As a relative newcomer to Cardiff with an interest in local history, I recently found out about this line and spotted the old bridge sides on Penylan hill. This video is exactly what I was looking for, thank you for showing the old photos and walking the route.
Glad you enjoyed it. When I first came to Cardiff you could see some of the trackbed, but it's all gone now. Would have made a great cross city tram route
Thanks for your hard work with this video,I am 69 and as a child used to sit on the retaining wall you found under the undergrowth at Gabalfa sidings and watch the end of steam ,and diesel running down the branch,I also used to go to college road (Roath dock junction) stand in Queenies field where the Roath signal gantry was and watch the trains wait to go down the branch.many memories. Enthusiasts are hungry for photos and info on this branch,thanks again and to Bob Masterman and Sid Rickard for their photos.
Thank you, it must have been fascinating to watch trains passing through the suburbs as they did. I reckon if it had lasted a few more years it would still be there now.
Very interesting and thanks for sharing… a pity no more pictures available though, and the one at 6:00 really helped work out from other pictures I seen of the sidings and their location! Would be great if you could cover the Ferry Rd line from Grangetown station which ran down to the river Ely and the old subway below the river… lots of industrial past there gone forever! The whole area was my play ground in the 80’s and there is something about industrial decay which attracts you! Thanks for the video and the knowledge share!
Used to remember the bridge over Newport road as a kid. Surprised it didn't get a mention, but my father used to work where Dunelm is (Citylink), and in those days it was a mass of railway sidings known as Roath Coalyard. Splott park, back in the 70's, had a derelict steam engine (think it was a small saddle or pannier tank, from memory) in the kid's play area too.
Ben, I can't express how much pleasure your wonderful films have given me a d the detail ,incredible. I had little knowledge of the railways of South Wales and your films have opened my eyes. What an incredible system a d what incredible engineers. Thank you so much for your wonderful films.
Great video. I well remember parts of it from when I used to walk home from Colchester Avenue Tech in the 70's - down Pen-y-lan Hill into Ty Draw Road and along Wedal Road. Sad to think it no longer exists. Thanks for "bringing it back".
Great informative video, I was brought up in the lower half of Melrose Avenue in Penylan during the 1950’s and 60’s and we played on the embankment of the railway where we had made a great slide. We were always told not to go there, but being kids we totally ignored these warnings and, fortunately, no one came to any harm. I still live locally and watch with interest how the whole of Cardiff continues to redevelop into the great city that it is
My father's family were one of the first families to live on Gabalfa and he said about the railway and where it used to run.There was evidence of this behind the old library on the estate
Great Video Bob I remember seeing the lines of brown vans at Gabalfa when we used to got to Pontypridd on the bus so great to see pictures of it ,served my time at Wedal Rd Depot so saw the branch being demolished first hand !
Really good video Bob, brought back memories of playing on the trackand bridge at bottom of Flaxland Ave, watching the building of first the Heath hospital and the Eastern Avenue. Think the bridge survives for a while after the opening of the road, but could be memories playing tricks.
Great memories, my father was the head teacher at the school that was knocked down for the Unite students accomodation and fondly remember the trolley busses running through the bottom of Roath Park. Used to love watching the drivers lifting the electric pick ups onto the new line at the junction there.
It is interesting looking at the lines in Cardiff which were four track, now two, stations gone and infrastructure removed. However as you say the bigger loss was north of Cardiff and I hope to get some more filming done soon.
good videio , we are in north cardiff so have the upper part , that again they are thinking of opening back up to 32 of the M4 ... i shop at Dunelm all the time and did not realise the embankment.
A great trip back in time. Your trip today reminds me of a detective from Scotland Yard…very interesting yet through! Your the best, Bob. Cheers mate! ❤😊
The tracks from Whitchurch to the Gabalfa interchange..... I can remember those tracks behind the old library (Western Avenue side) but can't remember how they passed to the other side of North Road. Was there a tunnel underneath North Road that came out somewhere behind the old St Mark's church?
in about 1955/1o60 I used to play on this line where Penylan hill crossed the railway and put 6 inch nails on the the railway and fix them to branches and have spears ????????? happy days
During the 1980s my Mum used to work at a Care Home on Ty-Gwyn Road, 20 yards up Penylan Road from Boleyn Walk (11:40), then turn left. The home she worked at was called Wellclose. It was a grand old Victorian mansion set in its own grounds, surrounded by magnificent trees. Right next to Wellclose was a similar building called Oldwell. After dropping Mum off at Wellclose, with Dad driving, we would pull out of the grounds on to Ty-Gwyn Road. Sometimes we'd turn left back towards Penylan Road, sometimes right, past the college. Either way we could always get a glimpse of the old railway cutting and I would be fascinated by it. Dad would tell me there had been railway there before the A48 was built, though I never saw any books, photos or anything about it. We must have driven down Wedal Road a thousand times to get Mum back and forth to work. I always wondered what that partially demolished bridge was. So it was a footbridge crossing the railway. Well, I never. You learn something new everyday. By the way, there used to be a slogan grafittied on the side of the railway bridge over Wedal Road. It read "FREE WALES'. Next to it some joker graffitied 'With every five gallons' 🤣
Thank you for sharing your memories, it brings a lot of what I do into context. We think only modern day life has stress, there was a lot of it in past times as well. So much has changed even in my lifetime, one of the reasons I try and commit some of it to record. Thank you for watching.
We used to play on the old line where it passed to the south of Roath park lake, used to put coins on the line and wait for trains which were few and far between,. My friends older brother had a night job digging up the graves to make way for the road.
Putting coins on the lines is a common theme in these comments! It didn't dawn on me that the A48 would have passed through Cathays Cemetery. I hope they reburied them properly.
My Mrs used to live in Cefn Road Gabalfa, she said they would cut through the sidings to get to school in the 70s, they used to call them "the borders".
We walked this route on 10th October 2020 (following the walk in Peter Finch’s Walking Cardiff book). The archway near Harlequin Court had already been demolished by then, not January 2022 as you suggest. We spent quite a while looking for it! Nice to see the old photos.
I remember seeing multiple lines full of loaded coal trucks in a cutting at Gabalfa, in the late 60s; just before they started building the Gabalfa Interchange.
Lived in Mynachdy 1970's until 2013 and remember playing in the railway sidings as a teenager, the tracks still in place until it became a housing estate. There used to be a way onto the sidings at the bottom of Mynachdy road that was used as a shortcut to get to Whitchurch. Did not know about the cutting though my sister thought there was a tunnel under where the flyover was. * Now I can share this video with her so she can see it was actually a railway line and cutting. Also on the Whitchurch side of the sidings in the picture you showed can be seen the path that was also used as a shortcut to whitchurch that must have been a path along the side of the cutting. * At the other side of the park at the top of Mynachdy I remember seeing work being carried out (probably 20/25 years ago) from what looked like a very deep wide hole and a crane lifting three metal stairways out onto a lorry, don't know if that was a tunnel, sewer or another unknown underground construction?
Looked at historical imagery on Google Earth I think the path I mentioned may have been the track bed that went up the hill then turned into a cutting to go under the bridge where the flyover now stands, also the footpath from the flyover to the hospital may have been where the railway was and the cutting started.
Thank you for your memories. The path by Heath was indeed where the line went but there is nothing left there like so much of the line. Glad it brought these memories back.
The Newport Road bridge was high enough for the trolleybuses unlike Queen Street. But beware the misleading term Tram-train. Tram-train is where the City tram runs onto the main line railway (think Sheffield-Rotherham Saarbrücken-Sarreguemines etc). No City tram - no Tram-train.
Is it pronounced Splott or Splo? I have a care-diff friend who sometimes tells me he comes from Splo as a bit of a joke. ruclips.net/video/0WkIpybQocw/видео.htmlsi=UwK1XpdrSWJEA2C9 Above is one explanation by the localish GLC, but what the hell do they know. They are only from Pill. ;-)
As a relative newcomer to Cardiff with an interest in local history, I recently found out about this line and spotted the old bridge sides on Penylan hill. This video is exactly what I was looking for, thank you for showing the old photos and walking the route.
Glad you enjoyed it. When I first came to Cardiff you could see some of the trackbed, but it's all gone now. Would have made a great cross city tram route
What a fascinating video, it's amazing how it all disappeared. Thanks for sharing
A wonderful insight into the much lamented Roath Branch, a very interesting watch....Thank you.
Thank you. I enjoyed researching and filming it. So little of left which is a shame as it would have been so useful today as part of the Metro system.
Thanks for your hard work with this video,I am 69 and as a child used to sit on the retaining wall you found under the undergrowth at Gabalfa sidings and watch the end of steam ,and diesel running down the branch,I also used to go to college road (Roath dock junction) stand in Queenies field where the Roath signal gantry was and watch the trains wait to go down the branch.many memories.
Enthusiasts are hungry for photos and info on this branch,thanks again and to Bob Masterman and Sid Rickard for their photos.
Thank you, it must have been fascinating to watch trains passing through the suburbs as they did. I reckon if it had lasted a few more years it would still be there now.
Interesting stuff. From 1933 my relatives (brailli & co on Bute st. For many a year) lived at Oldwell on Ty Gwyn rd next to the line.
Very interesting and thanks for sharing… a pity no more pictures available though, and the one at 6:00 really helped work out from other pictures I seen of the sidings and their location! Would be great if you could cover the Ferry Rd line from Grangetown station which ran down to the river Ely and the old subway below the river… lots of industrial past there gone forever! The whole area was my play ground in the 80’s and there is something about industrial decay which attracts you! Thanks for the video and the knowledge share!
@@truthfulremedy_aka_lennybee I do remember the line down Ferry Road. I will add it to the list
Used to remember the bridge over Newport road as a kid. Surprised it didn't get a mention, but my father used to work where Dunelm is (Citylink), and in those days it was a mass of railway sidings known as Roath Coalyard. Splott park, back in the 70's, had a derelict steam engine (think it was a small saddle or pannier tank, from memory) in the kid's play area too.
I remember the loco in the park in Splott. Apparently it's been restored and running somewhere.
Ben, I can't express how much pleasure your wonderful films have given me a d the detail ,incredible. I had little knowledge of the railways of South Wales and your films have opened my eyes. What an incredible system a d what incredible engineers. Thank you so much for your wonderful films.
Thank you, very much appreciated. I have a whole series on the Cardiff Railway starting this week so keep watching for those.
Nice to see this! I grew up in Splott. Remember it well. Thank you.
Great video. I well remember parts of it from when I used to walk home from Colchester Avenue Tech in the 70's - down Pen-y-lan Hill into Ty Draw Road and along Wedal Road. Sad to think it no longer exists. Thanks for "bringing it back".
No problems, I used to cross over the filled in track bed as a student in the 80's. Wish I had taken a lot more photos at that time.
Absolutely fantastic video. Thanks for posting. So many lost railways around Cardiff that would have been great for Metro.
It would have been a great round Cardiff loop, but no longer. Thanks for watching
Another great video Bob
Thank you. Enjoyed making it, I learnt so much.
@@bobsrailrelics I seem to remember seeing a photo on one of the railway FB groups of a picture of the bridge over the main line but cannot find it.
Great video! So much to see in Cardiff and Barry. Keep up the great work 👍
Just wonderful and well researched, informative post. Brilliant!
Thank you, it did a bit of work but was fun to get out there and see it all.
Absolutely fascinating Bob!
Like how you done it differently in this video of showing the line. There some great finds on Roath Branch. Great video.
Great informative video, I was brought up in the lower half of Melrose Avenue in Penylan during the 1950’s and 60’s and we played on the embankment of the railway where we had made a great slide. We were always told not to go there, but being kids we totally ignored these warnings and, fortunately, no one came to any harm.
I still live locally and watch with interest how the whole of Cardiff continues to redevelop into the great city that it is
Thanks, did we ever listen as kids? Thanks for watching
Great pics from Mike O'Sullivan, take me back to when I played on that Penylan section as a kid
My father's family were one of the first families to live on Gabalfa and he said about the railway and where it used to run.There was evidence of this behind the old library on the estate
Yes I remember the tracks there (behind Penard Place). Did the Taff Vale then pass underneath North Rd to the right of the old St Mark's Church?
under
Well done Bob another really interesting video, thank you for making it and please keep making videos. Andrew.
Thank you, more in the works
Great Video Bob I remember seeing the lines of brown vans at Gabalfa when we used to got to Pontypridd on the bus so great to see pictures of it ,served my time at Wedal Rd Depot so saw the branch being demolished first hand !
Really good video Bob, brought back memories of playing on the trackand bridge at bottom of Flaxland Ave, watching the building of first the Heath hospital and the Eastern Avenue. Think the bridge survives for a while after the opening of the road, but could be memories playing tricks.
Very Interesting! ... Many thanks Bob👍🏻
Great memories, my father was the head teacher at the school that was knocked down for the Unite students accomodation and fondly remember the trolley busses running through the bottom of Roath Park. Used to love watching the drivers lifting the electric pick ups onto the new line at the junction there.
I have a soft spot for the trolley bus though I don't remember the Cardiff ones. A short I have planned does mention them though. Thanks for watching
Thank you for this video and the informative story of the line.
Another very informative video. Thank you. 👍🏻
Excellent video, being in the valleys I've mainly looked at the lost railways north of Cardiff but didn't realise how much was lost in Cardiff itself.
It is interesting looking at the lines in Cardiff which were four track, now two, stations gone and infrastructure removed. However as you say the bigger loss was north of Cardiff and I hope to get some more filming done soon.
good videio , we are in north cardiff so have the upper part , that again they are thinking of opening back up to 32 of the M4 ... i shop at Dunelm all the time and did not realise the embankment.
The old Cardiff line, yes there has been talk for a while, would be good. Thanks for watching
A great trip back in time. Your trip today reminds me of a detective from Scotland Yard…very interesting yet through! Your the best, Bob. Cheers mate! ❤😊
Great research, Bob. A good watch.
Thank you, took a bit of delving and the help of the Facebook group
The tracks from Whitchurch to the Gabalfa interchange..... I can remember those tracks behind the old library (Western Avenue side) but can't remember how they passed to the other side of North Road. Was there a tunnel underneath North Road that came out somewhere behind the old St Mark's church?
Yes there was. Take a look here on the maps maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=16.7&lat=51.50542&lon=-3.19829&layers=6&right=ESRIWorld
@@bobsrailrelics Thank you so much ! So kind ! Will have a close look
in about 1955/1o60 I used to play on this line where Penylan hill crossed the railway and put 6 inch nails on the the railway and fix them to branches and have spears ????????? happy days
Abutments deffo give away a railway 😄! Great video !
Thank you. They do indeed
During the 1980s my Mum used to work at a Care Home on Ty-Gwyn Road, 20 yards up Penylan Road from Boleyn Walk (11:40), then turn left. The home she worked at was called Wellclose. It was a grand old Victorian mansion set in its own grounds, surrounded by magnificent trees. Right next to Wellclose was a similar building called Oldwell.
After dropping Mum off at Wellclose, with Dad driving, we would pull out of the grounds on to Ty-Gwyn Road. Sometimes we'd turn left back towards Penylan Road, sometimes right, past the college. Either way we could always get a glimpse of the old railway cutting and I would be fascinated by it. Dad would tell me there had been railway there before the A48 was built, though I never saw any books, photos or anything about it.
We must have driven down Wedal Road a thousand times to get Mum back and forth to work. I always wondered what that partially demolished bridge was. So it was a footbridge crossing the railway. Well, I never. You learn something new everyday.
By the way, there used to be a slogan grafittied on the side of the railway bridge over Wedal Road. It read "FREE WALES'. Next to it some joker graffitied 'With every five gallons' 🤣
Thank you for sharing your memories, it brings a lot of what I do into context. We think only modern day life has stress, there was a lot of it in past times as well. So much has changed even in my lifetime, one of the reasons I try and commit some of it to record. Thank you for watching.
We used to play on the old line where it passed to the south of Roath park lake, used to put coins on the line and wait for trains which were few and far between,. My friends older brother had a night job digging up the graves to make way for the road.
Putting coins on the lines is a common theme in these comments! It didn't dawn on me that the A48 would have passed through Cathays Cemetery. I hope they reburied them properly.
There were quite a few road underbridges with Ferodo advertising in Cardiff in the 60s, 70s and 80s. I believe Ferodo may have had a factory locally.
My Mrs used to live in Cefn Road Gabalfa, she said they would cut through the sidings to get to school in the 70s, they used to call them "the borders".
Nice video, Bob 👍🏻
Very interesting, and good explanation of the route.
BTW, I found the arch with the car wash a few years ago, but I didn't know it was gone now.
It's very sad it was allowed to be demolished. A great relic of times gone by.
We walked this route on 10th October 2020 (following the walk in Peter Finch’s Walking Cardiff book). The archway near Harlequin Court had already been demolished by then, not January 2022 as you suggest. We spent quite a while looking for it! Nice to see the old photos.
Thanks, I noticed it had gone and asked on a couple of groups who came back with that date. Really sad to hear it was even earlier. Thanks
I remember seeing multiple lines full of loaded coal trucks in a cutting at Gabalfa, in the late 60s; just before they started building the Gabalfa Interchange.
That was the sidings they built the houses on. A massive area just gone.
Very interesting I can remember driving down Wedal road with my grandfather and seeing a tank engine on this route
Lived in Mynachdy 1970's until 2013 and remember playing in the railway sidings as a teenager, the tracks still in place until it became a housing estate. There used to be a way onto the sidings at the bottom of Mynachdy road that was used as a shortcut to get to Whitchurch.
Did not know about the cutting though my sister thought there was a tunnel under where the flyover was. *
Now I can share this video with her so she can see it was actually a railway line and cutting. Also on the Whitchurch side of the sidings in the picture you showed can be seen the path that was also used as a shortcut to whitchurch that must have been a path along the side of the cutting.
* At the other side of the park at the top of Mynachdy I remember seeing work being carried out (probably 20/25 years ago) from what looked like a very deep wide hole and a crane lifting three metal stairways out onto a lorry, don't know if that was a tunnel, sewer or another unknown underground construction?
Looked at historical imagery on Google Earth I think the path I mentioned may have been the track bed that went up the hill then turned into a cutting to go under the bridge where the flyover now stands, also the footpath from the flyover to the hospital may have been where the railway was and the cutting started.
Thank you for your memories. The path by Heath was indeed where the line went but there is nothing left there like so much of the line. Glad it brought these memories back.
The Newport Road bridge was high enough for the trolleybuses unlike Queen Street. But beware the misleading term Tram-train. Tram-train is where the City tram runs onto the main line railway (think Sheffield-Rotherham Saarbrücken-Sarreguemines etc). No City tram - no Tram-train.
very good bob used to work the branch back in the 60s.radyr fireman.
Thank you. Must have been hard work on the gradients!
Any memories of the Radyr marshalling yards?
Would’ve been mega useful today
Agree. A tram link across Cardiff to the Bay and centre. Very useful.
Is it pronounced Splott or Splo? I have a care-diff friend who sometimes tells me he comes from Splo as a bit of a joke. ruclips.net/video/0WkIpybQocw/видео.htmlsi=UwK1XpdrSWJEA2C9
Above is one explanation by the localish GLC, but what the hell do they know. They are only from Pill. ;-)
Friends I have who lived there used to call it Lower Roath 😁