Llantrisant Aberthaw line

Cowbridge Railway

The Cowbridge Railway Company was incorporated in 1862. It had an authorised capital of £35,000. The contractors were Messrs Griffiths & Thomas of Newport. The first sod of the railway was cut on 9 June 1863. Problems arose due to the slowness of the land acquisition, but the line was complete for inspection by late 1864. It was a single track, 5 miles and sixty chains long, having been laid with 65 lb rails with a ballast of gravel. The inspector from the Board of Trade failed the line because of the unfavourable location of Ystradowen station and the location of the waiting room at Llantrisant station. These were both modified in early 1865. The line had been built extremely cheaply in general. The culverts had been built with fallen tree-trunks, rather than masonry. The extreme cost-cutting was echoed in the flimsy fencing, the unfinished appearance of the earthworks and the inferior ballast. The Taff Vale Railway, which initially worked the line, refused to do so because it was not being maintained adequately. The Company could not afford this. Indeed, they could not afford to honour the pledge of the Lloyds bonds made for the supplier of rails, who subsequently issued writs against the company. The bailiffs took possession of the railway in 1867 and auctions of movable assets were held later that year. The Chairman, R. C. Nicol-Carne, was forced to buy most of the railway's property, which he then leased back to it. The Taff Vale Railway refused to purchase, lease or work the line and after 1870, the company attempted to work the line itself, but this was not a financial success either. The Taff Vale Railway eventually agreed to lease the line in perpetuity from 1876. They would absorb the company completely in 1889, along with the Llantrisant and Taff Vale Junction Railway

Cowbridge and Aberthaw Railway

The Cowbridge and Aberthaw Railway was formed to serve the Aberthaw Lime Works. It was supported by the Taff Vale, because the latter wanted to poach traffic from the Barry Railway if the schemes to turn Aberthaw into a port came to fruition. The Cowbridge and Aberthaw Railway was unable to fulfil its ambitions: Aberthaw was never developed as a port and the building of the Vale of Glamorgan Line prevented it from extending to Barry. Due to its crippling financial issues, the Cowbridge and Aberthaw Railway was also taken over by the Taff Vale Railway in 1895.

Route

Starting out from Llantrisant, the line ran parallel with that of the Great Western Railway for a short time. It then crossed the River Ely on a girder bridge and turned south by almost ninety degrees. To the west, sidings served a weighing machine and the broad gauge exchange with the South Wales Railway. At the first overbridge (half a mile from Pontyclun), the line turned ninety degrees west and ran beside the Nant Felinfach up to the Llanharry Road Bridge. To this point, gradients were gentle, but they now steepened to 1 in 66 on the climb up to the bridge. Here, the line then followed the Nant Rhydhalog. Also at the bridge was the siding for a branch line to coal and iron mines at Llanharry. The line then descended at 1 in 84 before crossing the Llantrisant-Cowbridge toll road. It then crossed over the Morfa Ystradowen moor, then climbing out of the catchment of the Ely. At Ystradowen, the gradient steepened to 1 in 45 to the summit in the Ystradowen cutting, which was fifteen feet deep and was the heaviest earthwork on the line. The railway then descended into the catchment of the River Thaw. The two miles to Cowbridge were relatively straight and easily graded. After leaving Cowbridge, the line passed beneath two roads, crossing higher ground to rejoin the Thaw at St Hilary. It then ran east of the Thaw to St Mary Church, then crossed the moor at Flemingston and turned south at Llanbethery. It continued over the floodplain for a mile on an embankment, then passed through a shallow cutting and crossed over a rough track on a bridge before reaching Aberthaw.

Stations served

Closure

The Aberthaw extension was never profitable, and couldn't survive once bus services were established in the area, closing to passengers in 1930 and to goods in 1932. The track was lifted in the 1940s for scrap metal. The Cowbridge branch lasted until 1951, when passenger services ended. Goods traffic carried on until 1965. The line had just reached its centenary, which was ignored in the town. The section to Llanharry remained in use for another decade, but closed in 1977 when it became clear that the iron ore traffic would not revive.