I FELT it was time again to indulge into the train lines of the Barry and District. I love the bridge architecture that has been left behind

This week we visit the Sully to Cadoxton section of the Taff Vale Railway, and one particular bridge. Why do you love railway architecture? Because it tells a rich story of change and achievements.

As you head along the Cardiff Road and in front of you is the roundabout that sends you towards Wenvoe, Dinas Powis or Sully; you take the Sully junction Southwards (third exit). Immediately on the left is the old Dan Evans storage depot, a turning on the left and you see the old railway bridge; no longer used for rail, but to carry a road.

The section of railway at Sully Moors is featured in a piece of film footage edited by me on my YouTube channel, entitled, 'Sully train station, the last journey to and from Barry and Penarth'; with voiceover by Brian Kietch, who filmed the original video.

The detail of the bridge of the lower arch is of brick from the Cadoxton or Biglis brickworks. It spans the Cadoxton River.

The main stone work is of local Lias Limestone, with other detail and coping stone of Pennant sandstone from the Valleys.

The trainline at Sully by the 1960s now belonging to the Nationalised British Railway, was seeing a huge decrease in income with holiday makers visiting the St. Mary's Well Bay holiday resort less and less in the summer due to foreign excursions.

The trainline here was almost dead in the winter months. Other factors didn't help, when the train arriving in Barry; usually just one carriage, the train time table didn't match those trains arriving from Cardiff so the passengers therefore had to usually wait in Cadoxton for the connecting train to Barry Island.

I have walked all of the train route from Penarth to Sully; well, those bits that haven't been built on. Many of the bridges have since been removed, so our bridge this week is a fine survival of change.

The bridge was part of the overall scheme for the railway, but on closing the network on May 6th 1968 it survived. I do know that the train line was planned to be moth balled many years before it's closure, and many sections of it seemed to be allocated for sale, even before it closed.

Bridge building throughout the area, I'm instructed was carried out by gangs of navvies. Those navvies came from Ireland, a fact I've gathered from local folklore. Whoever these people where I'm told could erect a bridge, like the one featured this week in the Barry and District in a matter of three weeks. The skills of these workers, show them to be hero's of the railway building age in the late 1800's.

We will visit more from this and other train lines in the near future. And the names of the railway companies and buttons found along this line embossed with the letters BR, and they don't refer to British Railway either.