Cockett railway station was a former station on theWest Wales Line fromSwansea toGowerton and onwards toLlanelli.
The station was located on the west side ofSwansea in the residential area ofCockett.
The railway line betweenLandore andCarmarthen was opened on 11 October 1852 by thebroad gaugeSouth Wales Railway, which later became part of theGreat Western Railway. The engineer of this line wasIsambard Kingdom Brunel. Originally the first station westwards from Landore was atLoughor; Cockett andGowerton stations were opened at later dates. Cockett station was closed to passenger traffic on and from 2 November 1964.
There have been recent proposals to reopen the station as part of the Welsh Government's Rail infrastructure investment.[1]
Just east of the station, towards Swansea, was the 829 yard Cockett Tunnel. The tunnel was cut through unstable soft ground and had wide cuttings at a shallow angle at either end.
The tunnel suffered a partial collapse in 1899, which was held to have been caused by the resumption of pumping operations at the long-closed Weig-fawr colliery,[2] owned by Philip Richard (II), the flooded workings of which extended beneath the tunnel. The tunnel was completely closed for four weeks, after which traffic was resumed on a single line, but it was not fully restored until 1903,[3] by which time steel ribs had been inserted into the bore of the tunnel at its eastern end (not the location of the collapse) to strengthen the roof. These were found to unduly restrict theloading gauge within the tunnel and were removed[4] in 1908.[5] At the same time the eastern end of the tunnel was opened out (reducing the length to 789 yards) and the cutting sides were supported by two brick-builtflying arches preceded by a very short tunnel (51°38′01″N3°58′02″W / 51.6336°N 3.9671°W /51.6336; -3.9671 (Cockett tunnel arches)).[6][7] The banks of the cutting were so unstable that even during this opening-out work, timber horseshoeshoring was required.
In October 2021, theWelsh Government in partnership withCapita published their Welsh Transport Appraisal Guidance (WelTAG) Stage 2 report and executive summary.[8] Option 13, on page 4 of the executive summary, recommends the re-opening of Cockett Station as part of theSwansea Bay and West Wales Metro.
51°38′15″N3°58′42″W / 51.6376°N 3.9782°W /51.6376; -3.9782
