Notes: Rhydmeredydd was a public goods station that was opened by the Potteries, Shrewsbury & North Wales Railway (PS&NWR) as part of the company’s 3¾-mile Nantmawr branch on 13 August 1866. The Nantmawr branch provided a link between the Cambrian Railways (CR) line at Llanymynech and quarries at Nantmawr. The PS&NWR also had a main line which linked Shrewsbury to Llanymynech. The PS&NWR was not a financial success and it went into receivership in December 1866. Trains ceased to run on 21 December 1866.

The Receiver started to run train services again in December 1868 and on 18 April 1870 the company introduced a passenger service onto the Nantmawr branch for the first time. It is not known if passenger services during this period called at Rhydmeredydd; it is possible that they did as mixed passenger/goods trains were operated.

The branch was single track and maps show a siding at Rhydmeredydd on the west side of the line, south of what later became the A495 road. Adjacent to the siding were two buildings but it is not known what facilities they contained.

The Receiver could not make the PS&NWR line pay and all train services ceased on 22 June 1880.

The quarry owners at Nantmawr wanted to move their stone out by rail. They approached the CR who agreed to work the line for mineral trains from 11 February 1881. It is not known if Rhydmeredydd was served at this time as only quarry services seem to have been operated. It is known that for a period in the 1890s the line went out of use and it was not until after January 1896 that services resumed.

From 5 January 1904 19 chains of the Nantmawr branch at Blodwell became part of the Tanat Valley Light Railway (TVLR). Passenger services, operated by the CR, were reintroduced between Llanymynech and Blodwell Junction (which had previously been Llanyblodwel: the passenger terminus for the services operated between 1870 and 1880). The RCH Handbook of Stations 1904 lists Rhydmeredydd as a public goods station that was able to handle general goods so it was clearly open at that time.

The Llanymynech-Blodwell Junction passenger service was not a success and it ceased to run on 1 January 1917.

On 1 January 1922 the CR was absorbed into the Great Western Railway (GWR).

In 1925 the section of line through Rhydmeredydd was closed (between Blodwell Junction and Carreghofa); Rhydmeredydd was listed in the Handbook of Stations 1928 as closed. It is interesting that it was still listed three years after closure but the track was in situ and would remain so until the 1930s.

After the line had been lifted all trace of the station was swept away. In June 2016 only the A494 road bridge remained to show that there had been a railway at this location.

Sources:

• A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain - Volume II North & Mid Wales - Peter E Baughan - David & Charles 1980.
• Encyclopaedia of British Railway Companies - Christopher Awdry - Guild Publishing 1990.
• The Cambrian Railways A New History - Peter Johnson - OPC 2013.

See other stations: Blodwell Junction, Carreghofa Halt and Llanymynech

See also Nantmawr Junction feature