It has been over sixty years since passenger services called at Machen, a once important railway hub in South Wales. The settlement was at the junction of two routes, and local goods traffic kept the citizens awake around the clock.  Almost all of that infrastructure has now gone, but Machen still moves prodigious quantities of goods by rail, all of it originating in the vast quarry just northeast of the settlement.

Since collaborating on an improvement programme for the remaining line serving Machen Quarry, direct from Newport, 17km to the east, Freightliner has been moving increasing quantities of aggregates from the location. The UK rail freight operator has just celebrated breaking through the half-megaton barrier for the first time. Production at Machen had been suppressed due to the line’s low Route Availability (RA). However, since an upgrade to a weak bridge and other improvements facilitated by Network Rail, Freightliner has been able to improve tonnage and help the quarry contribute more significantly to the construction industry.

Supplying nationally and locally

Machen Quarry in South Wales is a facility of the Hanson group, a now German-owned aggregates and building materials company. The quarry is rail served on the rump of a former mixed traffic line which carried multiple industrial and agricultural flows and passenger services. The line was upgraded in a collaborative project with Network Rail, Hanson, specialist aggregates operator Mendip Rail, and Freightliner. That project increased the line Route Availability from RA8 (22.8t/axle) to RA10 (25.4t/axle). That has allowed Freightliner to deliver an additional 200 tonnes per train. For their part, Hanson and their partner, Mendip Rail, have significantly increased production at Machen to supply major infrastructure projects, such as the high-speed rail project HS2.

Machen has also provided raw materials for projects closer to home as well. Back in 2021, a multi-million-pound investment was undertaken on the Welsh railway network between Hereford and Abergavenny (the Marches Line) to combat bad weather and minimise disruption. There have been several washouts causing short notice closures and significantly disrupting passenger and freight traffic across a wide area of Wales and England. Network Rail engineers reinforced the line with more than 8,000 tonnes of rock, locally sourced from Machen Quarry. Ten trains delivered the entire load for the project.

Consistently high-performing schedules

Freightliner has celebrated the milestone as a major accomplishment. “What a great achievement – congratulations to all involved”, said a post on the company’s social media feeds. Network Rail has also welcomed the achievement, saying it supports their ambitions for the sector. “We are keen to grow rail freight in the Network Rail Wales and Borders Route”, said Nick Millington, NR Route Director. “We have really focused, as a team, on our freight performance metric and have proven that jointly with hauliers, we can run consistently high-performing schedules to terminals across our network.”

Up in the valley, Machen has just a withered arm of its once sprawling railway network still intact. However, the trains originating from Machen Quarry are now moving a greater tonnage of raw materials than ever did the clanking steam hauling local goods. Today’s rail freight operations are a far more discrete neighbour like many other railway operations. The villagers of Machen may desire to return trains to Pontypridd and Caerphilly and may even harbour hopes that a passenger service may someday rejoin the eastbound freighters to Newport. For now, though, their dreams are rarely disturbed by the heavy haul rail freight operations on the edge of their town.