The Pontypool and Blaenavon Railway () is a volunteer-run heritage railway in South Wales, running trains between a halt platform opposite the Whistle Inn public house (famed for its collection of miners' lamps) southwards to the town of Blaenavon via a two-platform station at the site of former colliery furnace of the Big Pit National Coal Museum.
The line is the highest preserved standard-gauge line in the United Kingdom, and also uniquely having the only standard-gauge rail-over-rail bridge within preservation.
History of the line
The line from Brynmawr to Blaenavon was originally built under an Act of 1866 by the Brynmawr and Blaenavon Railway and immediately leased to the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) to transport coal to the Midlands via the Heads of the Valleys line. The line was completed in 1869 and the LNWR commenced operating passenger trains over the line the following year (1870). Eight years later it was extended to meet the Great Western Railway (GWR) at Abersychan & Talywain. Here the line carried on down the valley through Pontypool Crane Street Station to the coast at Newport. In 1922, the LNWR was grouped into the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. In later years the line saw a variety of GWR locomotives operating from pit to port, however the railway retained its LNWR infrastructure up until the very last days before its closure.
Coal traffic
From the turn of the century the line served mining activity centred on several pits and collieries between Brynmawr and Waunafon. The first of these was the Waun Nantyglo colliery, which was situated a little east of a tramway which later carried the B4248 Brynmawr to Blaenavon Road. The connection was removed by 1925. As Waunafon was approached on a facing branch to the left was built, leading to Clydach colliery, but these had gone by 1915, to be replaced by New Clydach Colliery sidings. Vestiges of these remained until 1950. Some south of Waunafon station a branch, built in 1870, veered to the West to serve the Milfraen Colliery. The space between the single-platform station at Waunafon and the branch was occupied by a series of loops and sidings. In 1913 a small platform, called Garn-yr-Erw halt was built just north of the Whistle Road Bridge. This halt had no timetable for passengers as it was used only by miners.
Closures
By 1938 Milfraen Pit had ceased production having exhausted its own coal reserves, the branchline that served it was removed in 1937. The line was closed to passengers, not during the Beeching Cuts which befell the GWR route to Blaenavon Low Level, but in 1941 due to the exigencies of the Second World War. Blaenavon shed closed in 1942 and eventually goods also ceased in 1954. The line was retained for wagon storage until 1953, and around 1950, a temporary siding was laid in connection with opencast workings on the Blorenge, branching east roughly at the point where the Milfraen Colliery branch had previously branched west. The declining situation continued through the 1950s, then Varteg Hill subsequently closed in 1964, leaving Big Pit as the primary exporter of coal left. The once double track to Pontypool was then singled in June 1965. Although passenger and goods traffic had long ceased to Brynmawr the track was re-laid by the NCB to just south of Waunafon station again during the 1970s for the Black Lion Disposal Point washery.
Although the track along the whole route to Brynmawr was finally lifted in July 1961, the section from Blaenavon to Pontypool was still in use for coal trains from other local mines until Big Pit finally closed in 1980. The line from Cwmbran was dismantled right up to outside Blaenavon High Level station whilst the washery and other colliery buildings were demolished during 1987. Much of the railway today has now become part of the National Cycle Network Route 46.
Visitor attraction
The railway between Furnace Sidings and was opened to visitors in 1983. It runs every weekend between spring and September. There is also a selection of special weekends through the spring and summer, daily (with the exceptions of Monday and Fridays) in August, as well as Santa Specials nearing Christmas.
The railway did not increase its length of track for a quarter century after its opening, but increased as a going concern, with a larger number of volunteers, a larger amount of operational rolling stock, and more definite plans for the railway's future.
Expansion of the P&BR
In May 2010 the railway was extended a distance of roughly southwards to the site of the former Blaenavon High Level station (once the London and North Western Railway's station in the town).