Symbolic Forest

Back on to my complex and fragmentary sequence of posts about the history of the complex and fragmentary South Wales railway network. It was prompted by news that Network Rail are working on upgrading the Ebbw Vale line to allow a better train frequency than once per hour, by widening the line from one track to two for a few miles around Aberbeeg. Changing the track, though, involves changing the signalling, and changing the signalling will involve getting rid of a little island of 19^th-century mechanical signalling that still exists in Casnewydd/Newport. It’s the signalbox at Park Junction, in the Gaer area of the city.

Read more...

Keyword noise: Cymru, Wales, Casnewydd, Newport, hanes, history, hanes lleol, local history, rheilffordd, railway, railway history, trains, Gaer, Cyffordd Parc, Park Junction, Tredegar Park, Great Western Railway, signalbox, signalling, Monmouthshire Canal, modernisation, Network Rail, maps, RCH, Railway Clearing House.

Last week, I posted a little bit about the history of the railway junction at Pye Corner, just outside Casnewydd/Newport. There, the original route of the horse-drawn tramway opened around 1805 is now a quiet, grassy back alleyway, with the railway that replaced it a few yards away. That railway line, now just a single-track branch, strides over the road into Bassaleg with a complex series of three parallel railway bridges, imposing and monolithic.

Read more...

Keyword noise: Cymru, Wales, Casnewydd, Newport, hanes, history, hanes lleol, local history, rheilffordd, railway, railway history, trains, Pye Corner, Great Western Railway, Monmouthshire Canal, maps, RCH, Railway Clearing House.

For a few months now, I’ve been threatening to start writing a long series of blog posts about the railway history of South Wales, starting in Newport and slowly radiating outwards. The question, of course, is how to actually do that in a format that will be interesting and engaging to read in small chunks; and, indeed, for me to write. The “standard” type of railway history comes in a number of forms, but none of them are particularly attractive to the casual reader. Few go to the point of setting out, to a random passing non-specialist reader, just why a specific place or line is fascinating; just what about its history makes it worth knowing about. Moreover, not only do they tend on the heavy side, they are normally based either on large amounts of archival research, large amounts of vintage photographs, or both. Putting that sort of thing together isn’t really an option for me at present, especially not for a blog post.

Read more...

Keyword noise: Cymru, Wales, Casnewydd, Newport, hanes, history, hanes lleol, local history, rheilffordd, railway, railway history, trains, Pye Corner, Great Western Railway, Monmouthshire Canal, maps, tithe maps.

One aspect of moving house, especially if you move to a completely different neighbourhood or another town altogether, is the joy you can have in exploring the new area, finding all the interesting corners and places to go. In the current hospitals-overflowing stay-at-home situation, this is a bit limited; but at least there is exploration that can still be done on foot. In Bristol I was getting rather jaded of all the places I could visit on foot, even when it led to interesting local history blog posts. Now, there’s a whole new set of avenues of local history to explore.

Read more...

Keyword noise: Cymru, Wales, Casnewydd, Newport, Tŷ Du, Rogerstone, camlas, canal, Monmouthshire Canal, rheilffordd, railway, railway history, Great Western Railway, hanes, hanes lleol, history, local history, walking, cerddediad.

It being Yuletide, there’s nothing quite like a ghost story. Was it Dickens who started the Christmas ghost story tradition, or is it more down to BBC schedulers of the 1970s? Never mind. It being Yuletide, we sat down in front of the telly to watch the latest BBC version of The Turn Of The Screw, by Henry James. It seems like only the other day that it was last made for the TV; but here it is again.

Read more...

Keyword noise: anachronism, BBC, Cranmore, East Somerset Railway, ghost stories, Great Western Railway, Henry James, literature, Peter Quint, television, The Turn Of The Screw.

Back in December, for K’s birthday, we took a day out to Bath.

Read more...

Keyword noise: Bath, Bath & North East Somerset, Brunel, chapel, Great Western Railway, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, photography, railway, Somerset, Sydney Gardens, telegraph pole, Walcot Chapel.

This week: it’s mostly trains

Read more...

Keyword noise: Bodmin, Bodmin & Wenford Railway, Bodmin General, Cornwall, engine, Great Western Railway, heritage, locomotive, photography, railway, station, steam engine, trains.

A fortnight after our holiday, I’ve finally managed to start uploading our holiday photos. We went to Bristol, and photographed outlying parts of the large and rambling railway station.

Read more...

Keyword noise: Bristol, Bristol & Exeter Railway, Great Western Railway, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, photography, railway station, Temple Meads, trains.