Swansea railway station
This station is the first – and last – of seven passenger terminus stations which once existed in Swansea. The colour photo, courtesy of John Davies, shows the ‘Capitals United Express’ arriving from London in 1962.
The station opened in 1850 as the terminus of the South Wales Railway from Gloucester, engineered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Almost 700 guests gathered to celebrate the line’s opening at the two-platform station, which had an overall roof.
For decades the station was known as Swansea High Street, as there were so many others in Swansea. It was enlarged by the Great Western Railway in 1879 and 1923-1932, when the platform canopies we see today were installed. Coal and other items arrived at a goods yard near Hafod, north of the station.
The station is on a hillside, and the wall to the right of platform 4 was built to shelter passengers. East of the wall was a branch line, opened by the SWR in 1852, down to the North Dock, which had just been opened to cater for the booming export of coal and copper. The track was extended in 1863 to the South Dock, now home to Swansea marina. Also east of the station was the Swansea Canal, owned and operated by the GWR from 1860. Morfa Road follows the canal’s course past the station and rail yard to the north.
In 1893 a youth named Samuel Thomas was fined one shilling and told to pay legal costs for “soliciting porters’ work” at High Street station. However, the mayor of Swansea said the GWR had too few porters the station, and he’d often waited some time for his luggage to be carried. The mayor paid Samuel’s fine and costs.
In 1905 railwayman William Davis was killed while working as a shunter at Swansea High Street. As he walked near the coal siding, the last wagon of a passing train derailed and crushed him against stationary wagons. In 1938 railway checker J Hole died of injuries a month after being knocked down by a small shunting engine at Swansea High Street.
The 1929 aerial photo, courtesy of the Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Wales, is from the Aerofilms Collection of the National Monuments Record of Wales. In the top left corner is a turntable, where locomotives were turned to face the right way for their next departure.
As you leave the station, notice in the ground outside the entrance the words “Ambition is critical” – poet David Hughes’ riposte to an old saying that Swansea is the “graveyard of ambition”. The inscription is a product of Swansea council’s 1992 commissioning of local artists to produce poems about a sense of place.
With thanks to the Railway Work, Life & Death project for accident information, and to John Davies
Postcode: SA1 1NU View Location Map
Railway Work, Life & Death website
Copies of the aerial photo and other images are available from the RCAHMW. Contact: nmr.wales@rcahmw.gov.uk