Lampeter, the Teifi Valley and the Aberayron Branch in the Final Years of Steam – 1963 to 1965
 
Edited by David Gowan with photographs by Vernon Parry
 
ISBN: 978-1-912078-38-7
 
Release date: 21 March 2023
 
Quiet between Trains is an evocative record of journeys on the railway line from Carmarthen to Aberystwyth and the branch from Lampeter to Aberayron during the last years of steam – when closure was imminent.
 
The historian Vernon Parry first photographed the railways around Lampeter in August 1963, when passenger and goods trains were still operating as they had done since Great Western days. During later visits he travelled on the footplate of locomotives, and took pictures at small stations and in the countryside in the Teifi valley and on the Aberayron branch.
 
In early April 1965, he photographed and travelled on the last two trains to leave Aberayron station and the last steam-hauled train to the milk depot at Pont Llanio (on the main line).
 
The pictures show railwaymen at work in country settings, and depict the role that the railways played in rural Cardiganshire and Carmarthenshire. Vernon Parry was a talented photographer, and had an intuitive ability to capture an aspect of life that was about to disappear. Many of the railwaymen are identified, and the precise times and dates of most of the photographs are included.
 
The 64 photographs in the book are previously unpublished, and many are unique records of final services on the two railway lines. The book features Great Western Railway and 1950s locomotives, and will appeal both to railway enthusiasts and those interested in the history and landscape of the west of Wales in the early 1960s. Publication has been made possible by the Lampeter History Society.