Pontypool, Caerleon and Newport Railway

The Pontypool, Caerleon & Newport Railway was promoted independently to relieve congestion on the heavily worked Eastern Valley Line of the Monmouthshire Railway and Canal Company. The Great Western Railway put up half the capital, making it in effect a GWR subsidiary. It opened in 1874, and most long distance passenger and goods traffic, especially the heavy mineral traffic, transferred to it. It amalgamated with the GWR in 1876.

The Llantarnam Link, connecting the upper Eastern Valley network, was opened in 1878 and from that time most local traffic transferred to the line.

The main line was increasingly used for long distance passenger and goods traffic, especially from Bristol and the West of England after the opening of the Severn Tunnel. As local traffics declined and were extinguished, the PC&NR main line remained a key part of the North and West Route from the Severn to Shrewsbury and from there to the Mersey, and North Wales, and carries that traffic at the present day.

In 1845 the Monmouthshire Railway and Canal Company was authorised to build a line from Newport to Pontnewynydd, a short distance north-west of Pontypool, connecting industrial areas there. There were already mineral tramways beyond Pontnewynydd, but they brought mineral products to the canal, where they had to be transshipped for onward conveyance to Newport.

The "Newport and Ponty-pool Railway", as it was called at first, was to be a standard gauge railway by-passing the canal and avoiding the delay and cost of the transshipment. The line was soon known as the Eastern Valley Line of the Monmouthshire Railway and Canal Company. The South Wales Main Line of the Great Western Railway was broad gauge at the time, and no connection between the two railways at Newport was contemplated.

At the same time the Newport, Abergavenny and Hereford Railway had a Bill in Parliament for its line; it was promoted independently and was to be standard gauge. In this period Parliament was concerned to restrict what it saw as unnecessary parallel routes, and in authorising the NA&HR line in 1846, it refused it permission to build south of Pontypool. The NA&HR had to make a junction with the MR&C company, and use its line from Pontypool to Newport. It also had to use the MR&CR passenger station there, although mineral traffic to the docks was considerably dominant, and a northward flow, of coal to the River Mersey for bunkering ships, developed strongly.

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