Railways and Industry in the Tondu Valleys: Ogmore, Garw and Porthcawl Branches (South Wales Valleys) - Hardcover

The books give a history of the railway, coal mining and other industrial aspects of each Valley that combine to make up the Tondu Valleys with detailed comments on the operation of the railway, passenger and freight, and details of each colliery within the area and their place within the South Wales coalfield. Details are provided on individual aspects of railway operation. Each location is studied in detail with abundant photographs of railway and colliery activity. This is the first time such a study of this area has been undertaken in such detail. The study of Porthcawl traces its development from a dock to a seaside resort with supporting photographs of both aspects. This volume will give the reader an ample knowledge of this important part of South Wales as part of a series of books on the South Wales Valleys, to complement the two books on the Western Valley already produced.

The book has been produced jointly by John Hodge and Stuart Davies. John Hodge is well known for his series on the South Wales Main Line and North & West and for other books and articles on South Wales and GWR railway matters. He is also an established railway photographer with a huge archive of South Wales material. Following graduation, he joined British Railways in the Cardiff District Office in 1961, and as a member of the Divisional Office took a leading role in the replanning of all freight services in South Wales in 1970, and was project officer for the development of the first Freightliner Depot in South Wales in 1967. He became long term Coal & Oil long term planning assistant at Paddington in 1971 and joined the WR Consultancy Team in 1976, moving to the Railways Board in 1980, where he worked on various national operating schemes. He retired in 1992 when he took up writing articles and then books. Stuart Davies is a native of the Ogmore Valley and spent much of his formative years observing the operations at Tondu depot and its associated railway environs. This inspired him to pursue a railway career based initially in South Wales, then Carlisle, Bristol, East Anglia and the West Midlands, finally becoming a Senior Operations Executive. On the privatisation of British Railways, he participated in a number of successful bids for train operating companies. Recording in detail the railway activities around the Tondu Valleys has been a long-held ambition, now realised in this work.+.