The Hereford, Hay and Brecon Railway (HH&BR) was a railway company that built a line between Hereford in England and a junction with the Mid-Wales Railway at Three Cocks Junction. It opened its line in stages from 1862 to 1864. It never had enough money to operate properly, but the Midland Railway saw it as a means of reaching Swansea, and from 1869 the Midland Railway was given exclusive running powers over the . There was then a long-running dispute over whether the Midland inherited rights of access previously granted to the .
Although the Midland used the route for goods access to and from Swansea, the line was never developed as a trunk route. As a rural line it failed to achieve commercial success and in 1962 the passenger service was withdrawn, followed by total closure in 1964.
First a tramroad Down to the end of the eighteenth century, the district around Hay-on-Wye (then simply referred to as Hay) relied for transport of goods, on the River Wye itself. Navigation was not easy, and unreliability of this means during dry spells or in midwinter made it unsatisfactory. The construction of the Brecknock and Abergavenny Canal provided an opportunity at Watton, some distance from Hay.
To reach it the Hay Railway was promoted, receiving its authorising act of Parliament, the Hay Railway Act 1811 (51 Geo. 3. c. cxxii), of 25 May 1811. A second act of Parliament, the Hay Railway Act 1812 (52 Geo. 3. c. cvi) of 20 May 1812, authorised a number of route changes. It was a plateway tramroad, to be worked by horses, and having L-section plates as the track on which plain wagon wheels could run; the gauge was John Hodgkinson designed the route: in fact he proposed two alternatives, one of 26 miles without a tunnel, which would cost £50,375, and one of 24 miles with a tunnel, which would cost £52,744. The latter was selected. Its construction was completed from Brecon to Hay on 7 May 1816, and extended by stages to Eardisley by 1 December 1818.T R Perkins, Railways in the Wye Valley - I, in the Railway Magazine, September 1938C R Clinker, Railways to Brecon - 2, in the Railway Magazine, June 1960D S M Barrie, revised Peter Baughan, A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain: volume 12: South Wales, David St John Thomas, Nairn, 1994,
Now a railway
Notwithstanding the success of the tramroad, as railway technology developed it became apparent that towns served by a railway had an economic advantage over other places that were not so served. In August 1854 the Leominster, Hay and Brecon Railway was promoted, but it proved impossible to raise money for the scheme and it was dropped. Captain Walter Devereux returned to live at Tregoyd, near Glasbury. He found Breconshire backward, and at a public meeting in Hay on 12 November 1857 he launched the Hereford, Hay and Brecon Railway Company.
Devereux was keen to build a low-cost railway, but at another meeting in Brecon on 21 July 1858, those present adopted a proposed line via Bronllys terminating on the hillside north of Brecon. Devereux believed that his idea had been abandoned and he withdrew from the project. The Hereford, Hay and Brecon Railway received its act of incorporation, the (22 & 23 Vict. c. lxxxiv), on 8 August 1859; capital was to be £280,000 to build 34 miles 15 chains of railway.Rex Christiansen, A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain - volume 13 - Thames and Severn, David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1981,
A contract for the construction was let to M'Cormick and Holmes for £231,000, and a provisional working arrangement made with the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway and the Worcester and Hereford Railway to work the line for 45 per cent of gross receipts. The first sod was turned by Lady Tredegar near Brecon on 10 April 1860. However shareholders complained that too many of the directors were from London and were too distant. At a half-yearly meeting in February 1861, they refused to re-elect one of the London directors and substituted a local man. This resulted in serious disruption by the contractor who had close ties to the director, and the disruption was such that the company replaced the contractor by Thomas Savin.
Early in 1859 the approached the Hay Railway, and agreement was reached on 6 November 1859, by which the Hay Railway would be purchased for £8,360. This was ratified by the Hay Railway Act 1860 (23 & 24 Vict. c. clxxix) on 6 August 1860, effective on 22 August 1860. At an early meeting of the shareholders, the line was described as being part of the shortest route from London to Milford Haven.
This gave the a convenient way to get access to Brecon; the , the Brecon and Merthyr Railway (B&MR) and the Neath and Brecon Railway were all interested, and they decided to buy it jointly and allocate it out in pieces among themselves. Thomas Savin actually made the purchase of the part, receiving shares for his outlay. The went south as far as a location called Aberllynvy near Glasbury, and the junction station became known as Three Cocks Junction after an inn nearby. The end-on junction with the Mid-Wales Railway was 29 chains north of Three Cocks Junction station; the reason for this is that it was originally intended by the Mid-Wales to build a north curve, making a triangle at Three Cocks; the boundary between the two companies would have been at the north-east apex of the triangle.
The powers to build from Aberllynvy to Talyllyn were transferred to the Mid-Wales Railway, and the powers from there to Brecon were transferred to the Brecon and Merthyr Railway.
Entry to Hereford
The Hereford, Hay and Brecon Railway Act 1859 set out an entry to Hereford at Barrs Court Junction, facing north. The junction was where the Newport, Abergavenny and Hereford Railway (NA&HR), running via Barton station, converged with the Shrewsbury and Hereford Railway (S&HR), which ran from Barrs Court station, then a terminus, northwards. Barrs Court Junction would therefore have been a three-way convergence, and the junction was technically to be with the Shrewsbury and Hereford. Arriving trains would reverse to either Barton or Barrs Court station, but there was to be a single-platform interchange station at the junction.Gwyn Briwnant Jones and Denis Dunstone, The Origins of the LMS in South Wales, Gomer Press, Ceredigion, 1999,
This was obviously unsatisfactory and on 3 July 1860 the company was authorised by the (23 & 24 Vict. c. cxxvii) to abandon the connection, substituting a south-facing connection direct to Barton station of the . The , the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway and the Worcester and Hereford Railway amalgamated on 1 July 1860 to form the West Midland Railway. A new working arrangement was now made with the West Midland Railway: it would work the line as soon as 20 miles of that line was completed and open.Clinker hints at a rift between the and the at this time.Gordon Wood, Railways of Hereford, published by the author, 2003,
Opening The first section to be opened was from Hereford to Moorhampton, opened for coal and lime traffic on 24 October 1862. An extension as far as Eardisley was opened on 30 June 1863, with a passenger service of four trains each way daily. The intention had been to use Barton as the Hereford terminus, and a connection into Barton had been used during the construction period by the contractor. However the Inspecting Officer of the Board of Trade declined to sanction the use of the contractor's connection for passengers, condemning it as "dangerous and almost impossible to work".
The line was further extended to Hay on 11 July 1864. Finally from 19 September 1864 the entire line was open and a train service of six passenger and two freight trains each way on weekdays between Hereford and Brecon was introduced, using running powers over the newly-opened Mid-Wales Railway between Three Cocks and Talyllyn, and from there the trains ran over the Brecon and Merthyr Railway to Brecon.
Relations with the Great Western Railway
At the time of the 1863 opening, it was obvious that the West Midland Railway was going to amalgamate with the Great Western Railway (GWR). It did so by the Great Western Railway (West Midland Amalgamation) Act 1863 (26 & 27 Vict. c. cxiii) of 1 August 1863. Hitherto the had assumed that its partner companies at Hereford would have much to gain by using the line for access to South Wales, but the considerable network of the did not seem to offer that likelihood. A rapid cooling of relations followed immediately, with the issue of the junction at Barton unresolved.
In fact the considered the line worthy of developing as an ally, and the General Manager, John Grierson, visited Hereford in November 1863 and agreed a compromise. A junction could be formed that did not directly cross the (former ) line, but ran to the back (west side) of Barton station without making conflicting moves. An agreement was finalised on 24 August 1864, although many details were to be agreed later; nevertheless the first train ran into Barton station on 1 October 1864. The agreement stipulated that the facilities granted to the might be transferred to the Brecon and Merthyr Railway if required. The and the were discussing an amalgamation at the time.
In 1864 the deposited a parliamentary bill for curves at Barton;Wood refers to this as "the 1863 Bill" but he must mean "the Bill relating to the proposals, that was conceived in 1863". one was to ease and regularise the curve to Barton itself; another was to curve to the north and run alongside the northward line to Barrs Court Junction; the curve was known as the Widemarsh Loop. At the same time the petitioned against a bill for the Hereford Loop, which would bring trains from Abergavenny across to the Barrs Court line in entering Hereford from the south. While these matters were in Parliament, the , the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) (also interested in the Hereford Loop) and the agreed that the and the would construct a south curve, the Brecon Curve, near Barrs Court Junction, enabling through running from the Barton direction to Barrs Court without reversal. For its part the would withdraw opposition to the Hereford Loop, and construct the Widemarsh Loop itself.
Amalgamation with the Brecon and Merthyr Railway
In 1865 the decided to proceed with the amalgamation with the Brecon and Merthyr Railway, and this took effect from 25 August 1865, authorised by the Brecon and Merthyr Railway (Amalgamation) Act 1865 (28 & 29 Vict. c. cccxxiv) of 5 July 1865. The line had been worked from the outset by the contractor, Thomas Savin, who was also working the Brecon and Merthyr Railway; the suggestion that the Great Western Railway worked the line between 26 August 1865 and 5 February 1866 seems to be without foundation. With Savin's financial collapse, the Brecon and Merthyr Railway worked the line during the amalgamated period and up to 30 September 1868.
The combined company (also known as the Brecon and Merthyr Railway) was short of money. On 28 February 1867 the gave notice to the that it would cease using the Barton station from 30 June 1867. This was a desperate attempt to save money: £620 a year as the toll for using the station. The trains now only ran to Moorfields.
The Widemarsh Loop was laid in but not connected at the north () end, and the Brecon Curve was not started. The reasons are not definitively apparent, but the 's extreme financial difficulty, no doubt known to the larger companies, must have played a part. The Brecon Curve was laid in just before expiry of the powers granted by the act of Parliament; a demonstration train ran on 5 May 1870, the day the powers expired, but the junction at the Barrs Court end was not made even then.