Taff Vale Extension

The Newport, Abergavenny and Hereford Railway was a railway company formed to connect the places in its name. When it sought Parliamentary authorisation, it was denied the southern section, and obliged to use the Monmouthshire Railway between Pontypool and Newport.

It opened on 6 December 1853, and was part of an important chain of lines between south-east Wales and Birkenhead; mineral traffic in both directions was dominant. The London and North Western Railway hoped to exploit the line to form a network in South Wales, but that aspiration was not fully realised, and in 1860 the NA&HR merged with other railways to form the West Midland Railway, which soon amalgamated with the Great Western Railway in 1863.

In order better to serve the ironworks in the South Wales Valleys, the NA&HR built the Taff Vale Extension Line, running west from Pontypool and cutting across several of the valleys, making connections with other companies' lines, eventually at twelve locations. The line was opened in stages from 1857, and included the Crumlin Viaduct crossing the valley of the Ebbw River.

After 1945 local passenger and goods business collapsed, and somewhat later the mineral industries declined too. By 1979 only the Pontypool to Hereford main line, and some short stubs of the Taff Vale Extension Line remained in use, but the main line flourished, and continues in use as an important secondary main line.

In the first half of the 1840s a scheme was conceived to link the industrial centres of the West Midlands directly with the metal industries of South Wales. The idea became the Welsh Midland Railway, and it would have run from Worcester via Hereford and Brecon to join the Taff Vale Railway. However the financial chaos following the Railway Mania resulted in that scheme being dropped.

It was revived as a more modest scheme, and the Newport, Abergavenny and Hereford Railway was incorporated on 3 August 1846. It had been proposed to build the line to Newport, but the Monmouthshire Railway and Canal Company had been authorised in 1845 to build its Newport and Pontypool line, and Parliament declined to authorise a duplicate route. Instead the NA&HR Act authorised it to build from a junction with the intended Newport and Pontypool Railway in the parish of Llanvrechva to Hereford. It was to take over and use the alignments of three earlier tramroads: the Llanvihangel, Grosmont and Hereford Railways. Their acquisition was strategic, in order to obtain the right of way, and very little use was made of the tramroads themselves by the NA&HR.

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