Cardiff Bay railway station

Coordinates: 51°28′02″N 3°09′59″W / 51.4671°N 3.1665°W

Cardiff Bay
Welsh: Bae Caerdydd
Cardiff Bay railway station
Location
Place	Cardiff Bay
Local authority	Cardiff
Grid reference	ST190748
Operations
Station code	CDB
Managed by	Arriva Trains Wales
Number of platforms	1
DfT category	F1
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2004/05	0.246 million
2005/06	0.274 million
2006/07	0.404 million
2007/08	0.519 million
2008/09	0.595 million
2009/10	0.686 million
2010/11	0.753 million
2011/12	0.793 million
2012/13	0.869 million
2013/14	1.019 million
2014/15	1.144 million
9 October 1840	Line opened
December 1844	Station opened as Cardiff Bute Dock
1845	Renamed Cardiff Docks
1 July 1924	Renamed Cardiff Bute Road
26 September 1994	Renamed Cardiff Bay
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Cardiff Bay from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Cardiff Bay railway station (Welsh: Bae Caerdydd), formerly Cardiff Bute Road, is a station serving the Cardiff Bay and Butetown areas of Cardiff, Wales. It is the southern terminus of the Butetown Branch Line 1 mile (1.5 km) south of Cardiff Queen Street.

Only one platform is now in use. The station building remains disused and is boarded up. The station building lies on Bute Street, although the rest of the station remains visible from the nearby Lloyd George Avenue. For various reasons, including it being the origin of the first steam-powered passenger train service in Wales, the station is a Grade II* listed building.^[1]

The station is within walking distance of the Senedd and the Wales Millennium Centre

Passenger services are provided by Arriva Trains Wales.

History

Cardiff Bay railway station

The line to the docks was opened on 9 October 1840 but the station was not mentioned in Bradshaw's railway timetables until December 1844. It was opened as "Cardiff Bute Dock" but the name was changed to "Cardiff Docks" in 1845 by the Taff Vale Railway (engineer: Isambard Kingdom Brunel). The station building was the head office of the TVR until 1862. After this it also housed the consulates of the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal and Brazil, with separate flag poles provided for each nation.

It was renamed "Cardiff Bute Road" by the Great Western Railway on 1 July 1924 and given its present name in 1994.^[2]

Sir Gomer operating steam train rides along the length of the platform in the early 1990s

The building was restored in the 1980s and served for a time as a railway museum under the auspices of the National Museums and Galleries of Wales and the Butetown Historical Railway Society (which in 1997 relocated its activities to the Vale of Glamorgan Railway).^[3]

Services

The Class 121 single-unit "bubble car"

There is a shuttle service between Cardiff Queen Street and Cardiff Bay every 12 minutes Monday to Saturdays (between 0630 and 2330) and every 12 minutes on Sundays (between 1100 and 1630). The service was formerly operated by a Class 121 "bubble car", but this was withdrawn in June 2013.

See also

• Rail transport in Cardiff

References

1. "Cardiff Bay Station, Butetown". British Listed Buildings. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
2. Quick, Michael (2009). Railway Passenger Stations in Great Britain - A Chronology. Railway & Canal Historical Society. ISBN 978 0 901461 57 5.
3. Hutton, John (2006). The Taff Vale Railway, vol. 1. Silver Link. ISBN 978-1-85794-249-1.

External links

• Train times and station information for Cardiff Bay railway station from National Rail