Rails in Wales 2008. Stone from Hirwaun, via Aberdare, with Freightliner

[@cwmbargoedorbust]

Another great video, personal memories of working on the branch was that the meal break working to Tower was taken alongside abexrcwmboi phurnacite works a pretty awful place to eat your grub. Also before they the new bit of line at mountain ash they use to hold a open market in the station car park. One windy day we were returning from tower road learning on a mgr for Aberthaw on 37702 and came round the corner towards the station when we saw a number of people on the track and a canvas stall cover wrapped around the lampposts for the station. We immediately braked but it took a while to stop. The canvas cover came up over the nose and then cab windows. Everything went black and the poles which were still in the canvas smacked between the drivers and middle window and one dug in to the nose of the 37. The cab radio was not fitted then so one driver walked to nixon crossing to phone the signalman. Two of us walked back to find the foreign stall holders under and on top of the wagons pulling clothing and leather jackets which ended on our train. It took a while to explain that had to get off the track and wagons and the local police showed up eventually and we got moving. When we arrived in barry you would have thought we were limping home like a lancaster on one engine. The supervisor and drivers were standing on the platform waiting to see the damage and they were disappointed that apart from the hole in the nose and scratched paint work between the windows there was nothing to see. We did advise them to tip the train carefully at Aberthaw as they might get a free jacket. From memory 37702 carried the damage until it was scrapped. Great memories of days gone by.

[@stephendavies6949]

A real period piece. No more freight on the Aberdare branch (or pretty much any Valleys Line these days), but with the coming of the South Wales Metro we'll have more passenger trains than ever before (at least on the lines that still exist). What was the stone for? Also, you say the line was only recently closed. Was it still used for removing the residual coal from Tower colliery?

[@TheMichaelWilcock2016Railways]

24th Feb.2017 was the last day of coal trains to/from Hirwaun. Sorry the clip shows the empties going up !

[@stephendavies6949]

@@TheMichaelWilcock2016Railways My dad did his mining training at Tower in the early 1950s, then spent his entire working life at the infamous Merthyr Vale Colliery.

[@juliansadler6263]

The wagons were for stone from Penderyn Quarry. They used to take wagons up their own private railway but by 2008 the stone was taken by road to Hirwaun.