I’ll travel no more,
From Littleton Badsey to Openshaw,
At Long Stanton,
I’ll stand well clear of the doors no more,
No whitewashed pebbles, no Up and no Down,
From Formby Four Crosses to Dunstable Town,
I won’t be going again,
On the Slow Train.

Though the above song refers to the so-named ‘Beeching cuts’ of the 1960s, under which Britain’s railway network lost almost half of its stations and a third of its tracks, the line serving the Ogmore valley to Bridgend was officially closed before this. As the shift of reliance from coal to oil entered high gear after the Second World War, the mines of South Wales closed one by one, and their workers soon uprooted and moved elsewhere, to neighbouring valleys and beyond, in search of work. That, and the growing cost efficiency of public and private road transport, soon spelled the end for the Ogmore Vale railway line in May 1958. While most of the rails and platforms were removed, the path taken by the daily trains remained, and by 2005 had been tarmacked and turned into a purpose-built cycle and foot path.

Another semaphore distant signal, though this one has been printed onto a metal sign and is immobile. I suspect that there was a signal here, and when it was taken away a sign was left here to indicate where the signal had been. This could have been done for practical or nostalgic purposes, but it seems as those in the present day the sign has been forgotten, and now serves as a support for this tree.

Hope you enjoy!