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Carmarthen railway station
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Carmarthen railway station is situated south of the River Towy on the edge of the town of Carmarthen. It is located on the West Wales Line and is managed by Arriva Trains Wales, who operate most of the passenger trains serving it. First Great Western also operates a limited service to London Paddington from here (currently a single daily train each way).
The present station is the third to serve the town and dates from 1902, although the South Wales Railway's main line from Swansea to Neyland reached it some fifty years earlier.
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Encyclopedia
Carmarthen railway station is situated south of the River Towy on the edge of the town of Carmarthen. It is located on the West Wales Line and is managed by Arriva Trains Wales, who operate most of the passenger trains serving it. First Great Western also operates a limited service to London Paddington from here (currently a single daily train each way).
The present station is the third to serve the town and dates from 1902, although the South Wales Railway's main line from Swansea to Neyland reached it some fifty years earlier. This original station was built with westward expansion in mind (being located at the base of the triangular junction half a mile south of the present station) and was poorly sited for the town itself. A second station (Carmarthen Town) was opened by the Carmarthen and Cardigan Railway in 1860 on its route northwards towards Conwil and Pencader which was much better sited for the town (on the opposite side of the river) and this remained in use until its replacement by the current station shortly after the turn of the century. The Town station did however remain in use for goods traffic thereafter right up until the closure of the final portion of the line north in September 1973.
The Carmarthen and Cardigan Railway, in spite of its name, never actually reached Cardigan, as it was constructed only as far as Newcastle Emlyn (which wasn't reached until 1895). Cardigan was eventually served instead by the winding Whitland and Cardigan Branch Line from Whitland, the primary junction in Pembrokeshire. The C&CR did however link up with the ill-fated Manchester and Milford Railway at Pencader, putting the town on a through route to Aberystwyth by 1867. Another outlet to the north came courtesy of the Llanelly Railway's branch from Llandeilo, which reached Abergwili Junction in 1864 and whose trains reached the Town station by means of running powers following its takeover by the LNWR in 1873. The final link in the chain of lines to the north was added in 1911, when a branch line from Lampeter to Aberaeron was opened by the Lampeter, Aberayron and New Quay Light Railway. This was worked by the Great Western Railway from the outset, as the company had by this time absorbed the other lines mentioned (apart from the Llandeilo branch, which remained in LNWR hands until the 1923 Grouping).
Today though none of the lines to the north survive, the first round of closures having begun as early as May 1951 when the Aberaeron line lost its passenger trains. The Newcastle Emlyn line followed suit in September 1952, whilst the Llandeilo branch went in September 1963 and the 'main line' to Aberystwyth in February 1965 (although milk trains continued to operate as far as Newcastle Emlyn for a further eight years). This left only the original SWR main to serve the station and left it as a terminus at the end of short spur from the main line at which all trains have to reverse before continuing their journeys.
The station has two remaining platforms. Almost all services use platform 1 which has a full set of canopies, toilets and facilities. The bare platform 2 is the other side of the reversing loop and only used as overflow and for storage of trains overnight. Almost uniquely for a British mainline station (though examples exist on quiet branches) access to platform 2 is by a flat crossing across the tracks at the end of the reversing loop. The other platform and sidings are no longer used and await removal. With the replacement of locomotive hauled services by DMU units and High Speed Trains the reversing loop is only very rarely used by special services such as the Royal Train.
The requirement for trains to turn around limits train length and also prevents services making a short stop at Carmarthen. Plans now exist to replace the station (which is on what is now valuable land in the new development) with a new station directly on the main line.
Historically the line to the Cambrian Coast continued beyond the station across the river past the site of the goods yard (now a builders yard) and out along a bank which is now the bed of the main road out to Bronwydd Arms. At Abergwili Junction the railway trackbed resumes and is owned by the Gwili Railway which runs preserved trains up the old Lampeter line as far as Danycoed.
Services
The station is served by ATW trains between Swansea and Milford Haven and Pembroke Dock, plus the aforementioned single FGW train to/from London. The latter runs through to Pembroke Dock (along with a second through train) on Summer Saturdays. Many of the Swansea trains (including those from Milford Haven) continue to Cardiff, Newport and the Welsh Marches Line to Manchester Piccadilly. This gives the station a half-hourly service to Swansea for parts of the day, with two-hourly (plus peak extras) to Pembroke Dock and Milford Haven. The twice-daily service to/from Fishguard also calls here, although the daytime train runs direct to/from Cardiff rather than via Swansea.
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