Derry Ormond Halt was quite an unexpected discovery on my part; tracing the route of the disused Carmarthen and Aberystwyth Railway from
Lampeter to Pont
Llanio, (a route which took me over countless fences, through three farmyards and one quarry) I was lucky enough to find this remarkably well preserved halt,
opened in 1867 by the Manchester and Milford Railway Company as part of a line between Carmarthen and Aberystwyth via
Llanybydder, Lampeter and Tregaron, that served the village of Betws Bledrws and the nearby Derry Ormond Estate, which gave it its name.
By 1911, however,
the M. & M. R. appears to have overstretched itself,
(in no small part due to the cost of completing a new branch line from Lampeter to Aberaeron in the same year) and was bought by the famous Great Western
Railway Company. The next change of management came in 1948 after the Transport Act, when the line became part of the British Railways Network.
Services continued until 1964, a year after B. R's Chairman, Dr. Richard Beeching's report had recommended the line's closure,
when damage caused by floods forced the line's closure to passengers. Although goods services continued to be run until 1970, Derry Ormond, a small and
rather isolated halt, seems to have closed at the same time as passenger traffic ceased. [1]