Four months on from my last visit (February 2025) and it is time to return once again to Pembrey & Burry Port to see whether Network Rail remains on track to complete the resignalling here by November 2025, as promised in its most recent update on the rather long drawn-out Port Talbot West 2 (PTW2) project.
At the time of that February 2025 visit there was no apparent evidence of progress, beyond some new equipment that had been in place for a considerable time, so visiting both Pembrey and Ferryside on this occasion (4 June 2025) it would be interesting to see if there was evidence of progress with the resignalling.
Evidence there was at both Pembrey and Ferryside, though there are rather less bagged lollipops than the semaphores they are replacing, with just two visible at Pembrey (one in the photo above) to replace down home PY7 and up outer home PY82, while just one is visible at Ferryside to replace up outer home FS2.
Speaking to a friendly and well-informed signaller at Ferryside I hear that the new signalling is set to be commissioned on Sunday, 2 November 2025, meaning that there are less than five months left for any lovers of traditional signalling to pay a visit to the rather charming corner of the Principality.
As I have written previously, there are a total of five semaphores at Pembrey and another five at Ferryside, all of which can be seen and photographed from on or near the two stations, a couple of which have sadly lost their finials in recent years, but all adding to the heritage nature of these two rather photogenic locations.
My time at these two stations was not early or late enough to catch the route’s only regular freight traffic – the one or two workings each day to and from Robeston Sidings, near Milford Haven, which local signallers call the “oilers” – but I had once again picked a day when the Network Rail “flying banana” HST was due to pass.
That sighting of the Colas Rail-operated test train as it passed Pembrey powered by 43013 Mark Carne CBE and 43062 John Armitt after its monthly tour of the West Wales branch lines proved the only rolling stock variety, on a day when all TfW workings were formed of Class 197 units, with 5-car Class 800 IETs on the now regular Paddington-Carmarthen services.
For the record, the former Pembrey East Signal Box controls total of five lower quadrant semaphores from an 83-lever frame in the substantial 1907-vintage Great Western Railway signal box, which stands some 300 yards east of the station platforms.
These are three in the down (westbound) direction – home signal PY7, starter PY9 and section signal PY10, while the two up signals outer home PY82, at the end of platform 1 and inner home PY81 close to the signal box.
Ferryside Signal Box also has three semaphores in the down direction, comprising FS21 (minus its finial) alongside the sea wall just south of the station and box, starter FS20 and section signal FS21 to the west of the station platforms. Two up semaphores are outer home FS2 and inner home FS3, opposite the signal box.
When complete, PTW2 will see control of the route from Swansea West Loop (215m 14ch) to Whitland (250m 0ch) pass to the signalling centre at Port Talbot, with closure of the signal boxes at Pembrey, Kidwelly, Ferryside and Carmarthen Junction. For a look inside each of the doomed boxes see my December 2024 feature “Four South Wales signal boxes on borrowed time”.
Concluding my day in West Wales, as usual, at the popular Portobello Inn outside Pembrey & Burry Port station, it came as something of a shock to see that, after being unchanged for many years, the cost of a pint has risen – with my excellent Felinfoel Brewery Dragon’s Heart (4.5%) up from £2.50 to the princely sum of £2.60!
RailwayWorld.net 
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