The Order of the Bed Planning: WVR 3

Part 3: Along the riverbank between green fields and hedges

Warning - The Order of the Bed Planning Department does not draw basic plans to scale.

This is Part 3 of the Order of the Bed's plans for reopening the Wye Valley Railway

Throughout the four principle articles of this section we will feature three ways to re-open the line. Option 1 is a simple system of four steps, around which these webpages were orientated. Option 2 is a simple case of re-opening the entire line in one go, which is merely provided in stages to fit in with the page format. Option 3 is a confused mess made worse by our decision not to restructure the pages for it. These are example plans which anyone trying to re-open the Wye Valley Railway is welcome to nick providing you let us join in the fun. They are not by any means on the verge of being implemented.

Part 3 involves rebuilding two river crossings, a road overbridge, a level crossing and 7 intermediate stations and halts on a railway which spends most of its time running through farmland. There are no serious works required with regard to diverting public footpaths.

Option 1: This would involve an extension to Redbrook, to serve Brockweir, Llandogo and St Briavels. It would also provide better transport up the Wye Valley. Coupled to this, it would encourage people to visit the area, thus bringing more money to this hithero undiscovered part of the Wye Valley. It would only be at this stage that Tintern station would be reconnected to the rail network, but once Tintern Bridge is rebuilt there are few obstructions between here and Penallt.

Option 2: The line would enter Tintern station, which would be suitably rebuilt, and then head northwards. Construction trains would hurry up the line leaving a complete and organised railway with idyllic stations, smooth track and suitably re-organised farmers' tracks in their wake.

Option 3: As the line extends north to Redbrook shuttle services would be inaugrated to run along the completed sections of line, allowing people to become used to the presence of the railway before the inaugration of year-round services between Monmouth and Chepstow. Tintern Quarry to Tidenham would still be used as a base. The line would continue to extend north towards Monmouth without taking a breather and doing some consolidating at Redbrook.

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Known as Tyndyrn in Welsh, Tintern is a small but historic village. In the 1100s the Cistercian monks decided that Tintern was a sufficently quiet place to build a monastery. The monastery was dissolved by Henry VIII in 1533 with a total population of less than 20 monks, but lots of very rich mineral full land (the Wye being a long river, it drains a large area, and so gets filled with a lot of water; it also starts on one of the wettest mountains in Britain, so it floods a lot). Also, this was the place where the 16th century saw brass manufactured for the first time in Britain. A fast flowing stream joins the Wye at Tintern and was employed by the many industries hereabouts.

1876 saw the opening of the Wye Valley Railway which provided three platforms, a cattle dock and excellent freight facilities for a station that was closer to Brockweir than Tintern (highlighted for a while in the title of "Tintern for Brockweir" until Brockweir gained a halt of its own in 1929) and not very close to any major industry. Three platforms were provided as this was a passing loop, the only one on the line - one for Monmouth, one for Chepstow and one for tourist trains. The station was sited on a steep gradient for the railway to climb up from the river floor, curve around, and cross the Wye before almost instantly entering Tintern tunnel. Specials were run here for people to visit Tintern Abbey, especially in the autumn. A Camping Coach was positioned here during the 1930s and 1950s so people could come and spend a week living in an old railway carriage and going around by rail transport. These camping coaches were extreamly popular, especially as most were in quiet, out of the way places (one was at the end of a branch which only saw one train a day - and that was freight only) but all holidaying on the railway network was stopped in 1939 for World War 2 and did not resume for many years. The bridge over the river was removed following closure and now creates something of a problem for preservationists as a 206 foot span would have to be found. The station is now a museum with a minature railway and shops with the old toilets refitted and back in use - an excellent place to break a journey.

We proposed skirting around and not stopping here, but now we have settled for a tourist railway if the relevant authorities are permitting we would save a bit of cash on a new embankment and use the old station.

A final comment on Tintern station and Tintern:

Passenger: It's a long walk from the town. Couldn't you have put the station there instead?

Stationmaster: We could have, sir, yes. But we decided that it would be more use on the railway.

Brockweir Halt today is a glorious example of at just how fast something can return to nature. Abandoned in 1964 (although the halt itself had been closed in 1959) and cleared of track in 1967, the halt has now reverted totally to nature. There is no trace of the platform, building, ramp (very likely now smothered by road improvements) or the friendly little trains which once used to run here, passing on a run of four trains, each way, each day. This photo was taken from the Brockweir bank of the river, the halt being sited amongst the trees around the road bridge. Brockweir and the halt were regularly flooded (Brockweir still is - the halt has passed on) and there is not an awful lot that can be done about this.

The bridge was built in 1906 - until then Brockweir could only be accessed by fording the river, which was somewhat difficult when it was in flood.

Llandogo Halt was the second halt to be opened on the line and served one of the largest conurbations on the route - possibly larger than Redbrook. The village was arguably a far better candidate for a station than Bigsweir but it was not to be. The halt opened in 1927 following the renaming of St Briavels & Llandogo as plain St Briavels. The halt facilities were very basic - one seat, one station sign, and the standard small corrogated galvanised steel shelter for this line. As the line was only single track only one platform face was needed. The lack of freight facilities at the halt was unfortunate as mail and parcels were, as a result, not accepted here and to collect the parcels the receivers had to walk a mile to St Briavels station. The halt was well positioned for the farm, the church and of course, Llandogo itself, which is scattered up a very steep hillside (as our research team can testify). While the farm, church and village have all survived, relatively unchanged until the recent felling of a few overlarge yew trees, the halt closed on the 5th of January 1959. The platform remained for some years but the gap for the railway between the slight cutting side and the platform has now gone and been tarmaced over, as seen on the 28th November 2004. Since then grass, trees and a garage have been added. Proposals for some time involved a two platform station but we have now settled for a single platform one. The thought was that this would be a good location for a passing loop as it is halfway along the line, but we discovered a regular interval service from Cardiff to Monmouth did not require a loop here when we assembled our first proper timetable.

St Briavels, seen from the English bank of the river. The building and goods shed still survive here (although the signal box has gone as it got in the way of road improvements following the dismantling of the railway). Originally named Bigsweir, after the nearby weir, it was after a little while renamed St Briavels & Llandogo. With the opening of Llandogo halt in 1927 the part "& Llandogo," was dropped. The station was known as St Briavels from then until its closure to passengers in 1959 and freight in 1964. Today the signalbox and level crossing have gone along, in the main, with traces of track and the air of a station. However, the chances are that St Briavels, which was a mile from the nearest town, was never very busy anyway until Friday 2nd January 1959, three days before closure to passengers. It held the record for being, in terms of how close it was to the places it was it was supposed to be serving, the most useless stopping point on the railway.

There is a fairly good chance that St Briavels was opened as an exchange point for the nearby weir so goods could be put on a train here. Since the railway took all the traffic, however, it was obsolete from its opening. It would have been a better idea to build the station at Llandogo.

The well-preserved station could easily be made into a gem of a re-opened station. It posesses the only surviving WVR goods shed, which was built in the same style as those at Tidenham and Redbrook. The station building at Redbrook used to be identical to this one, except it has now been demolished. (The station building at Tidenham looked completely different and therefore its design can no longer be studied, as it was removed to make way for the quarry loading facilities there).

Whitebrook Halt was the first halt to be opened on the line in Febuary 1927 and served the most remote village in a rather remote valley. The railway passed alongside the house through the garage which, of course was not there while the line was open. Behind the hedge is a bungalow which was probably built shortly after the halt closed. The platform was sited just alongside the hedge. On the 4th January 1959 the roof of the house in the background was white due to a fall of snow in the night while the walls were black. Now the building is white with a grey roof.

Whitebrook was very nearly the saviour of the passenger service, owing to it being too remote for buses, but it was also reckoned to be too small to justify a rail service. Now Whitebrook has no public transport (to the best of our knowledge). For some time we were not considering restoring a passenger service here, but we have now decided to re-instate the halt as a regular stopping place and make it suitable for walkers and tourists, although there is now little to see in Whitebrook.

Opened in 1931, Penallt Halt mainly served the Boat Inn, which, at times, is very much like a boat due to the River Wye's rather annoying habit of flooding to up to six feet or more above its normal level. Penallt Halt was built of wood with a wooden platform, supported by wooden trusses. The only other halt on the line like this was Wyesham, also opened in 1931, as all the others were built of earth with a wooden edging. Penallt can never have been all that busy, being some way from the village of Penallt itself, rather like most of the other stopping places on the railway. Today a track runs along the trackbed from Whitebrook to Penallt, and this photograph was taken looking down it southwards.

Penallt Viaduct was built of iron. It is seen here on a sunny March day from the border between England and Wales, which the line crossed three times and the trains were forced to cross four times on each journey. Should Wales ever gain independence this line would be nightmare to administer. It was quite enough of one when BR tried to close it, as they had to consult the authorities in Gloucester and Monmouth. Since they closed this line at the same time as the route to Ross-on-Wye, three authorities (Gloucester, Hereford and Monmouth) had to be consulted. Penallt Viaduct was the only thing that separated Penallt Halt and Redbrook - there were only some 300 yards between them. Underneath the viaduct were huge, cast iron "pillows", now slowly rusting away.

We are proposing to restore trains to this viaduct if restoration is cheaper than a new viaduct.

Redbrook, or Redbrook-on-Wye as it was known in its later years, was arguably the most useful station on the Wye Valley Railway. It was sited at the north-western corner of the small village of Redbrook and possesed station buildings like those of St Briavals, a signal box, a loop and a goods yard, with a goods shed marked on plans of the site. Unfortunately most photographs were taken of the station and not of the yard. The loop was outside the station, as the main platform was tightly constricted between the river and the A466. After complete closure, the station was demolished in the late 1960s to make way for a Little Chef cafe, with the goods yard becoming a car park complete with petrol station. This does not appear to have been successful, as by 1980 the cafe had gone and shortly after was replaced by these houses. The car park is still a car park (minus the petrol station, of which there is now only a concrete slab) and now has large stone blocks placed at the mouth to prevent the entry of lorries and coaches. Cars and vans, however, can still enter, and several were residing here when we visited in March 2004. The car park would remain in place as part of the re-opening, but unfortunately the owners of the houses would have to be moved for their houses to be incorporated into the station.

The English-Welsh border runs up the River Wye for most of the distance between Chepstow and Monmouth, but branches off at Redbrook. This is probably because of Monmouthshire now being counted as part of Wales (not that everyone is happy about this). The River Monnow, after which Monmouth takes its name, is the next river followed by the border, but comes into the Wye to the south of Monmouth town centre, making up part of the town defence. If the border went to the Monnow confluence and then turned off, the county town of Monmouthshire would be in England and therefore in Gloucestershire. To avoid this, the border turns off up the Upper Redbrook valleys and then runs at a radius of about two miles to the east around Monmouth until it meets the Monnow. For this to happen, the railway crosses the border twice in about 200 yards. As a result, the upper photo was taken from England - the tree with brown leaves on and the background hill are in Wales. If the station was re-opened station signs on the Northern half would be in Welsh and English, but on the Southern half would just be in English.

This is called having a stupid border in relation to a border county town, and, with the signs, having one county in a very patriotic- almost nationalistic- country.

Upper: Redbrook station site from the south. Lower: The point where the WVR crossed the A466 on an overhead girder bridge, looking south towards Redbrook station.

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17/07/09

	Brockweir Halt today is a glorious example of at just how fast something can return to nature. Abandoned in 1964 (although the halt itself had been closed in 1959) and cleared of track in 1967, the halt has now reverted totally to nature. There is no trace of the platform, building, ramp (very likely now smothered by road improvements) or the friendly little trains which once used to run here, passing on a run of four trains, each way, each day. This photo was taken from the Brockweir bank of the river, the halt being sited amongst the trees around the road bridge. Brockweir and the halt were regularly flooded (Brockweir still is - the halt has passed on) and there is not an awful lot that can be done about this. The bridge was built in 1906 - until then Brockweir could only be accessed by fording the river, which was somewhat difficult when it was in flood.
	Llandogo Halt was the second halt to be opened on the line and served one of the largest conurbations on the route - possibly larger than Redbrook. The village was arguably a far better candidate for a station than Bigsweir but it was not to be. The halt opened in 1927 following the renaming of St Briavels & Llandogo as plain St Briavels. The halt facilities were very basic - one seat, one station sign, and the standard small corrogated galvanised steel shelter for this line. As the line was only single track only one platform face was needed. The lack of freight facilities at the halt was unfortunate as mail and parcels were, as a result, not accepted here and to collect the parcels the receivers had to walk a mile to St Briavels station. The halt was well positioned for the farm, the church and of course, Llandogo itself, which is scattered up a very steep hillside (as our research team can testify). While the farm, church and village have all survived, relatively unchanged until the recent felling of a few overlarge yew trees, the halt closed on the 5th of January 1959. The platform remained for some years but the gap for the railway between the slight cutting side and the platform has now gone and been tarmaced over, as seen on the 28th November 2004. Since then grass, trees and a garage have been added. Proposals for some time involved a two platform station but we have now settled for a single platform one. The thought was that this would be a good location for a passing loop as it is halfway along the line, but we discovered a regular interval service from Cardiff to Monmouth did not require a loop here when we assembled our first proper timetable.
	St Briavels, seen from the English bank of the river. The building and goods shed still survive here (although the signal box has gone as it got in the way of road improvements following the dismantling of the railway). Originally named Bigsweir, after the nearby weir, it was after a little while renamed St Briavels & Llandogo. With the opening of Llandogo halt in 1927 the part "& Llandogo," was dropped. The station was known as St Briavels from then until its closure to passengers in 1959 and freight in 1964. Today the signalbox and level crossing have gone along, in the main, with traces of track and the air of a station. However, the chances are that St Briavels, which was a mile from the nearest town, was never very busy anyway until Friday 2nd January 1959, three days before closure to passengers. It held the record for being, in terms of how close it was to the places it was it was supposed to be serving, the most useless stopping point on the railway. There is a fairly good chance that St Briavels was opened as an exchange point for the nearby weir so goods could be put on a train here. Since the railway took all the traffic, however, it was obsolete from its opening. It would have been a better idea to build the station at Llandogo. The well-preserved station could easily be made into a gem of a re-opened station. It posesses the only surviving WVR goods shed, which was built in the same style as those at Tidenham and Redbrook. The station building at Redbrook used to be identical to this one, except it has now been demolished. (The station building at Tidenham looked completely different and therefore its design can no longer be studied, as it was removed to make way for the quarry loading facilities there).
	Whitebrook Halt was the first halt to be opened on the line in Febuary 1927 and served the most remote village in a rather remote valley. The railway passed alongside the house through the garage which, of course was not there while the line was open. Behind the hedge is a bungalow which was probably built shortly after the halt closed. The platform was sited just alongside the hedge. On the 4th January 1959 the roof of the house in the background was white due to a fall of snow in the night while the walls were black. Now the building is white with a grey roof. Whitebrook was very nearly the saviour of the passenger service, owing to it being too remote for buses, but it was also reckoned to be too small to justify a rail service. Now Whitebrook has no public transport (to the best of our knowledge). For some time we were not considering restoring a passenger service here, but we have now decided to re-instate the halt as a regular stopping place and make it suitable for walkers and tourists, although there is now little to see in Whitebrook.
	Opened in 1931, Penallt Halt mainly served the Boat Inn, which, at times, is very much like a boat due to the River Wye's rather annoying habit of flooding to up to six feet or more above its normal level. Penallt Halt was built of wood with a wooden platform, supported by wooden trusses. The only other halt on the line like this was Wyesham, also opened in 1931, as all the others were built of earth with a wooden edging. Penallt can never have been all that busy, being some way from the village of Penallt itself, rather like most of the other stopping places on the railway. Today a track runs along the trackbed from Whitebrook to Penallt, and this photograph was taken looking down it southwards.
	Penallt Viaduct was built of iron. It is seen here on a sunny March day from the border between England and Wales, which the line crossed three times and the trains were forced to cross four times on each journey. Should Wales ever gain independence this line would be nightmare to administer. It was quite enough of one when BR tried to close it, as they had to consult the authorities in Gloucester and Monmouth. Since they closed this line at the same time as the route to Ross-on-Wye, three authorities (Gloucester, Hereford and Monmouth) had to be consulted. Penallt Viaduct was the only thing that separated Penallt Halt and Redbrook - there were only some 300 yards between them. Underneath the viaduct were huge, cast iron "pillows", now slowly rusting away. We are proposing to restore trains to this viaduct if restoration is cheaper than a new viaduct.
	Redbrook, or Redbrook-on-Wye as it was known in its later years, was arguably the most useful station on the Wye Valley Railway. It was sited at the north-western corner of the small village of Redbrook and possesed station buildings like those of St Briavals, a signal box, a loop and a goods yard, with a goods shed marked on plans of the site. Unfortunately most photographs were taken of the station and not of the yard. The loop was outside the station, as the main platform was tightly constricted between the river and the A466. After complete closure, the station was demolished in the late 1960s to make way for a Little Chef cafe, with the goods yard becoming a car park complete with petrol station. This does not appear to have been successful, as by 1980 the cafe had gone and shortly after was replaced by these houses. The car park is still a car park (minus the petrol station, of which there is now only a concrete slab) and now has large stone blocks placed at the mouth to prevent the entry of lorries and coaches. Cars and vans, however, can still enter, and several were residing here when we visited in March 2004. The car park would remain in place as part of the re-opening, but unfortunately the owners of the houses would have to be moved for their houses to be incorporated into the station. The English-Welsh border runs up the River Wye for most of the distance between Chepstow and Monmouth, but branches off at Redbrook. This is probably because of Monmouthshire now being counted as part of Wales (not that everyone is happy about this). The River Monnow, after which Monmouth takes its name, is the next river followed by the border, but comes into the Wye to the south of Monmouth town centre, making up part of the town defence. If the border went to the Monnow confluence and then turned off, the county town of Monmouthshire would be in England and therefore in Gloucestershire. To avoid this, the border turns off up the Upper Redbrook valleys and then runs at a radius of about two miles to the east around Monmouth until it meets the Monnow. For this to happen, the railway crosses the border twice in about 200 yards. As a result, the upper photo was taken from England - the tree with brown leaves on and the background hill are in Wales. If the station was re-opened station signs on the Northern half would be in Welsh and English, but on the Southern half would just be in English. This is called having a stupid border in relation to a border county town, and, with the signs, having one county in a very patriotic- almost nationalistic- country. Upper: Redbrook station site from the south. Lower: The point where the WVR crossed the A466 on an overhead girder bridge, looking south towards Redbrook station.