 Sunday morning Machynlleth- Aberystwyth DMU service boards at Machynlleth. |
The
carriage floor of the Central Trains
156-class railcar was vibrating under my feet, and the pitch of the diesel engine under
the floorboards had risen to an urgent throb-throb-throb. Sunday is a day
of scant services on Central Trains' Cambrian lines, but I had found a morning train that
would carry me from the market town of Machynlleth down to Aberystwyth on the Bay of
Cardigan by half past twelve. Now we were on the last leg of the journey, and the
train was working hard to surmount the double range of hills which gird Aberystwyth on the
north and east. In steam-engine days, this part of the line was a well-known
"fireman's nightmare"-- the engines' stokers were hard pressed to shovel coal
fast enough to keep up with their drivers' demands for steam. Even in 1997, my
diesel railcar still seemed to find the grade tough going.
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 Arrival at Aberystwyth Station's platform #3. |
We
crested the ridge nevertheless, and drifted
the final mile down into Aberystwyth Station. No mere seaside village, Aberystwyth
is both a genuine city and a place close to the soul of Wales. As home to the
National Library of Wales, the city is custodian to the greatest single collection of
Welsh- language literature in the world-- and thus in a very real way is the keeper of the
collective memory of the Welsh people. It is also a community of scholars in a land
historically possessed of few institutions of higher learning: Aberystwyth's University
College of Wales was initially supported in part by donations from Wales' working men and
women, who dreamed of a better life through education for their children.
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 Aberystwyth's fine--and sadly endangered-- GWR-built stone headhouse |
Aberystwyth
Station proved to be a fitting gateway to
this cultured city. Upon stepping out of the train, I was cheered by a fine
and eclectic play of architecture. Across the way, a wooden canopy spread sheltering
arms above the old #4 platform; above my head, an ornamented iron canopy provided a finer,
more airy protection to the #3 platform still in daily use. At the end of the tracks
stood a strikingly-proportioned stone-and-brick headhouse-- a 1924 addition, I later
learned. So harmonious and well-proportioned was the entire effect that I found
myself thinking it the finest station of its size I had seen anywhere in Britain.
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Sadly,
Aberystwyth depot is also somewhat run
down-- and its fate is very much in doubt. The local council is debating proposals
to transform the area into a shopping complex, and only some of the plans involve
preservation of the fine stone headhouse. No one proposes to save the train
canopies. The station's loss, if permitted, will be a tragedy of no small
proportions-- one that the people of Aberystwyth will surely come bitterly to regret.
For the moment, however, the depot still offers its charms, and something rare and
precious besides: the opportunity to make a cross-platform transfer to a narrow-gauge
steam train. Immediately opposite the #3 platform, two tracks of tiny rails laid
precisely 1' 11.5" apart occupied an old standard-gauge station bay. Down the
way, I could see a compact yard filled with diminutive works wagons and wooden carriages
drawn up in rakes. Most of the tracks converged on a tall brick enginehouse, from
which there issued an occasional loud clanging: someone was doing metalwork, and having a
tough time of it. I had found the 96-year-old Vale of Rheidol Railway, and it was
very much open for business.
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