Abergavenny railway station

Abergavenny
Welsh: Y Fenni
Abergavenny station
Location
Place	Abergavenny
Local authority	Monmouthshire
Coordinates	51°49′00″N 3°00′32″W / 51.8167°N 3.0088°WCoordinates: 51°49′00″N 3°00′32″W / 51.8167°N 3.0088°W
Grid reference	SO305136
Operations
Station code	AGV
Managed by	Arriva Trains Wales
Number of platforms	2
DfT category	D
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2010/11	0.357 million
2011/12	0.371 million
2012/13	0.379 million
2013/14	0.390 million
2014/15	0.425 million
History
2 January 1854	Station opens
19 July 1950	Renamed Abergavenny Monmouth Road
6 May 1968	Renamed Abergavenny
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Abergavenny from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Abergavenny railway station (Welsh: Y Fenni) is situated southeast of the town centre of Abergavenny, Wales. It is part of the British railway system owned by Network Rail and is operated by Arriva Trains Wales. It lies on the Welsh Marches Line from Newport to Hereford.

Abergavenny lies at the eastern edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park and provides an access point to local services and public transport into the park.

History

The station, designed by Charles Liddell, Chief Engineer of the Newport, Abergavenny and Hereford Railway (NA&HR), is in an Italianate architecture style.^[1]

The NA&HR amalgamated with other railways in 1860 to form the West Midland Railway, which itself amalgamated with the Great Western Railway in 1863.^[2] The line then passed on to the Western Region of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948. In 1950, the station was renamed Abergavenny Monmouth Road, but reverted to its simple name in 1968. When sectorisation was introduced, the station was served by Regional Railways until the privatisation of British Railways.

Railway town

A branch line to Brynmawr was opened in 1862 starting at Abergavenny Junction station north of the current station, constructed by the Merthyr, Tredegar and Abergavenny Railway (MT&AR). The line also had a station in the town called Abergavenny Brecon Road, making three stations in all. This company was acquired by the London and North Western Railway in 1866. In 1958 the MT&AR passenger trains ceased and Abergavenny Junction was closed.

GWR Locomotive 'Abergavenny Castle'

A GWR Castle-class locomotive, number 5013, was named after Abergavenny Castle.

Facilities

The station is staffed in the daytime. It has disabled access to platforms, a cafeteria and toilets, plus large waiting rooms on both tracksides.

Services

With a few exceptions, the weekday daytime service pattern typically sees one train per hour in each direction between Manchester Piccadilly and Cardiff Central, with most trains continuing beyond Cardiff to Swansea and West Wales. There is also a two-hourly service between Cardiff and the North Wales Coast Line to Holyhead via Wrexham General. These services are all operated by Arriva Trains Wales.^[3] The northbound Premier service from Cardiff to Holyhead calls here on Monday to Fridays but the southbound service does not call here.

Two trains per day in the early morning on weekdays to London Paddington, via Hereford and the Cotswold Line, commenced operation in December 2007. However, they were short lived, being withdrawn in December 2008; they were deemed pointless due to changing at Newport being quicker. These services were operated by First Great Western.

References

• Butt, R. V. J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 1-8526-0508-1. OCLC 60251199.
• Jowett, Alan (2000). Jowett's Nationalised Railway Atlas (1st ed.). Penryn, Cornwall: Atlantic Transport Publishers. ISBN 0-9068-9999-0. OCLC 228266687.
• Abergavenny station on navigable O.S. map

Notes

1. "Abergavenny railway station". transportheritage.com. Retrieved 23 September 2011.
2. MacDermot, E.T. (1927). History of the Great Western Railway, vol. I: 1833–1863. Paddington: Great Western Railway. pp. 543, 553.
3. GB eNRT December 2015 Edition, Table 131