Held at: | Private Collection |
Reference: | RS |
Source: | Original Publication |
Title: | Transcription: The Newport, Abergavenny & Hereford Railway |
Place name: | Golden Valley, Ewyas Lacy |
Date: | 1811 - 1863 |
Description:
In the mid-19th century the Newport, Abergavenny and Hereford Railway formed a key transport link along the southern borders of Ewyas Lacy and the Golden Valley. As such it exerted an important influence over the economic and social development of the area. Developed from earlier local tramways, the NA&HR eventually became, and remains today, a strategic part of the UK National rail network under the banner of the Great Western Railway. There, it was also a pivotal factor in the decision to build the Golden Valley Railway from Pontrilas to Hay along the eastern boundary of Ewyas Lacy in the late 19th century. The origins and history of the NA&HR are described in a book about the History of the Great Western Railway by ET MacDermot, M.A. published in 1927, the relevant chapter of which is transcribed below.
Ewyas Lacy Study Group
THE NEWPORT, ABERGAVENNY & HEREFORD RAILWAY
During the Mania of 1844-6 a grand scheme, entitled "The Welsh Midland Railway," was before the public for a line from the Birmingham & Gloucester in the neighbourhood of Worcester through Hereford and Brecon to Merthyr, where it was to connect with the Taff Vale and so reach Cardiff, and on to Swansea, with branches to other South Wales ports. This never materialised, but a separate company, originally promoted to connect it with Newport, obtained enough local support to go to Parliament in 1846 with a Bill to incorporate the Newport, Abergavenny & Hereford Railway Company, which received the Royal Assent on 3rd August, the same day as that for the Shrewsbury & Hereford Railway.
The Monmouthshire Railway & Canal Company having been empowered in 1845 to make a line from Newport to Pontypool, this Act authorized a railway - not from Newport but “from a junction with the intended Newport and Pontypool Railway in the Parish of LLanvrechfa in the County of Monmouth, to the Widemarsh Turnpike in the Parish of St. John the Baptist in the City of Hereford," with no less than six branches: (1) to the Newport & Pontypool Railway in Panteague, (2) to Llangeview, (3) to Llanbaddock, (4) from Penpergwm to Ragland, (5) to Abergavenny Gasworks, (6) to Portfields, Widemarsh Street Without in Hereford. None of these branches was, however, made.
The ground between Abergavenny and Hereford was already occupied by three distinct Tramway - calling themselves Railway - Companies; these the new Company was empowered and indeed obliged to buy out. They were: first, the Llanvihangel Railway Company of 1811, from the Brecknock & Abergavenny Canal in the parish of Llanwenarth to Llanvihangel Crucorney; second, the Grosmont Railway Company of 1812, from the end of the last named to the 12th milestone on the road from Abergavenny to Hereford; and third, the Hereford Railway Company of 1826, from the Grosmont Railway at Monmouth Cap in the parish of Llangua to Wyebridge in the Liberties of the City of Hereford. The authorised capital of the new Company was £733,000 in £25 shares.
In the following year two more Acts were passed. One provided for certain deviations of the main line and a junction with the Shrewsbury & Hereford Railway near the Hereford & Gloucester Canal in Hereford as well as a joint station, the abandonment of the Portfields Branch, and the substitution of a different Gasworks branch at Abergavenny. The other authorized the important Taff Vale Extension line from the main line in Llanvrechva to a junction with the Taff Vale Railway near Quaker’s Yard, and the raising of £400,000 additional capital for its construction. A bill for a narrow-gauge line from Worcester to Hereford, promoted by the Midland Railway Company in the same session, failed to pass, as did also a rival broad-gauge project, surveyed by Brunel, to connect with the Monmouth & Hereford Railway of 1845.
Meantime the purchase of the three tramways had been arranged and deposits paid, the Company becoming entitled to their revenue from October 1846. In 1847 proposals were brought before the shareholders for the purchase of the old Rumney Railway and a lease of Sir B. Hall's tramroads in the Monmouthshire Valleys, but these were eventually abandoned. A contract for the main line between Pontypool and Abergavenny was let to Messrs. Rennie and Logan of Newport, the Company's Engineer being a Mr. Miller, but by the end of the year the general monetary crisis caused its suspension. An extension of the time for purchase of land and completion of the railway was obtained from the Commissioners of Railways and arrangements made with the three Tramway Companies for postponement of the contracts with them, after which the Newport, Abergavenny & Hereford Railway Company sank into a sleep destined to last for three years, disturbed only by Half-yearly Meetings in London, at which the Directors administered a further sleeping draught to such few Proprietors as were wakeful enough to attend.
At length, in February 1851, the latter were startled by the announcement that “influential parties” were taking an interest in the undertaking, and so there were prospects of renewed activity. The “influential parties” were no other than the authorities of the London & North Western Company, who, drawn by the prospect of the Great Western reaching Liverpool and Manchester through its recent agreement with the two Shrewsbury Companies, proposed to invade South Wales. At a Special General Meeting in May the Directors reported that they had engaged Mr. Charles Liddell as Engineer, and intended to take immediate steps to purchase the land for the main line, which the owners had agreed in most cases to sell at its agricultural value. The Shrewsbury & Hereford Railway was now, they said, certain to be made, giving a direct line to Birkenhead, and a line between Worcester and Hereford was being arranged for by the London & North Western and Midland Companies, which would afford communication with Birmingham and the Midlands. At this meeting the number of Directors was increased from five to fifteen, by the addition of four representatives of the Monmouthshire mineral districts, three of the County of Hereford, and three London & North Western Directors.
Soon after this, things began to move; the land was bought and a new contract for the whole line let to James Rennie of Newport, to be completed by the end of September 1853. In March 1852 the works were in active progress, and the Board had concluded a working agreement with the London & North Western to come into force on the opening of the Worcester & Hereford Railway, for which an ostensibly independent company was promoting a Bill in the current session of Parliament. This having been thrown out by the Lords, the North Western proposed to absorb the Newport Company and renew the Worcester & Hereford application next year.
Consequently, the Newport, Abergavenny & Hereford Company went to Parliament in 1853 with no less than five bills, three of them on behalf and at the cost of the North Western. These three were for powers to sell or lease the line to that Company, and to extend it to Swansea and Brecon respectively. The Report of the Cardwell Committee against such amalgamations caused the first to be dropped and the others went with it. Of the two remaining Bills in the Company's own interests, one was for new junctions at each end of the line, with the Shrewsbury & Hereford and Newport & Pontypool Railways respectively, and the other for deviation of part of the Taff Vale Extension and short spurs therefrom to connect with the Newport & Pontypool in Panteague, and with existing tramways at Llanhilleth, Pontlanfraith, and Mynyddysllwyn. These duly passed. The Worcester & Hereford Railway Bill also passed, but with all clauses giving powers to the North Western and Midland Companies struck out, the Lords intending that the line should be in the hands of a really independent company.
Meantime the works of the main line had been progressing satisfactorily, and the. purchase of the three tramways between Abergavenny and Hereford completed. The tram-plates were sold soon afterwards at a price only 15s. a ton less than that of new iron rails, and the remaining property of the old Companies disposed of by auction, except the first two miles of the " Llanvihangel Railway" which were retained to form a branch from the Brecon Canal at Govilon to the main line near Abergavenny. Early in 1853 the Directors began buying land for the Taff Vale Extension and in the autumn, work was begun on the tunnel at Hafodyrhynys and the great viaduct at Crumlin, stated then to be the largest viaduct in the world. It was to cross the Ebbw Valley at a maximum height of 200 feet, and to be 1650 feet long in two sections divided by the apex of an intervening hill, the main Eastern section being 1066 feet. The contract for the viaduct was taken by Mr. T.W. Kennard, whose design of braced cast iron tubes and girders had been selected by Liddell the Company’s Engineer. The first column of one of the principal piers was fixed with some ceremony on the 8th December 1853 by the Chairman of the Company, the Hon. W. E. Fitzmaurice and his wife Isabella, after whom the pier was named.
Two days before this, the formal opening of both the Shrewsbury & Hereford and Newport, Abergavenny & Hereford Railways was celebrated with great demonstrations; prematurely in the latter case as, owing to an extensive slip in the deep cutting at Llanvihangel, the Board of Trade Inspector, Captain Wynne, ordered a postponement, and, moreover, the station buildings were far from complete. The actual opening for traffic of the double line of Barlow rails from the junction with the Monmouthshire Company's Newport and Pontypool Line at Coedygric, about a mile south of Pontypool, to the Barton Station in Hereford took place on the 2nd January 1854. There were no engineering ·works of note on the line, unless the iron bridges over the Usk near Penpergwm and the Wye at Hereford can be so described. A mile of single line from the Barton Station to the Shrewsbury & Hereford at what is now known as Barr's Court Junction was also ready, but was not sanctioned for passenger trains till a fortnight later owing to the lack of proper signals at the junction. This mile was part of the Worcester & Hereford Railway, and though the Newport, Abergavenny & Hereford had conditional power to make it they actually did so as agents for the former Company, who were to repay the cost. At the South end of the railway, arrangements had been made with the Monmouthshire Company for the trains to work through to Newport, passengers using their Mill Street Station. The Newport, Abergavenny & Hereford had no statutory running powers over the Newport & Pontypool line, which had been opened as a single line in 1852 and was doubled in April 1854.
From the opening the traffic was worked by the London & North Western Company under a temporary agreement pending the completion of the Worcester & Hereford Railway, but this did not last long. Captain Huish, being bent on crushing the little Shrewsbury lines, refused to quote any through rates between Pontypool and Birkenhead or Wolverhampton by the direct routes, insisting on all the traffic being sent from Shrewsbury over his own line round by Stafford. The Newport, Abergavenny & Hereford Board considered this policy distinctly detrimental to the Company's interests, and, refusing to be drawn into the captain’s quarrels, decided, with the approval of the shareholders, to put an end to the working arrangement, which was accordingly terminated by mutual consent on the 1st October. The renewed application to Parliament for power to sell the line to the North Western was also abandoned, and Captain Huish’s action being brought before the Commons Committee on the Great Western and Shrewsbury Railways Amalgamation Bill helped to carry that measure.
The Directors then arranged with Mr. Brassey, the lessee of the Shrewsbury & Hereford, to provide locomotive power, and took the traffic working into their own hands, the North Western kindly continuing to provide carriages and other rolling stock. Finding the traffic was still kept down by the very limited engine power which Brassey could spare, they decided to take over that department too, and began work on the 1st January 1855, with four goods and three passenger engines. At the end of March the North Western withdrew their stock, and the contractor having failed to deliver the new carriages and waggons promised for the 1st of that month, the Company was for a short time in great difficulties and lost much traffic in consequence.
Work on the Taff Vale Extension had meanwhile been proceeding. In August 1854 the Directors reported that the line from Pontypool up the Glyn Valley had been altered by laying it along the bottom of the valley, the Glyn ponds being drained for the purpose, instead of cutting it out of the side of the hill along their margin, whereby the risk of landslips was avoided and the worst gradient improved from 1 in 38 to 1 in 48. [As a matter of fact, there are gradients there now of 1 in 42 for 500 yards and 1 in 45 for 1 ½ miles]
The Blaendare Tramroad had been acquired, affording needful sidings to the ironworks and collieries. On the 20th August 1855 the portion between Pontypool Road and the easy side of the valley at Crumlin was opened, though the sanction of the Board of Trade was not obtained until two months later. It was at first a single line laid with Barlow rails, 112 lbs. to the yard, to be worked by one engine, but was doubled soon afterwards. The branch to the Monmouthshire Company’s Western Valley Railway at Llanhilleth was completed at the same time but not opened for passenger traffic.
The Crumlin Viaduct was finished in May 1857, and after being thoroughly tested with heavy loads by the-Board of Trade Inspector was opened for traffic on the 1st June, together with a further section of some three miles of single line to Tredegar Junction, now known as Pontllanfraith, where a connection was formed with the· Sirhowy Tramway. On the 11th January following the Extension was completed by the opening of the remaining portion to the junction with the Taff Vale Railway at Quaker's Yard (Low Level) Station. This also was originally a single line. Meantime power had been obtained in 1857 for a further extension to join the Aberdare-Branch of the Vale of Neath Railway and also the Taff Vale Line there, but this was not effected till the Newport, Abergavenny & Hereford Railway had passed into the hands of the Great Western, by which time the line from Pontypool Road was double as far as Crumlin Station, and was being doubled thence onward.
The Coleford, Monmouth, Usk & Pontypool Railway Company was incorporated in 1853 to make the railway described by its lengthy title from a junction with the· Newport, Abergavenny & Hereford at a spot known as Little Mill not quite two miles north of Pontypool Road. It was opened thence to the town of Usk on the 2nd June 1856 and worked by the Newport Company till the 12th October 1857, when the line was extended to Monmouth Troy Station, and the owning Company took it into their own hands, hiring a, couple of engines from the Newport, Abergavenny & Hereford.
Throughout the period of its independent existence the only connection between the Newport, Abergavenny & Hereford Railway and the northern and midland districts - indeed, with the English railway system in general, for those at Hereford and Newport involved a break of gauge - was the fifty-mile stretch of single line of the Shrewsbury & Hereford. Hence the stagnation of the Worcester & Hereford Company was a serious matter. At last, in 1857 the Board took steps with the aid of the Oxford, Worcester & Wolverhampton, and later of the Midland, to provide financial support to that undertaking, and its works were commenced in the following year. Long before their completion, however, an amalgamation of the Newport, Abergavenny & Hereford with the Oxford, Worcester & Wolverhampton and Worcester & Hereford Companies was arranged, and, being sanctioned by Parliament, the Newport, Abergavenny & Hereford was merged in the West Midland Railway on the 1st July 1860.
Of its internal economy there is not much to be said. Save that the permanent way consisted of Barlow rails, it was an ordinary narrow-gauge line of the period, with semaphore signals. Its General Manager was Percy Morris, who had learned his business under Saunders at Paddington and became Goods Manager of the West Midland in 1860 and General Manager of the North Staffordshire some three years later. Charles Liddell was the Engineer and Alexander MacDonnell succeeded Mark Carr as Locomotive Superintendent in 1857. The locomotive shops, as well as the chief office of the Company, were at Barton Station, Hereford. At the time of the amalgamation the company possessed 19 goods and 7 passenger engines, all except three of the latter built by B. B. Wilson & Co. of Leeds, and having that firm's characteristic fluted domes and safety valve covers. The passenger carriages were the usual wretched four-wheeled flat-sided vehicles of the period, one of them destined to cause the frightful Shipton smash fourteen years later.
Observations:
Finally, in its turn, the West Midland Railway, containing the assets of the NA&HR, was amalgamated by Act of Parliament into the Great Western Railway with effect from 1st August 1863.
Ref: rs_ewy_0367