Maerdy Branch
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The Maerdy Branch was a railway branch line in South Wales. Financed and operated by the Taff Vale Railway, on amalgamation it became part of the Great Western Railway in 1923. Designed and mainly operated as a coal mining freight railway, its creation and demise was wholly defined by the South Wales Coalfield.
The branch was wholly designed, being developed by integrating a series of private industrial track railways with the extension of the Taff Vale Railway from the south at Pontypridd. In 1840, the TVR bought the private Ferndale to Maerdy colliery track and then extended it to Porth in 1849.[1]
Operations
Passenger operations began in 1875, serving interim stations from Porth at Ynyshir (opened 1876), Pontygwaith, Tylorstown, and Ferndale. Though the line had opened up to Maerdy the same year (with the sinking & commissioning of Maerdy Colliery), it was not until 1889 that the passenger service was extended there from Ferndale. Passenger traffic was neither heavy nor a major contribution to line finances, and so in 1900 the GWR introduced steam rail motors. Ten or eleven return trips each weekday was the standard service frequency for the branch for most of its life.