Sweet memories of most remote rail halt

"My father used to love that line. He enjoyed every minute of working on what was the LMS in those days," she said.

"As a goods guard he worked at Sugar Loaf, which is where the steam engines used to fill up with water. The Summit, they called it, meaning the top of Sugar Loaf. It's called a halt now."

The halt is the most remote of all the stations on the Heart of Wales line, lying on the A483 between Llanwrtyd Wells and Cynghordy.

According to Arriva Trains Wales, only around 150 passengers a year board trains there. A total of 54 trains pass per week, but as it is a request stop, weeks can go by without a train stopping.

Mrs Davies' father was Thomas Henry Mansell, known as Harry Mansell, who was born near Dorrington, then moved to Bucknell, but then got a job on the railway in 1912.

Marrying a Bucknell girl in 1916, they moved to Swansea, and he worked on the Swansea to Shrewsbury line, early on as a waggoner and shunter, and later as a goods guard.

Mrs Davies was herself familiar with the Sugar Loaf halt as the children would travel to stay with her maternal grandparents in Bucknell.

"We used to come from Swansea to stay for the summer holidays and used to have the time of our lives coming to the country. We thought it was great fun.

"There was a wood not far from where my grandmother lived and we would play in the wood all day long.

"My father was a passenger guard when he retired. I have a photograph of my father the night he retired with his driver. Both of them had the same birthday and so both retired on the same day when they were 65, retiring on December 31, 1955."