{"id":13063,"date":"2013-08-09T11:00:15","date_gmt":"2013-08-09T10:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/?p=13063"},"modified":"2019-12-10T21:17:18","modified_gmt":"2019-12-10T21:17:18","slug":"rails-to-rhymney-lisvane-station-cefn-onn-halt-and-caerphilly-tunnel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/rails-to-rhymney-lisvane-station-cefn-onn-halt-and-caerphilly-tunnel\/","title":{"rendered":"Rails to Rhymney – Lisvane station, Cefn Onn halt and Caerphilly tunnel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Photos<\/p>\n

Photographed from Lisvane & Thornhill station, north Cardiff, you can see the track dipping sharply into Cefn Onn tunnel, which runs for 2,000 yards into Caerphilly on the other side of the mountain.<\/p>\n

The line then runs north on to Rhymney, passing through eleven more stations to the terminus, \u00a0including Ystrad Mynach, Gilfach Fargoed and Tir-Phil.<\/p>\n

Visible in the photo above are two masonry piers which used to support a footbridge giving access from the (now abandoned) Cefn Onn Halt station to the nearby Cefn Onn park.<\/p>\n

\"Photos<\/p>\n

A 2000 view of the footbridge, which remained in use for around 15 years years after the station’s closure.<\/p>\n

\"Photos<\/p>\n

Cefn Onn halt was only accessible by footpath and was located close to the southern portal of Caerphilly tunnel.<\/p>\n

\"Rails<\/p>\n

[1955 view showing northbound passenger train pulled by GWR 56xx 5683 ex-Great Western 0-6-2T Loco]<\/p>\n

Being a request stop meant that southbound passengers had to wave their arms frantically to get the train to stop:<\/p>\n

Waiting for the train was always a pleasant experience, as the secluded cutting was almost silent apart from the sound of a nearby brook, the wind in the trees and singing birds.<\/p>\n

The imminent arrival of a train was always an exciting moment – you’d hear the distant rumble of the train entering the northern portal of the tunnel, with a deep ‘whooshing’ sound getting louder and louder before the train burst into the daylight, just 20m from your platform.<\/p>\n

At this point you had to manically wave your arms around to get the driver to stop (a mission I was not always successful at).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Photos<\/p>\n

Cefn Onn halt closed on Saturday, 27th September 1986, and was replaced by Lisvane and Thornhill station some 500m or so further down the line.<\/p>\n

Read more: \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cefn On\/ Cefn Onn halt – an abandoned railway halt, north Cardiff<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photographed from Lisvane & Thornhill station, north Cardiff, you can see the track dipping sharply into Cefn Onn tunnel, which runs for 2,000 yards into Caerphilly on the other side … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20,17,193,198],"tags":[660,1196,884,659,215,883,1200,1194],"class_list":["post-13063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cardiff","category-photos","category-places","category-wales-places","tag-caerphilly","tag-cardiff","tag-cefn-on","tag-cefn-onn","tag-disused-station","tag-gwr","tag-railways","tag-wales"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/rails-to-rhymney.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQI7P-3oH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13063"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19263,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13063\/revisions\/19263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}