The Merthyr Tydfil & District Historical Society is pleased to announce the publication of Volume 34 of the Merthyr Historian.
The cost is £12, and volumes will initially be for sale at the Society’s next lecture at Canolfan Soar on Monday 4 November. They can also be ordered (for £12 plus p&p) via this blog at merthyr.history@gmail.com.
CONTENTS
VOLUME 33 (2024) ISBN 978-1-7391627-1-9
1. RememberingBrian Davies
2. The Welsh Heritage School’s Initiative. The winner of the 2024 prize from our Historical Society
3. ‘Carlton Working Men’s Hotel. “A great boon to Merthyr”’ (1911). Transcription by Carl Llewellyn
4. DENIED! Welshman Cuthbert Taylor and the abolition of boxing’s colour bar by Bill Williams
5. A Railway walk from Pantysgallog (High Level) Halt to Torpantau station (1961) by Alistair V. Phillips
6. The History of Merthyr Newspapers (and some of their Printers and Publishers) by D. Rhys Davies and Carl Llewellyn
7. Harris Schwartz: family, furniture and Merthyr’s Jewish community recalled by Rita (Schwartz) Silverman
8. Apprenticing a chemist in Dowlais, 1880, and all those concerned by Christine Trevett
9. The Almanack and Year Book 1897 Merthyr Tydfil. A Victorian Townsman’s Pride in the Press and in his home-town, the Best Shopping Centre in North Glamorgan by Mary Owen
10. A history of the education movement in the parish of Merthyr Tydfil (to 1896) by H. W. Southey from The Almanack and Year Book transcribed by Caroline Owen
11. The Quakers’ Yard Truant School: some glimpses of its history by Stephen Brewer, Carolyn Jacob and Christine Trevett
12. A school from the ashes. The British Tip and some reflections on the final years of Abermorlais School by Clive Thomas
13. A Little Gay History of Merthyr by Daryl Leeworthy
14. From Troedyrhiw to California. Welsh Immigrants in the Mount Diabolo Coalfield by David Collier
15. A History of Nonconformity in Dowlais by Stephen Brewer
16. ‘The Mighty Morlais’: A study in the history of Morlais Castle and its significant figures by Benedict Bray
17. Out and About with Cerddwyson by T. Fred Holley and John D. Holley
18. Our Excursion to Swansea transcription by Stephen Brewer
By the second half of the 19th century, Merthyr was served by several railway companies, one of which was the Brecon and Merthyr Tydfil Junction Railway (B&M) which, as its name implies, ran from Brecon to Merthyr.
A 1905 map showing the Railways around Merthyr and Dowlais
As early as 1836, Sir John Josiah Guest, of the Dowlais Ironworks, had written of his proposal to construct a railway linking Dowlais to the valley of the River Usk, and possibly also running into Brecon. The line would have pretty nearly covered the same route as was eventually adopted by the B&M. A similar proposal suggested a line running up the Taf Fawr valley over the Brecon Beacons via Storey Arms and thence to Brecon.
The Brecon and Merthyr Railway Company was established by a Bill of 1859, financially supported by several prominent Brecon citizens, and the complete route from Brecon to Merthyr Tydfil was authorised the following year. The first section to open was a 6.75 miles (10.86 km) section between Brecon and Talybont-on-Usk in 1863, which reused a section of a horse-drawn tram line. The Beacons Tunnel at Torpantau opened in 1868. Officially named the Torpantau Tunnel, at 1313 feet above mean sea level, it is the highest railway tunnel in Britain.
The system eventually came to comprise two sections of lines:
The Southern section, effectively the consumed Rumney Railway, which linked Bassaleg (where there were connections with the GWR and the London and North Western Railway) and the ironworks town of Rhymney, near the head of the Rhymney Valley.
The Northern section linked Deri Junction by means of running powers over a section of the Rhymney Railway in the Bargoed Rhymney Valley to Pant, Pontsticill and Brecon via a tunnel through the Brecon Beacons. From the tunnel the line descended towards Talybont-on-Usk on a continuous 1-in-38 gradient known as the “Seven-Mile Bank”. For southbound trains this presented the steepest continuous ascent on the British railway network.
Initially, the only connection to Merthyr Tydfil was by means of a horse-drawn bus from Pant, but by 1868, a connection with Merthyr at Rhydycar Junction had been established by sharing lines with Vale of Neath, London and North Western and Taff Vale railways. This involved the building of nearly seven miles of single line from Pontsticill to Merthyr, with an almost continuous descent of 1 in 45-50, two complete reversals of direction, and the construction of two viaducts to carry the line over the Taf Fechan at Pontsarn, and the Taf Fawr at Cefn Coed.
North of the Pontsarn viaduct, a connection was made with the LNWR’s Merthyr Extension line at Morlais Tunnel Junction from where the latter’s double track entered the 1034 yard Morlais Tunnel and beyond routed along the double line to Dowlais High Street and thence to Tredegar, Brynmawr and Abergavenny. The sections from Merthyr to Pontsticill and Bargoed through to Brecon were laid as single lines with passing loops and usually locomotive watering facilities at principal stations. For those single lines, tokens were issued to drivers from signal boxes at such locations and being essential for safe working over single lines.
The line was eventually amalgamated with the Great Western Railway in 1923, and by 1958, the line was running three services each way on weekdays, increasing to four on Saturdays, taking around 2½ hours to run from Brecon to Newport. Although surviving nationalisation, the service had run at a substantial loss for most of its lifetime, and was an obvious candidate for closure. Passenger services were closed from Pontsticill Junction to Merthyr Tydfil in November 1961, with the remainder of services stopping at the end of the 1962. The line was closed completely after the withdrawal of goods services in 1964.
Towards the end of the 1970s, a private company, the Brecon Mountain Railway, began to build a narrow-gauge steam-hauled tourist line on the existing 5.5-mile (8.9 km) trackbed from Pant through Pontsticill to Dol-y-gaer. The initial section of 1.75 miles (2.82 km) from Pant to Pontsticill first opened in June 1980. After more than 30 years of hard work and extra-funding, passenger services finally extended to Torpantau in April 2014, bringing the BMR to a total of approximately 5 miles in length.
For more about the Brecon Mountain Railway, please follow the link below:
