Hay was a railway station serving the town of Hay-on-Wye, in Powys, Wales, although the station was located just across the English border in Herefordshire. Hay had one of the earliest railway stations in the country, being part of a horse-drawn tramway.
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 1941 and goods until the 1950s.
The whole of the Hereford to Brecon line including Hay was closed on 31 December 1962[1][2] and was completely dismantled by 1963.
Incidents
On a stormy night in 1880, a goods train on the way to Brecon was derailed and destroyed a 3-arch masonry bridge. The train fell into Digeddi Brook at Little Ffordd Fawr, near Llanigon. The driver George Parker died, and his stoker John Williams had life changing injuries.[3][4]
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