Welsh railwayana on the Severn Valley Railway

In my previous post about our visit to the Severn Valley Railway, I mentioned the Barry Railway Company coach that needed a good refurb.

However, in the little museum in Kidderminster there was a room chock-full of other Welsh 'railwayana' - name plates and notices and devices and other odds and ends. I went round taking photos of some items that had been gathered from Wales, mainly from across the South. 

First up, some signs. I don't think there was a railway station on the top of the Sugar Loaf - more likely this was to tell engine drivers they had reached the top of a long climb up the hill. Meanwhile, Pontarddulais is missing a d in the signal box sign underneath, a relic from when Welsh names were anglicised on official signs. 

There was another signal box sign from a long-vanished location below the impressive array of finials that would have been on top of signal posts.

And I was naturally massively excited to see this sign for Grangetown station!

Some signs were more than just names. There is a huge amount of detail in these safety notices from the Barry Railway and the Rhymney Railway.

This no trespassing notice was cast in metal for the Rhondda and Swansea Bay Railway Company. 

I'm not sure what this key was used for. I'd guess it's something to do with signalling. If you know, feel free to add a comment.

This poster for excursions to Barry Island captures a moment when a seaside trip was a proper outing and people would travel all the way from Cardiff and Newport.

There were also several mementoes taken off steam engines that were sent for scrap long ago. I imagine Nora worked around the mines in Blaenavon.

All the little railway companies in South Wales were absorbed into the Great Western Railway, which in turn became part of British Railways after nationalisation in 1948. This box on the way into the museum probably dates from the 1950s.

You can see evidence for long-gone railways across South Wales, with bridge-walls and even some extant viaducts visible on almost any car journey. But many railway sites have disappeared without leaving much of a trace, just occasional relics like these that were salvaged and put on display.