Swansea Vale Railway

Swansea Vale Railway, Oct 08

My first report in colour!!

Originally opened in 1816, all that remains of the service between Brynamman and Swansea is about 2 miles of track preserved by the SVR Society. Sadly they have now stopped looking after the site after vandals set fire to most of the trains some time last year.
There are trains and carriages every where on the site along with a wooden signal box that is slowly rotting away. The vandals set fire to about 10 restored carriages, which are still on site. There are loads of signals just lying about in the undergrowth along with trackside levers. The amount of stuff just lying about is amazing, so much we are going back again for another look.

That is really sad to see the damage inflicted by mindless idiots. Such a lot of cool stuff to see too. Love the brick and timber signal box.

Cheers

Nice (colour) pics you've got here! What a shame it's going to ruin! What's happened to the SVR Society to just leave this?

I just had a look at the website, looked like they had some nice restored trains but have just ceased running.

http://www.swanseavalerailway.co.uk

All that effort now rotting away

sqwasher said:

Nice (colour) pics you've got here! What a shame it's going to ruin! What's happened to the SVR Society to just leave this?

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What a nice site but what stupid mindless vandalism! I just don't understand this sort of vandalism.

I've said it before - bring back the stocks.

There is some great stuff lying round the site. Dumpers, engines, levers, I could go on!!

I really hope someone takes over here before the whole place is left a complete mess. Thanks for posting.

that place gets worse and worse the trains where trashed when i was there last but now it looks like scrap time for them its such a shame. i did hear a rumor that that site was ripe for redivelopment

I think they have abandoned the site because of the vandalism. They earned the money for restoration by running the trains for visitors on the 2 miles of track they had and visitor donations. Once the trains got vandalised they had no way of making money any more. So sadly another part of our welsh history has disappeared.

Nice set of snaps here matey

Loving the one of that wheel! Crazy looking platform too in shot 12!

Cheers for posting these up here.

Lb:jimlad:

Excellent pics. So so sad to see the damage. I hope they were able to salvage some of the stuff and get it off site to be preserved or used elsewhere. - Doesnt look like any engines in your pics - so maybe were able to save these??

Their website says

Important Announcement
Passenger carrying duties have been canceled due to important engineering work being carried out on the railway,and with regret. for the foreseeable future.

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,
dated June 2007. Is this when the vandalism happened? and roughly how long ago in terms of months was your visit?


Seeing the damage caused by the mindless vandals makes me furious :icon_evil :realmad: What a bunch of complete and utter ****. I hope someone does the same to their houses.

cardiffrail said:

Doesnt look like any engines in your pics - so maybe were able to save these??
Their website says
,
dated June 2007. Is this when the vandalism happened? and roughly how long ago in terms of months was your visit?

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There is 1 engine there, which suprisingly wasn't damaged, pics are on film I haven't developed yet. The vandalism happened last year I think. I was there this month so this is the current state of the site.

Lovely photos! I'm going to HAVE to check out this sometime soon.

Sad that it's all going to ruin though. I'm really surprised at that.

Turns my sick to see what the mindless idiots have smashed up.

The web site doesn't appear to have been updated since 2002.


http://homepage.ntlworld.com/michael.meyrick/welcome.html

There are views of the place in action here

John

Excellent pics of a very sad looking site. Makes me angry to see mindless thugs damaging something historical that historians have spent hours and time working on to preserve something special for us all to see.

You wouldn't really like to know what i'd do to the thugs if i got my hands on them! :arghh::sad::realmad::wmad::no: Bloody people should be locked up! oliceman: