Wheatsheaf Junction was the name given to the location where a branch of the North Wales Mineral Railway to Brymbo connected with Shrewsbury and Chester line between Wrexham and Gresford.
The North Wales Mineral Railway was constructed in Wales in 1844, during the early years of the Railway Mania. It was originally intended to link Chester via Wrexham to the industrial areas around Ruabon; there were branches to Brymbo and Minera from Wheatsheaf junction via a tunnel and inclined plane. The initial plan was to tap the mineral reserves of the area.
Brymbo is a large village local government community, the lowest tier of local government, part of Wrexham County Borough in Wales. It is a village situated in the hilly country to the west of Wrexham town, largely surrounded by farmland.
Wrexham is the largest town in the north of Wales and an administrative, commercial, retail and educational centre. Wrexham is situated between the Welsh mountains and the lower Dee Valley alongside the border with England. Historically part of Denbighshire, the town became part of Clwyd in 1974 and since 1996 has been the centre of the Wrexham County Borough.
The junction, which was 1.3 mi (2.1 km) from Wrexham General station, was built in 1844 during the period known as Railway Mania. It was designed to facilitate the connection between the mineral areas of Brymbo with Chester, Wrexham and Ruabon. The junction takes its name from the Wheatsheaf public house in Gwersyllt (at 53°04′19″N3°01′09″W / 53.0719°N 3.0193°W ) under which the line ran. The branch, which was very straight in places, went directly up Gwersyllt Hill through the 220 ft (67 m) Summerhill Tunnel to Westminster Colliery. It then continued to the other side of Moss Valley through the 400 ft (120 m) Brymbo Tunnel to Brymbo Steelworks. [1] Due to the steepness of the line, wagons on these sections were worked on incline planes using a two-rope pulley system known locally as 'brakes'.
Wrexham General railway station is a main line railway station and the main railway station serving Wrexham, north-east Wales. It is currently operated by Transport for Wales, but services are also provided by Virgin Trains who operate a service to London Euston. Until January 2011 Wrexham & Shropshire also operated from here to London Marylebone.
Railway Mania was an instance of speculative frenzy in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in the 1840s. It followed a common pattern: as the price of railway shares increased, more and more money was poured in by speculators until the inevitable collapse. It reached its zenith in 1846, when no fewer than 272 Acts of Parliament were passed, setting up new railway companies, with the proposed routes totalling 9,500 miles (15,300 km) of new railway. Around a third of the railways authorised were never built – the companies either collapsed due to poor financial planning, were bought out by larger competitors before they could build their line, or turned out to be fraudulent enterprises to channel investors' money into other businesses.
Chester is a walled city in Cheshire, England, on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales. With a population of 118,200 in 2011, it is the most populous settlement of Cheshire West and Chester, which had a population of 332,200 in 2014. Chester was granted city status in 1541.
In 1862, the Wheatsheaf branch was superseded by a new branch line from the locomotive yard and works at Croes Newydd just south of Wrexham General. The railway, which was called the Wrexham and Minera Branch, connected both Brymbo and the mines and quarries at Minera. It was also a great improvement over the Wheatsheaf line because it could be worked throughout by steam engines. By 1882, the Moss Branch had opened connecting Westminster Colliery at Gwersyllt to Croes Newydd.
A rail yard, railway yard or railroad yard is a complex series of railroad tracks for storing, sorting, or loading and unloading, railroad cars and locomotives. Railroad yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock stored off the mainline, so that they do not obstruct the flow of traffic. Railroad cars are moved around by specially designed yard switchers, a type of locomotive. Cars in a railroad yard may be sorted by numerous categories, including railroad company, loaded or unloaded, destination, car type, or whether they need repairs. Railroad yards are normally built where there is a need to store cars while they are not being loaded or unloaded, or are waiting to be assembled into trains. Large yards may have a tower to control operations.
Croes Newydd was a large steam locomotive shed, marshalling yard and junction in Wrexham, in Wales.
Progressively parts of the original Wheatsheaf branch fell into disuse throughout the latter part of the 19th century. By 1918 only a yard for 269 wagons on the branch between Wheatsheaf Junction and Westminster Colliery (at 53°4′31″N3°1′55″W / 53.07528°N 3.03194°W ) remained in operation. The junction was closed and the remaining line lifted after the colliery closed in 1925. [2]
