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Going to school on the Mumbles Train
by Carol Powell (née Symmons)
This photograph brings back so many memories for me. It shows a single coach stopped on the 'up' line at Oystermouth Station, alongside the shorter pole, which told the driver where to stop when he had either a single or double carriage in tow. The station building housed a waiting room, toilets and, for a few hours a day, a newspaper shop. In the background of the picture, can be seen Forte's Espresso bar and the rear of the buildings on the seaward side of The Dunns, which were destined to be demolished in a road-widening scheme in 1970.
The brown and cream electric coaches of the Mumbles train, powered by overhead cables, took over from the old steam trains on 2 March 1929, but by 1933, had been repainted in the familiar pillar-box red, which I remember thoughout my childhood. We West Cross children travelled on them in the 1940s and early 1950s down to Oystermouth Station, followed by either a short walk to the Church School in Dunns Lane or a longer one up Newton Road to the Oystermouth Council School (mine were firstly Oystermouth Council Infants department, where I first met a seven-year old John Powell, and for a few later terms, the Church Hall, an outpost of the Church school).
I recall my little blue purse, which every day held three old pennies – one for the fare to go 'down' the line to Oystermouth, another to travel back 'up' after school and the third to spend in Selwyn Shute's 'tuck' shop next door to the school.
When Grange school opened in 1952, my journeys 'down' and 'up' the line to school came to an end. and the railway itself celebrated its 150th anniversary in 1954 but ceased operating some years later on 5 January 1960.
Today some of the only signs of its existence are the erstwhile waiting room and two of the electricity poles, which carried the overhead power cables and which still stand, now sadly rusting and neglected.
Carol Powell is Co-editor of the website A HISTORY OF MUMBLES
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