The Maerdy Branch was a

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

branch line A branch line is a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line. Branch lines may serve one or more industries, or a city or town not located ...

South Wales South Wales ( ) is a Regions of Wales, loosely defined region of Wales bordered by England to the east and mid Wales to the north. Generally considered to include the Historic counties of Wales, historic counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire ( ...

. Financed and operated by the

Taff Vale Railway The Taff Vale Railway (TVR) was a standard gauge railway in South Wales, built by the Taff Vale Railway Company to serve the iron and coal industries around Merthyr Tydfil and to connect them with docks in Cardiff. It was opened in stage ...

, on amalgamation 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, ...

in 1923. Designed and mainly operated as a

coal mining Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...

freight In transportation, cargo refers to goods transported by land, water or air, while freight refers to its conveyance. In economics, freight refers to goods transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. The term cargo is also used in ...

railway, its creation and demise was wholly defined by the

South Wales Coalfield The South Wales Coalfield () extends across Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, Swansea, Neath Port Talbot, Bridgend, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Merthyr Tydfil, Caerphilly, Blaenau Gwent and Torfaen. It is rich in coal deposits, especially in the South Wales ...

Design

The branch was wholly designed, being developed by integrating a series of private industrial track railways with the extension of the Taff Vale Railway from the south at . In 1840, the TVR bought the private Ferndale to Maerdy colliery track and then extended it to in 1849.

Operations

Passenger operations began in 1875, serving interim stations from Porth at (opened 1876),

Pontygwaith Pontygwaith ( Welsh,"Bridge to work" or "Bridge of the Ironworks") is a village in the Taff Valley, south of Merthyr Tydfil in Wales. A Sussex Ironmaster named Anthony Morley set up a small ironworks here in 1583. On 21 February 1804 Richard ...

Tylorstown Tylorstown () is a village and community located in the Rhondda valley, in the county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales. It is neighboured by the villages of Blaenllechau, Ferndale, Penrhys, Pontygwaith and Stanleytown. History By the mi ...

, and Ferndale. Though the line had opened up to Maerdy the same year (with the sinking & commissioning of

Maerdy Colliery Maerdy Colliery was a coal mine located in the South Wales village of Maerdy (), in the Rhondda Valley, located in the county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf, and within the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan, Wales. Opened in 1875, it closed ...

), it was not until 1889 that the passenger service was extended there from Ferndale. Passenger traffic was neither heavy nor a major contribution to line finances, and so in 1900 the GWR introduced steam rail motors. Ten or eleven return trips each weekday was the standard service frequency for the branch for most of its life.

Closure

The last passenger train ran on 13 June 1964 as a result of the

Beeching cuts 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 ...

, leaving only the freight service to Maerdy Colliery. As a result, the line was reduced to single track working. The line was placed into maintenance only upkeep from June 1986 and subsequently closed completely in August that year, after the coal mined at Maerdy was raised at

Tower Colliery Tower Colliery ( Welsh: Glofa'r Tŵr) was the oldest continuously working deep- coal mine in the United Kingdom, and possibly the world, until its closure in 2008. It was the last mine of its kind to remain in the South Wales Valleys. It was loc ...

Present day

The track was lifted in 1996, with the trackbed and most of the bridges left in situ. This formed the canal section of the

Taff Trail The Taff Trail () is a Walking in the United Kingdom, walking and cycle path that runs for between Cardiff Bay and Brecon in Wales. It is so named because it follows the course of the River Taff. Along much of its length, it follows the Natio ...

cycle route. In 2004,

Rhondda Cynon Taff Rhondda Cynon Taf (; RCT; also spelt as Rhondda Cynon Taff) is a county borough in the south-east of Wales. It consists of five valleys: the Rhondda Fawr, Rhondda Fach, Cynon, Taff () and Ely valleys, plus several towns and villages away from ...

council came to an arrange with

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

to buy the trackbed from just north of Maerdy Junction to Margaret Street, Pontygwaith and convert it into a relief road for Ynyshir. Construction work started in May 2005, removing the remains of Ynyshir station, the bridges at Llanwonno road and Station street, and the replacement of the Rhondda Fach bridge at Ynyshir and the Ynyshir road bridge. Today the A4233 Porth and Lower Rhondda Fach Relief Road (Porth Bypass), has meant a significant decrease in traffic flows through the main street, Ynyshir Road.

Preservation

In April 2019, a local group of enthusiasts looking to improve the local economic outlook by bringing tourists to the area, proposed reinstating the 3 miles of track north of Tylorstown to Maerdy. The proposal includes reinstatement of some stations and former industrial buildings.

References

{{Historical Welsh railway companies Taff Vale Railway Mining railways Railway lines in Wales Railway lines opened in 1875 Railway lines closed in 1964 Coal in Wales