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News
I VISITED WALES' LEAST-USED TRAIN STATION WHERE NOBODY EVER GETS ON OR OFF
One workman carrying out annual checks at the station said: 'You’re the first
person I’ve ever seen get off the train'
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By
Robert HarriesSenior Reporter
* 03:25, 5 DEC 2021
* Updated07:38, 5 DEC 2021
News
Reporter Rob Harries took a trip to the quietest train station in Wales (Image:
Media Wales)
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As the two-carriage train pulls away slowly from Llandeilo in Carmarthenshire on
a cold and moody December morning on the Heart of Wales line, you can’t help but
be amazed at everything that surrounds you.
Before you know it, you’re away from a pretty rural town and into the rural
countryside. To both sides all you can see is wonderful Welsh fields and hills,
which act as a pulsating backdrop to a train journey that seems like it belongs
to a bygone age.
The Heart of Wales Line itself is more than 150 years old and stretches 121
miles in total, from Swansea to Shrewsbury, taking in a seemingly endless list
of fascinating locations along the way, including Llanwrda, Llangammarch,
Llandrindod, Llangynllo, Knucklas, and the English villages of Hopton Heath and
Broome.
Read more: Dozens of maskless passengers hit with £200 fines
In a list of obscure and intriguing stops, however, there is one which is more
obscure and intriguing than the rest: Sugar Loaf. Even the name is magical.
Blink and you literally will miss it, for the train only stops there if you ask
the conductor in plenty of time.
Between April 2020 and March 2021, no passengers got on or off a train at Sugar
Loaf station. Zero. More celebrities have been in space in the past 18 months
than there have been people at Sugar Loaf station. In fact, there are more
people in space right now than have called at this station in the past year.
The empty station at Sugar Loaf (Image: Media Wales)
A stairway to nowhere (well, an eerily quiet A-road) (Image: Adrian White)
There was a spike in interest a few years ago, when a staggering 1,846
passengers used the station between April 2017 and March 2018, something which
has been put down to tourists wanting to say they’ve actually been to the most
remote train station in Wales, and one of the most remote anywhere in the UK.
During the following year that number dropped by more than half, but the station
still welcomed more than 700 passengers. Since then, the sight of people at
Sugar Loaf is once more a rarity. Between April 2019 and March 2020 there were
156 recorded passengers, which is only three a week.
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To be fair, the station was closed between July 2020 and August 2021 in order
to, according to Transport for Wales, “ensure the safety of staff and customers
as a result of Covid-19”. But still, nobody got off at the station even in the
three months prior to that closure.
In comparison, Cardiff Central - the busiest train station in Wales - saw almost
two million entries and exits in 2020-21, even during a time when many people
were not travelling due to the outbreak of coronavirus.
Sugar Loaf station sits on the beautiful Heart of Wales line, between Cynghordy
and Llanwrtyd (Image: Adrian White)
Once my journey is underway, I’m keen to find the conductor so that I can
request to get off at Sugar Loaf. A surprised look later, he helpfully explains
that I will need to walk to the front of the train in ample time so that he can
let me off. The normal train doors do not open at Sugar Loaf, only the small
side door inside the snug staff section directly behind the driver.
It’s all very exciting, like being allowed into the cockpit of a plane!
Thankfully, the conductor assures me that he will also be on the return journey,
so my trepidation about trying to flag down a moving train is unnecessary.
About 37 minutes later, I arrive at Sugar Loaf for the first time.
I tread gingerly onto the platform and there it is: total silence. Nobody else
gets off, nobody else is waiting to get on. It’s just me, some steps, a small
shelter and the chill of Welsh winter. There’s no wi-fi, no coffee shop, no
CCTV, no toilet, and hardly any phone signal. I can’t even hear any traffic; I
am quite literally in the middle of nowhere.
All of a sudden, I hear a voice. Hurrah! Company for me as I wait in the cold
for the journey back to civilisation.
“Wow, I’ve got to say I’ve been coming here for god knows how many years and
you’re the first person I’ve ever seen get off the train,” says Andrew Jones,
who works for Integral and is here carrying out annual maintenance.
“I’m shocked," he adds. His colleague Dave Williams is equally perplexed.
Between him and Andrew they’ve been coming here every November or December since
2008, and I’m the first bit of company they’ve had.
“When I saw someone get off I couldn’t believe it,” said Dave. “There’s nothing
here. You can’t even get a cup of tea.”
Dave Williams and Andrew Jones travel to Sugar Loaf station once a year to carry
out maintenance - in more than ten years they had not seen one person get off
the train (Image: Media Wales)
Andrew and Dave explain that even the steps at the station are a fairly recent
addition - a few years ago you could only access the main road via an old wooden
staircase.
The station itself - which was closed off completely in 1965 before reopening
nearly two decades later in 1984 - was built so that railway workers living in
local cottages could access public transport. I’m told that the only people who
ever get off here these days are ramblers, not that any are braving the cold
weather today.
Once up the stairs you come to a small car park covered with chippings, and then
the road which connects Cynghordy and Llanwrtyd.
Even here, away from the station itself, it's eerily quiet; I perhaps see about
three cars in 10 minutes. There’s a lay-by up ahead which used to be home to a
burger van, long since gone as zero passengers doesn’t exactly equate to a
thriving business model. Alas, my dreams of a nice warm cup of tea are up in
smoke, despite Andrew the maintenance man kindly offering to drive me to the
nearest village some three miles away.
So there is nothing to do except wait, but with no internet and limited phone
signal, it’s a different kind of waiting, the kind we don’t have to endure
anymore. You have no choice but to take it all in - the countryside, the smell
of the forest, the hush of the December air, and the odd baa from a sheep.
Once back in the relative metropolis of Llandeilo, one fascinated fellow
passenger even asks: ‘Did you get on at Sugar Loaf? What was it like?’ Quiet, I
said. But nice and quiet, and beautiful too.
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