9 May 1960

Notes: The Quakers Yard and Merthyr railway line opened on 1 April 1886. There was however already a railway running part of the way down the west bank of the River Taff, the private Gethin Railway belonging to the Cyfarthfa Ironworks. It served the two Gethin Pits and Castle Pit

Abercanaid station had two facing platforms on the north side of Graig Road bridge. The main station building, which incorporated the stationmaster's house, was at the south end of the up platform on the east side of the bridge. The two-storey building was of rock-faced stone, coupled arched windows with pale surrounds contrasting with dark stone. The roof had half-hipped gables and three prominent chimneystacks. Entrance was from the road into the upper floor with an arched exit onto the platform on the ground floor. The building was a mirror image of the building at Aberfan.

A wide curving ramp from the road gave access to the down platform. A stone built waiting room with a sloping roof stood at the back of the down platform. The station was gas lit, gas being supplied by the local Caedraw gasworks on the south west side of Merthyr. Caedraw closed in the first decade of the 20th century. It was replaced by The Willows gasworks nearby at Brandy Bridge. From photographs, the lamps had an upright, as opposed to inverted, burner and burned with a naked flame within a glass dome. It is assumed they were later upgraded with incandescent mantle lighting - it is highly unlikely the naked flame lamps survived until closure as they were little better than oil lamps.

A signal box stood at the north end of the up platform. This controlled access to the goods yard on the down side of the line and coal sidings on the up side. The goods yard comprised three parallel sidings running behind the up platform up to Graig Road. A loop ran off the furthest siding east through a goods shed. The shed was of stone construction with a pitched roof and a canopy over its east side to offer weather production for unloading/loading road vehicles. One of the sidings served Crawshay Brothers (Cyfartha) Ltd who owned the Cyfartha Ironworks. Road access to the yard was from Graig Road. The yard only handled general goods, parcels and coal and had no facilities for livestock. Somewhere in the yard there was a 1 ton 10 cwt capacity crane. Sidings immediately south of Graig Road bridge led to Gethin No. 1 and Gethin No. 2 collieries. Gethin Collieries had a private miners’ platform in use between 1915 and 1928.

Abercanaid was renamed Abercanaid and Pentrebach on 9.9.1913. Pentrebach was on the east side of the Taff Valley and had its own station on the Taff Valley line. Abercanaid reverted to its original name on 1.7.1924. The station closed to passenger traffic on 12 February 1951 following mining subsidence that threatened the viaduct at Edwardsville. The line remained open as a long siding from Merthyr. Aberconway remained open to goods traffic until 9 May 1960. The platform buildings were quickly demolished and the track was lifted shortly after closure. The main station building survived through the 1960s. During the 1960s coal was extracted from the tips to the north of the station and waste from this operation gradually washed down and filled the track bed between the platforms. The station area was often thick with deep mud.

The A470 dual carriageway was built between the M4 and Abercynon in the 1960s and 1970s. It was extended north between Abercynon and Pentrebach in the 1980s utilising part of the former Quakers Yard to Merthyr line north of Aberfan. The road was further extended north in the 90s with the Merthyr Expressway, as it is now known, opening between Pentrebach and Merthyr in 1996. In the mid 1980s the trackbed was cleared around Abercanaid to allow road building materials to be brought to the site. By this time the platforms were completely buried.

The new road did not actually pass through Abercanaid station but any remaining evidence of the station was lost under the earthworks for the east carriageway cutting. Graig Road bridge was demolished in the early 1990s. The cast iron girders from the bridge were used to support a small bridge on the Taff trail a few hundred yards down from the Cefn viaduct. The bridge girders were made in north Wales and have 'Brymbo 1884' (the line opened in 1886) marked on the side. The bridge must have replaced an earlier bridge on the private Gethin Railway.

The original Waun Wyllt mine (or Abercanaid Level) was opened by Robert and Lucy Thomas about 1824 (SO045040) and became the first to mine the 4 foot seam of steam coal which was supplied to households in Merthyr and Cardiff. A short tramway was built from Thomas's Level to the Glamorgan Canal. After Robert's death, his wife Lucy took over the business and it wasn't long before coal was being shipped to London. Lucy became known as 'the mother of Welsh steam coal trade'. Lucy Thomas moved from Waunwyllt Level in the mid 1830s when the lease ran out and she continued her business by leasing the 60 yard deep Graig pit nearby. This mine closed in 1870. The Thomas Merthyr Colliery Company opened another Waun Wyllt Level in 1909 at Nant Graig (SO049034) just west of Abercanaid station.

Exchange sidings and a loading area were established on the west side of Abercanaid station. Three standard gauge sidings and a weighbridge were laid down in 1907, under an agreement dated 27 May1907, with Thomas Brothers who were opening Thomas Merthyr Colliery. The firm had a large fleet of their own wagons. One of these sidings ran through a transfer shed which was also served by the narrow gauge tramway running from the mine to the south. Coal was transferred from narrow gauge wagons to standard gauge wagons in the shed.

In 1918 Waun Wyllt and Gorllwyn Level employed 117 men underground and 20 on the surface. The mine, which produced house coal from the Haford and Gorllwyn seams, closed on 13 July 1920 and was abandoned.
The 1919 OS map reproduced below shows the colliery but few buildings associated with it. I have marked colliery buildings pink. If you follow the tramway south you get to the mine. From the map it was clearly a drift mine rather than a deep mine, with no buildings at the adit.

BRIEF HISTORY OF THE QUAKERS YARD AND MERTHYR JOINT RAILWAY
The Rhymney Railway was founded to transport minerals and materials to and from collieries and ironworks in the Rhymney Valley of South Wales, and to docks in Cardiff. It opened a main line in 1858, and a limited passenger service was operated in addition.

The first line was dependent on the cooperation of the parallel Taff Vale Railway (TVR) for part of the transit, and this relationship was uneasy; the Rhymney Railway built an independent line to Cardiff in 1871. Better relations were created with the London and North Western Railway (LNWR), and later the Great Western Railway (GWR), and two important joint lines with the GWR were built: the Taff Bargoed line (1876) and the Quakers Yard and Merthyr Joint line in 1882.

Quakers Yard was a very busy railway junction. It had three viaducts, the first was a six arch viaduct built by Brunel in 1840. It carried the Taff Valley Railway to Merthyr along the east bank of the River Taff. This viaduct is still in use today. Quakers Yard was also the junction between the Taff Valley Railway and the Taff Vale Extension (TWE) of the Newport, Abergavenny & Hereford Railway. This line passed over a second viaduct before entering a tunnel to reach the Cynon Valley below Aberdare from where it ran on to Neath and Swansea. With the arrival of the Rhymney Railway this diverged from the TWE at Quakers Yard along the west bank of the River Taff. This required the building of a third viaduct, parallel to the second but curving away northwards towards Merthyr from it. 

Quakers Yard viaducts No 2 (foreground) and No 3. From Quakers Yard station a line passed over the second viaduct before entering a tunnel to reach the Cynon Valley below Aberdare from where it ran on to Neath and Swansea. The Rhymney Railway, later diverged from the Swansea line at Quakers Yard running along the west bank of the River Taff. This required the building of a third viaduct, parallel to the second but curving away northwards towards Merthyr from it. Both viaducts have now been demolished.
Photo from John Mann collection

Although the Rhymney Railway network was never large, it was remarkably profitable, and paid excellent dividends for most of its life. Dependent on mineral traffic for its own success, it declined in the 1970s, but the main line from Rhymney to Cardiff remains in heavy use as a local passenger line.

Although the GWR already had a presence at Merthyr through the Vale of Neath line, up to that point the Taff Vale Railway had a monopoly of the direct routes from Merthyr to the south and east.

The Quakers Yard and Merthyr line was opened on 1 April 1886 from the Taff Vale Extension line at Quakers Yard, running up the west side of the River Taff to Merthyr, ending at the GWR station there. Colliery and ironstone pit connections were made intermediately, and a branch line spur crossed the Taff to get access to the important Merthyr Vale colliery. The QY&MR Joint Line crossed the river Taff immediately after leaving Quakers Yard station.

There was already a railway running part of the way down the west bank: the private Gethin Railway belonging to the Cyfarthfa Ironworks. This could be latched onto in the vicinity of Abercanaid, and a simple spur provided where it crossed the GWR Hirwain line to bring the joint trains into Merthyr High Street station.
     
The line opened for passenger traffic on 1 April 1886, trains using the High Street station at Merthyr. The new line crossed over the Taff Vale line and the Glamorganshire Canal shortly after leaving Quakers Yard GWR (later High Level) station. At nearly 2 miles south there was a branch on the east side to the Merthyr Vale group of coal pits, crossing the river on a long steel viaduct. Initially there were only two intermediate stations at Aberfan and Abercanaid, with the service being worked by the Rhymney company. At Cyfarthfa Level Crossing Junction, where the spur to the former Vale of Neath line ran round Glyndyris Pond, the private Gethin Railway ran straight on to the Cyfarthfa Ironworks, with a branch to the east running up to the Ynys Fach works, and. Rhymney goods trains and workmen's trains ran up to Cyfarthfa Furnace Tops.

The Taff Vale Railway introduced what it called "motor cars" (that is, rail motors) in 1905. These were single coaches incorporating a small steam engine integrated with the coach. The intention was to enable station calls at low-cost structures in rural areas. The Rhymney Railway observed the considerable success of the Taff Vale scheme, and in 1907 procured two such vehicles from Hudswell Clarke to its own design; the steam engine part was a small 0-4-0 tank engine with 3 ft 6 in wheels. The carriage part was supplied by Cravens. There were soon complaints of unsteady running, and a trailing axle was added to the locomotive unit, with 2 ft 9 in wheels.

One additional new station at Troedyrhiw was opened on the Quakers Yard to Merthyr line on 18 February 1907 to make use make use of these 'cars' (renamed Troedyrhiw Halt in 1924). The 'cars' were not a success; one was rebuilt in 1910, making a separate carriage and engine. The other was used until 1919 on the Penrhiwfelin workmen's train, and then modified in the same way as the other. Another new station, Pontygwaith Halt opened 11 September 1933. There were also a number of private and untimetabled stations for colliery workers. Gethin Pits Platform was in use between 1915 and 1928 and Castle Pit Platform was in use between 1897 and 1915. There was also a Merthyr Vale Miners Platform at the junction with the branch to the collieries.

Over the years, the second and third viaducts over the River Taff were affected by the underground movements of the coal workings of Deep Navigation Pit in Treharris, which travelled in a westerly direction. Even to this day there are still subsidence issues in Edwardsville. Both viaducts had timber reinforcements in their arches to make them safe, but by the early 1950s the third viaduct became unsafe and this brought a premature termination of the passenger operation on the QY&M line in February 1951 with the closure of four stations and halts. The line was singled in 1952 but remained in use operated as a long siding from Merthyr. Aberfan station remained open to goods traffic until 1 November 1954 and track lifting at the southern end of the line began a year later. Coal wagons were stored along the line near Castle Pit into the mid-1950s and Abercanaid remained open for goods traffic until 9 May 1960, although by this date it only handled coal. Although Troedyrhiw Halt closed to passengers in 1951 it was retained for use by mine workers until 1 November 1954. After the closure of Abercanaid to coal traffic the remaining track was quickly lifted. The third viaduct of the River Taff at Edwardsville was demolished in 1969.

Ticket from Michael Stewart, Route map drawn by Alan Young.

Sources:

• Rhymney Railway - Wikipedia
• Quakers Yard and Merthyr Joint Railway - Wikipedia
• Railways of Edwardsville/Quakers Yard - web site
• Clinker, C R Register of closed passenger stations and goods depots
  (Avon Anglia 1978)
• Quick, Michael Railway passenger stations in Great Britain: a chronology
  (RCHS 2009)
• Welsh Coal Mines web site and forum

See also:Abercanaid, Troedyrhiw Halt, Aberfan & Quakers Yard High Level