page_title: Mid-Wales Railway
section_title: Crossing the centre of Wales
hierarchical_section_title: Mid-Wales Railway / Crossing the centre of Wales
caption_attribution_description: English: Rhayader station, Powys, shortly before closure in 1962
context_page_description: The Mid-Wales Railway was a railway company intended to make a trunk route through Wales, connecting industrial areas of north west England with sea ports in south west Wales. In fact it was prevented from reaching its goal by competing proposals in Parliament, and it was limited to a line between Llanidloes and a junction with the Brecon and Merthyr Railway five miles east of Brecon. It was seventy miles in length and opened in 1864. It had found it impossible to raise share subscription, but the contractor partnership of Davies and Savin agreed to build the line and take shares in payment,
  The line ran through sparsely populated terrain and had steep gradients and sharp curves, so that there was little local traffic and the limited long distance business was costly to operate. Finding continued independence impossible to sustain, the company amalgamated with the Cambrian Railways in 1904.
  Use of the line declined in the 1930s and afterwards, and the very limited use of the line resulted in closure after the last day of operation on 30 December 1962.
context_section_description: As the main line network of England and Wales began to take shape in the 1840s, the centre of Wales remained without a railway. There were several proposals to cross the region by a trunk railway, in some cases to connect industrial England to Welsh west coast ports. For some time none of these came into effect, and it was a local line, the Llanidloes and Newtown Railway, that first occupied part of the area. It was seventeen miles long, and it opened in 1859, and it was not connected to any other railway. Newtown was a centre of the flannel manufacturing industry.
  The Oswestry and Newtown Railway followed in 1861; it connected to the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway at Oswestry, giving access to the railway network. Next, the Shrewsbury and Welshpool Railway made a connection to the O&NR at Buttington in 1862, forming a  route from Newtown to the English Midlands and London.
  After a number of false starts, a practicable route across Mid Wales gathered support, when in March 1859 a meeting was held to further what became the Mid-Wales Railway. At that time it was described as "the Mid-Wales section of the Manchester, Liverpool, Swansea & Milford Haven Junction Railway". This went to Parliament, competing for approval with other schemes. It was passed, but in a much truncated form, with the title the Mid-Wales Railway, to construct a line from Llanidloes to Newbridge-on-Wye by way of Rhayader. At Llanidloes it would connect with the L&NR, and from there to the national railway network. The Act was passed on 1 August 1859; authorised capital was £150,000.
  The line's supporters still saw it as part of a trunk express route, and the greatly reduced Parliamentary powers were, they believed, a temporary setback. Despite the sharp curves and steep gradients, the Shrewsbury Journal repeated the promoters' publicity that "express trains at the highest speeds reached can be run with the greatest ease and perfect security." The directors believed that "as the line would be passing through... one of the richest mineral districts in Britain, they would seek powers to exploit any minerals found during construction. The company's supporters still planned to reach Llandovery as part of the onward thrust towards south-west Wales, but Brecon was also considered to be a useful destination. Other railways were approaching Brecon: also in 1859 the Brecon and Merthyr Tydfil Junction Railway (usually referred to as the Brecon and Merthyr Railway) was authorised, and the Hereford, Hay and Brecon Railway had got its authorising Act in 1857.
caption: Rhayader railway station in 1962
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