Ammanford railway station

Ammanford
Welsh: Rhydaman
Location
Place	Ammanford
Local authority	Carmarthenshire
Coordinates	51°47′42″N 3°59′45″W / 51.7951°N 3.9959°WCoordinates: 51°47′42″N 3°59′45″W / 51.7951°N 3.9959°W
Grid reference	SN623126
Operations
Station code	AMF
Managed by	Arriva Trains Wales
Number of platforms	1
DfT category	F2
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2010/11	19,256
2011/12	18,892
2012/13	20,412
2013/14	19,912
2014/15	20,238
History
Original company	Llanelly Railway
Pre-grouping	London and North Western Railway
Post-grouping	London, Midland and Scottish Railway
6 May 1841	Opened as Duffryn
1 July 1889	Renamed Tirydail
September 1960	Renamed Ammanford and Tirydail
6 September 1965	Renamed Ammanford and Tirydail Halt
5 May 1969	Renamed Ammanford and Tirydail
7 May 1973	Renamed Ammanford
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Ammanford from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

From the crossing, 1994

Ammanford railway station serves the town of Ammanford in Carmarthenshire, Wales. Situated 12 miles (19.4 km) north of Swansea on today's Heart of Wales Line, the station was first opened in 1841 as a temporary terminus of the Llanelly Railway's line to Llandeilo (and branch to Cross Hands), making it one of the country's earliest railway stations.

Originally called Duffryn,^[1] and then Tirydail, the station underwent a number of subsequent name changes (see the panel on the right) before being renamed Ammanford and Tirydail in 1960 following the closure in 1958 of Ammanford station on the Amman Valley branch railway. In 1973 Ammanford and Tirydail was renamed yet again: this time to plain Ammanford.

The station stands at street level about 800 m northwest of Ammanford town centre on Station Road (formerly Dyffryn Road). Old Ordnance Survey maps show that at some point between 1891 and 1906 the passenger platform was moved from the north to the south side of the Dyffryn Road level crossing.^[2] As with most of the stations on the Heart of Wales Line, the original rather elegant station buildings and signal box have been demolished and now the only structures are a platform and shelter.

History

Opened by the Llanelly Railway on 6 May 1841, the station was taken over jointly by the Great Western Railway and London and North Western Railway in 1873. It became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway as a result of the Grouping of 1923. The station then passed, upon nationalization of the railways in 1948, to the Western Region of British Railways. Under British Rail sectorisation from the 1980s until railway privatization, Ammanford station was served by Regional Railways.

The station appears several times and is mentioned by name in the 1951 'Festival of Britain film', David.

Services

All trains serving the station are operated by Arriva Trains Wales. There are four trains a day to Shrewsbury northbound from Monday to Saturday (plus a fifth to Llandovery) and five southbound to Llanelli & Swansea (the first train in each direction doesn't run on Saturdays); two services each way call on Sundays.^[3]

References

1. Railway Stations Pantyffynnon to Llandeilo on the Town of Ammanford website
2. Old Maps Archived April 30, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.
3. GB eNRT May 2016 Edition, Table 129 (Network Rail)

External links

• 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.
• Station on navigable O.S. map. Station due north of Pantyffynnon.