Wrexham and Minera Railway

The railway was one of several constructed to serve the intensive quarrying, mining and iron founding operations in the area west of Wrexham, which were undergoing considerable expansion in the mid 19th century thanks to exploitation of the underlying Middle Coal Measures.

This line's operation was constrained by the rope-worked inclines, locally known as "brakes", and had two tunnels along its route through the hilly country between Wheatsheaf Junction, near Wrexham, and Brymbo.

In the 1870s a further extension, the Wrexham and Minera Joint Railway, was built from Brymbo through to an end-on connection with the LNWR's Ffrith Branch, which ran from Llanfynydd to Coed Talon near Mold.

The completion of this link through the Cegidog valley not only gave the GWR a route to Mold, but allowed the LNWR access to the North Wales Coalfield.

The construction of the Wrexham-Brymbo line led to the immediate abandonment of the North Wales Mineral Railway's original Brymbo (or "Brake") tunnel and incline.

[4] The lower section of the NWMR route from Wheatsheaf Junction, through Summerhill Tunnel, to the collieries in the Moss valley remained in use as the Wheat Sheaf and Ffrwd Branch until 1908.

[5] At the top end of the line, there was a mile-long spur, the New Brighton branch, along the flank of Esclusham Mountain serving the Delafield Minera Leadmines (which operated their own locomotive Henrietta, a Manning Wardle 0-6-0).

At Brymbo Middle signalbox a short trailing branch south-west to Vron served the collieries there, passing through the steelworks en route.

The route from Croes Newydd to Brymbo was double-tracked, and built to a standard designed to cope with heavy coal and freight trains to and from the steelworks.

The more lightly built section beyond Brymbo West to Minera was worked by smaller locomotives, such as the 5700 Class, with engine 9610 being used almost exclusively on this line.

The last part of the system, the 3-mile line from Brymbo West to Wrexham, remained open for freight trains to and from the steelworks, and as late as the mid 1970s there were seven return workings a day.

Although originally planned in the 1860s, legal challenges by the GWR meant that it was finally constructed in the 1880s after a parliamentary bill for further expansion of the WMCQ line was tabled in 1881; the branch was built and opened to freight traffic in stages, with a full passenger service to Brymbo commencing on 1 August 1889.

Although the branch handled a reasonable volume of freight, passenger services on the line were never especially successful and the Great Central Railway, which had absorbed the WMCQ, discontinued them on a 'temporary' basis in 1917.

The branch, sections of which had a 'difficult' combination of sharp curves and steep gradients, was worked by J58, and then by four Kitson & Co. J60 class locomotives based at Wrexham, later being replaced by J94s.

[10] Rather surprisingly given its duplication of the GWR route, parts of the WMCQ Brymbo branch remained open under British Railways until as late as 1970.