 and 1861. It was conceived to open up ...

in 1860 (as a temporary rail head – the line to Welshpool not being ready until the following year) and then run by the

Cambrian Railways The Cambrian Railways owned of Railway track, 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 c ...

, it became part of the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a History of rail transport in Great Britain, British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, ...

during the

Grouping Grouping generally refers to the creation of one or more groups, or to the groups themselves. More specifically, grouping may refer to: * Shot grouping in shooting sports and other uses of firearms * the use of symbols of grouping in mathemati ...

of 1923.Disused Stations - Abermule
''Disused Stations Site Record''; Retrieved 31 July 2017 The Kerry branch line was opened in July 1863, with Abermule acting as the terminus for the passenger service. This was infrequent under Cambrian management (as few as one a day each way), though the GWR tried to improve loadings by opening two intermediate halts and increasing the service frequency after the grouping. By the late 1920s though, the timetable had shrunk back to just two return trips each weekday and these finally ended in February 1931. The line then passed on to 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 ...

nationalisation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization contrasts with priv ...

in 1948. Freight traffic on the Kerry branch ended on 1 May 1956 and it was subsequently dismantled. The station was then closed by the

British Railways Board The British Railways Board (BRB) was a State ownership, nationalised industry in the United Kingdom that operated from 1963 to 2001. Until 1997, it was responsible for most railway services in History of rail transport in Great Britain 1995 to d ...

on 14 June 1965 (along with many other wayside stations) as a result of the

Beeching Axe The Beeching cuts, also colloquially referred to as the Beeching Axe, were a major series of route closures and service changes made as part of the restructuring of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain in the 1960s. They are named ...

Abermule train collision

The

Abermule train collision The Abermule train collision was a head-on collision which occurred at Abermule, Montgomeryshire, Wales, on Wednesday, 26 January 1921, killing 17 people. The crash arose from misunderstandings between staff which effectively over-rode the safe ...

was a head-on collision which occurred between Abermule and Newtown on 26 January 1921, killing 17 people. The crash arose from misunderstandings between staff which effectively over-rode the safe operation of the Electric Train Tablet protecting the single line. A train departed carrying the wrong tablet for the section it was entering and collided with a train coming the other way.

The site today

Trains pass through the site on the

Cambrian Line The Cambrian Line (), sometimes split into the Cambrian Main Line () and Cambrian Coast Line () for its branches, is a railway line that runs from Shrewsbury in England, westwards to Aberystwyth and Pwllheli in Wales. Passenger train services ...

, but the only surviving structure is the former station house. The platforms, waiting shelters and

signal box A signal is both the process and the result of transmission of data over some media accomplished by embedding some variation. Signals are important in multiple subject fields including signal processing, information theory and biology. In ...

have all been demolished, with the

level crossing A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, Trail, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line or the road etc. crossing over or under using an Overpass#Railway, o ...

here now automated.

References

Sources

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External links