The Railway at Hay 1863 to 1963
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The Hay Railway opened from the Brecon & Abergavenny Canal at Brecon to Hay on 7
May 1816. The line was opened from Hay to Clifford Castle on 30 July 1817. The line
was not completed between The Lakes at Clifford and Eardisley until 1 December 1818
because of the problem of the river crossing at Whitney-on-Wye. The Hay Railway was
sold in 1860 to the Hereford, Hay and Brecon Railway (HH&BR) which made use of parts
of its route.
The HH&BR was a struggling local line, much of it built by Thomas Savin, contractor and builder of many Welsh lines. It was completed in 1864. Like most local lines it was eventually rescued by a larger company – not the Great Western Railway, in whose territory it might be thought to lie – but the Midland Railway, which used it and other lines which it acquired or had running powers over, to put together a through route from Birmingham to Swansea via Hereford, Brecon, the Neath and Brecon Railway and the Swansea Vale Railway.
The Golden Valley Railway, which had its northern junction at Hay and ran through the Golden Valley to Pontrilas, was built between 1876 and 1889, was closed down in 1898, and then rescued by the Great Western Railway in 1901. It survived as a passenger line until 1951 and goods until the 1950s.
The whole of the Hereford to Brecon lines including Hay were completely dismantled in 1963 under Dr Beeching's infamous axing of most of Britain's branch lines.