Aberystwyth railway station
This station opened in 1864, when passenger trains began over the newly built extension of the Cambrian Railways line from Whitchurch to Machynlleth. Parliament had authorised the Aberystwyth & Welch Coast Railway (which soon merged with the Cambrian) to link towns along the Cardigan Bay coast.
A second railway opened in 1867, linking Aberystwyth to Lampeter and Carmarthen. Trains departing for Carmarthen made a wide U-turn after leaving the station and climbed towards the coastline south of the town.
There were goods sidings on the land now occupied by Rheidol Retail Park. Goods porter Frank Mills was injured at work in 1904 and in 1905 but the Cambrian Railways declared both accidents his own fault. Later in 1905 he was sacked and sentenced to three months in jail with hard labour for animal cruelty. He had loaded 18 pigs into a wagon without cleaning out enough of the lime used to sterilise the wagon, resulting in burns to the pigs as they travelled to Birmingham. The local MP and others spoke out, suggesting Frank hadn’t had enough time to clean the wagon, and the sentence was reduced to 28 days.
The grand station frontage was erected by the Great Western Railway in 1924-25 in a general upgrade of the Cambrian Railways system, which had recently been merged into the GWR. The GWR extended the platform canopies here.
The old photo, courtesy of the Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Wales, shows the station c.1960. It is from the Rokeby Collection of the National Monuments Record of Wales.
The service to Carmarthen ended in 1964. In 1968 the area of the station previously used for Carmarthen trains became the new terminus of the narrow-gauge Vale of Rheidol Railway, which still uses vintage GWR steam locos.
Trains to Shrewsbury and Birmingham continue, using only one platform. In 2010 the ex-Cambrian Railways lines became the first in Britain to use the European Train Control System (level 2), in the UK’s pilot installation.
The GWR building and part of the former platform area is now a JD Wetherspoon pub called Yr Hen Orsaf ("The Old Station"), continuing a long tradition at the station. In 1870 the Cambrian News reported that a Mr Proger was granted a licence for the new “refreshment room at the railway station … notwithstanding the urgent opposition offered against him by proprietors of alehouses in that vicinity”.
Postcode: SY23 1LH View Location Map
Copies of the old photo and other images are available from the RCAHMW. Contact: nmr.wales@rcahmw.gov.uk.
More about Aberystwyth railway staff and their accidents - Railway Work Life & Death website
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