Pontrilas railway station served the village of Pontrilas, Herefordshire, UK, and was on the Welsh Marches Line between Hereford and Abergavenny. The Golden Valley Railway ran from here through to the Midland Railway line at Hay on Wye. The station is now a private house offering B&B and a self-catering cottage.
The station closed in 1958 (see Pontrilas).
The remaining Railway infrastructure includes the operating Signal box. The sidings are still in use for infrastructure work and as a less often used Freight loop. As the end of the long climb from Abergavenny freight and the Steam specials prove a noisy spectacle coming through the station. In the South direction the long section between Pontrilas and Abergavenny frequently results in trains being held here awaiting a clear run into Abergavenny.
The branch line junction and bridge, crossing the A465 onto the Golden Valley railway has been demolished in road widening - only the abutment to the bridge remains.
During the 1990s rail freight operated to this set of sidings, delivering wood products to Pontrilas Sawmill. There were even mooted plans to open a short siding into it (this would have had to cross the A465 or replace the missing Golden Valley bridge so was unlikely in hindsight). Freight traffic ended when British Rail closed the Freightliner service.
There are a large number of other sized trains still to be seen in Pontrilas, as a large online Model Railway retailer - OnTracks.co.uk is based in the Business Unit below the Signal Box.
Famous quotes containing the words railway and/or station:
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“How soon country people forget. When they fall in love with a city it is forever, and it is like forever. As though there never was a time when they didn’t love it. The minute they arrive at the train station or get off the ferry and glimpse the wide streets and the wasteful lamps lighting them, they know they are born for it. There, in a city, they are not so much new as themselves: their stronger, riskier selves.”
—Toni Morrison (b. 1931)