Hay-on-Wye railway station

A 1905 Railway Clearing House Junction Diagram showing (lower left) railways in the vicinity of Hay-on-Wye (shown here as Hay)

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 line including Hay was closed on 31 December 1962 and completely dismantled by 1963.

• Trace the complete route on this Google Map
• Hay Railway
• Thomas Savin - railway engineer
• Herefordshire - Golden Valley Line
• Hay-on-Wye station on navigable 1949 O. S. map
• Pugh, Eric (2002). Old Hay in Pictures and Prints. POH Publishing. ISBN 0-9543918-0-2.

• Mitchell, Vic; Smith, Keith (2007). Branch Lines around Hay-on-Wye. Middleton Press. figs. 99-106. ISBN 9781904474920. OCLC 288983659.