Remains of railway bridge at Whitney on Wye
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Remains of railway bridge at Whitney on Wye by John Winder as part of the Geograph project.
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Remains of railway bridge at Whitney on Wye
Image: © John Winder Taken: 13 Jun 2015
Right, this is complicated. The railway here - which ran from Brecon to Hereford - started life as a 3'6" gauge tramway from Brecon to Eardisley, constructed in 1812 and powered by horses. This was sold to the Hereford, Hay & Brecon Railway (HH&BR) in 1860, with the line being completed in 1864. The HH&BR owned the section between Hay and Eardisley (including the bridge pictured here), but the section between Hay and Three Cocks Junction was jointly owned. Three Cocks to Talyllyn was owned by the Mid Wales Railway, while the final section between Talyllyn and Brecon was owned by the Brecon & Merthyr Railway. Got all that? Good. The line never made much money and the whole lot was later bought by the Midland Railway, giving them a foothold in a predominantly Great Western area. The Midland Railway were able to use this line to create a through route from Birmingham to Swansea, which must have taken a long time on a stopping train but would have been a remarkably scenic route. The line was closed on the last day of 1962 and the remains are slowly returning to nature. Taken from a canoe.
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Image Location
Latitude
52.120267
Longitude
-3.086018