After the 1926 General Strike, reports in the local and national press described the scenes over the 1927 August Bank Holiday weekend at Barry Island as 'organised chaos' .

In excess of 75 special excursion trains, each carrying an estimated 500-600 passengers arrived from Cardiff's Riverside Station during that morning and early afternoon.

A report in the local press on one Bank Holiday Monday, when an estimated crowd of over 150,000 arrived at the Island, described the scene as follows - "When it was time for visitors to leave the Island a queue started to form just before 6 pm and by 9.30 pm was still over a quarter of a mile long, it snaked around the fairground with people waiting to board their trains.

Demand during the morning was so great that temporary ticket booths had to be set up at the Riverside concourse to cope with the high level of sales.

Traffic levels started to fall in the 1950s and 1960s with the spread of greater car ownership in the UK, especially after the Severn Bridge opened in 1966.

[3] This method of operation continued right up until the ’box was permanently abolished in March 1998, though main line connections to the tracks serving platforms 3 & 4 had been disconnected for some years by this time.

The remaining bi-directional single line to and from Barry was henceforth operated using ‘One Train Working’ regulations from Barry Station signal box (since abolished - the branch is now controlled from Wales Railway Operations Centre (WROC) at Canton, Cardiff, whilst the defunct island platform had its footbridge steps to platforms 3 & 4 removed.

By 2007, the company had extended their line from a junction on the Barry end of the Causeway to a new halt at Gladstone Bridge alongside Morrisons supermarket, the final intention being to further extend ½ mile to a new terminus alongside the Network Rail Barry Docks station, making their end-to-end main track length two miles.

[4] Following financial cutbacks brought about by the global credit crunch, the Vale of Glamorgan Council withdrew annual grant support for the heritage railway and placed the facilities up for tender.

The heritage railway subsequently failed to secure the new lease and were forced to withdraw from Barry Island station in December 2008.

[6] The timetable has been changed since June 2024 as part of the South Wales Metro, trains no longer operates from Barry Island to Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare.