Great Western Coffee Shop

The topography of the south Wales valleys has attracted railway lines in places that would never even be risk assessed these days. 

Littered all over the valleys are severed abutements of bridges, you can just make out where portals of tunnels are/were, where staions and other land was- or even odd-shaped streets to make you think how such a place once had a railway. Like the line to East Southsea for example down south from Fratton.

One such place that you may have seen is the almost-completely-subsided "Indiana Jones" track you can sometimes make out on the southbound line from Tresforest to the Estate,  Is it still there?  And when was it severered from the main line? 

It is a shame that moar infrastructure went in a bygone age - the valleys wouild have an awesome train service and Pontypridd station would not be looking like it is!

The Valleys DO have an awesome train service!

Indeed. My gran (and myself for a very short period) used to live in that area, and remarked on this more than once.

Maybe something to do with this (http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/stations/p/pontypridd_graig/index.shtml)?

There's loads of rail archaeology all the way up the Taff Valley.  Mostly abandoned lines caused by the obstructive attitude of the Taff Vale Railway Company, whose route is the present line (designed by Brunel incidentally).

There's this  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_Railway)as well a little further down the valley near Taff's Well.

Anorak with fur-lined hood, methinks. 

Treforest was a complicated place railwise.

To the  East was the Cardiff railway with its never used junction with the Taff Vale. This ran parallel to the Taff Vale to Taff Wells where it swung East to Coryton (still open). BR put in a link onto the Cardiff Railway from the Taff Vale North of Taff Wells in 1962 to link the coke ovens at Nantgarw and closed the Cardiff Railway North of Coryton.

To the West the Barry Railway ran high on the mountain through Pontypool Craig. There was a steep connection from the Barry at Tonteg to Treforest, which also linked to the Llantrisant Branch at Tonteg.

It is interesting that it took BR until 1962 to put the obvious link from the Taff Vale to the Cardiff. There were several other places in S. Wales where it took until the 60s for links to duplicate lines to be put in and eliminate redundant routes mostly freight. Although one was passenger with previously separate services on different routes sharing part of the same  route.

Hi,
This was my old stomping ground when I was young, the line I thought was from P Liner bone works untill I found this site http://members.lycos.co.uk/cardiffrail/TVR-TaffBranchLines.html. Just goes to show how great the railwys were in the Valleys

Basset

Went past the site of it today and for the first time in years had a look out of the window.  Could not see a thing - perhaps much overgrowth!