Welsh Journals

Early in the second World War fifty concrete prefabs were built to accommodate railway personnel and for a time there were sleeping coaches in the car dock. The Hostel, now "The Moors" hostel for homeless families, was built in 1941. Many will remember their time in residence on transferring to the depot and later settling down to family life in the area. It is believed that, at the commencement of the war 1050 people were employed in all departments. The first loco shed was built on the site of what was to become the car dock from where in later years, cars were ferried on trains through the tunnel until the building of the Severn Bridge. A Great Western standard shed was built on a new site in 1908 and was used until dieselisation in 1969. Some years ago after being used as a car distribution depot it was demolished. My father worked in this new shed until dismissed in 1911 for smoking on the footplate. He then joined the regular army until invalided out in 1919. Later he again worked on the railway as a platelayer in the tunnel from 1935 to 1937. In 1947, one year before Nationalisation a census of engines revealed Severn Tunnel Junction as being third in the table of totals in the old Newport Division with 93. Ebbw Junction was top with 140 followed by Canton with 121. From the turn of the century until 1963 all was expansion and consolidation. When I started work the Great Western Railway still had six years to run although the paternalism of that railway was inevitably under strain during the war years. Following Nationalisiation almost imperceptably, all began to change. This continued until Dr. Beeching decided that railways as we knew them would never be the same again. Not content with the closure of so many lines, he seemed determined that, however the climate changed in future years, there would be no opportunity for expansion should the need arise. The appointment of Dr. Beeching however, may have been a consequence of the increase in private car ownership and the massive motorway building programme to accommodate the ever increasing number of lorries which were also becoming larger in size and axle weight. The "dream" following nationalisation of a fully integrated transport system never came to fruition due to the failure of all governments to stand up to the road lobby and insist on its implementation. Until 1963 through two World Wars every small lineside factory had its own sidings forming brooks which formed streams until, reaching marshalling yards like ours, formed rivers of traffic of all descriptions being delivered without problems B. R. now seem to lose in the competition with road transport with fewer trains chasing fewer goods available to both, leading to the need for reductions in staff. The railway was always in our consciousness from an early age. The whistle of a train heard on a restless night, the clang clang of steel wagons buffering up against others off the hump, the whistles of the engines welcoming in each new year.