Freight transport
Freight transport from Merthyr Tydfil had already brought about the development of the Glamorganshire Canal which by-passed Nelson in the nearby Taff Valley, but in 1841 the Taff Vale Railway's Llancaiach Branch was built specifically to service Llancaiach Colliery and entered the Taff Bargoed Valley via the centre of Nelson. Looking for a name for its station, which was built on the flat land south of the colliery, the directors of the TVR chose the name of the coaching inn. When the Taff Vale Extension railway of the Newport, Abergavenny and Hereford Railway was built, it replicated the TVR naming convention for its station, and Nelson was born as a village with a separate identity to Llancaiach.