Barry Island railway station

Barry Island
Welsh: Ynys y Barri
Frontage of Barry Island station in June 2010
Location
Place	Barry Island
Local authority	Vale of Glamorgan
Operations
Station code	BYI
Managed by	Arriva Trains Wales
Number of platforms	2
Live arrivals/departures and station information from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage
2004/05 *	0.627 million
2005/06 *	0.584 million
2006/07 *	0.557 million
2007/08 *	0.560 million
2008/09 *	0.578 million
2009/10 *	0.561 million
History
Opened August 1896 Buildings modernised 1984 (August 1896 Buildings modernised 1984)
National Rail - UK railway stations
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Barry Island from Office of Rail Regulation statistics. Please note: methodology may vary year on year.

Diesel railcar depot and terminus. View eastward, in 1966, to terminus of line from Barry and Cardiff.

Barry Island railway station is a railway station, fifteen kilometres (9¼ miles) south-west of Cardiff Central, serving Barry Island (Welsh: Ynys y Barri) in Wales. The station has been the terminus - and only remaining active station - of the Barry Island branch of the Vale of Glamorgan Line since the closure of Barry Pier station in 1976.

Passenger services, operated by Arriva Trains Wales as part of the Valley Lines network, currently use the first half of platform 1.

History

Opening

In 1896 the railway line was extended along the newly built raised road causeway from Barry Station onto the Island to provide a service to the newly opened and developing Barry Island Pleasure Park day tripper leisure facilities. The Barry Island station opened in time for the August Bank holiday 1896. The new rail line also crossed to the island at road level and consequently a level crossing was needed where the line crossed Plymouth Road. When a premises on Station Approach was being renovated in the late 1990s traces of the original track were discovered in the basement.

To give improved passenger access to the Yellow Funnel steamers that plied the Bristol Channel in 1899 the line was continued past Barry Island station to the new Barry Pier railway station through an enclosed box tunnel.

Peak years

The peak years for passenger numbers at Barry Island were in the 1920s and 1930s. From 1924 on most peak-time August Bank Holiday Mondays between 80,000 to 100,000 visitors arrived at the Island and mostly by train.

After the 1926 General Strike, reports in the local and national press described the scenes over the 1927 August Bank Holiday weekend at Barry Island as 'organised chaos' . It was estimated that in excess of 120,000 arrived at the island with packed trains arriving and leaving Barry Island Station at five-minute intervals. In excess of 75 special excursion trains, each carrying an estimated 500-600 passengers arrived from Cardiff's Riverside Station during that morning and early afternoon.

A report in the local press on one Bank Holiday Monday, when an estimated crowd of over 150,000 arrived at the Island, described the scene as follows - "When it was time for visitors to leave the Island a queue started to form just before 6 pm and by 9.30 pm was still over a quarter of a mile long, it snaked around the fairground with people waiting to board their trains. Excursionists from the Midlands and places other than Cardiff and the Valleys using one entrance and boarding their non-stop return trains and "Locals" having to wait for a space to return to Cardiff."

In 1927 the GWR decided to issue special day return tickets from Cardiff General (Riverside) at one shilling each (5pence) and sold over 82,000 tickets. Demand during the morning was so great that temporary ticket booths had to be set up at the Riverside concourse to cope with the high level of sales. Additional trains and rolling stock were quickly laid on, over and above the planned timetable to transport the additional visitors to Barry Island. By 12 noon the station ticket office totally ran out of tickets and were forced to use hand amended tickets that had been dated for the following day.

Decline

Traffic levels started to fall in the 1950s and 1960s with the spread of greater car ownership in the UK. A further sudden drop occurred between 1968 and 1970 with the removal of the Taff Vale railway branch line from Cardiff via Penarth as a result of the Beeching Axe. The wholesale closure of rural rail links all over the country accelerated the switch to private car use by holidaymakers.

Vale of Glamorgan Railway

Barry Island station in August 2005. The former Vale of Glamorgan Railway is shown on the left with its original semaphore signals.

The Heritage Vale of Glamorgan Railway moved their operations to Barry Island station in 1997 from Cardiff Butetown railway station when the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation indicated that they had no use for a heritage steam railway in their plans. The heritage railway commenced operating heritage trains from Barry Island's platform 4, running across the causeway alongside Network Rail, before continuing on to one of their existing branches.

Following financial cutbacks brought about by the global credit crunch the Vale of Glamorgan Council withdrew annual grant support for the heritage railway and placed the facilities up for tender. The heritage railway subsequently failed to secure the new lease and were forced to withdraw from Barry Island station in December 2008.

Current services

From Monday to Saturday, up to three trains per hour leave for Cardiff Central; their final destination being Aberdare, Merthyr Tydfil or Pontypridd.

On Sundays, the service to Cardiff runs twice per hour during peak times

See also

• Barry Island Pleasure Park

External links

• Train times and station information for Barry Island railway station from National Rail

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Barry		Arriva Trains Wales Vale Line		Terminus
	Disused railways
Woodham Halt		Vale of Glamorgan Railway Main Line		Plymouth Road
Waterfront		Vale of Glamorgan Railway Branch Line		Plymouth Road