This is a multi that takes you around some rather interesting railway or train related things in Newport, which are all slightly hidden away, or something you may not otherwise notice.
The walk, including the walk to the physical cache from the last waypoint, should take approx. 30-40 mins, or a bit more if you linger to admire the mural and brick train, which I strongly suggest you do!
The route is fully wheelchair/pushchair accessible as long as you are happy with ramps up and down through the subways.
Please replace the cache exactly as found.
Waypoint 1: The subway.
Almost every structure on, over, or under the railway has an ID. It partly comprises the mileage of that asset along the route. For structures, the railway uses miles and chains, with a 'chain' being 22 yards, thus making 80 chains in a mile.
There’s a subway here going underneath the railway. I didn’t know the history of it myself but, according to one of the early finders of this cache, Paxwalker:
“The subway was used by Royal Mail to move letters to and from the old sorting office in Mill Street directly to the platform within the station. I believe that a trolley train was used - hence the sloped access leading to the entrance.”
Find the asset ID of this subway – It will start with SWM, then two sets of numbers. Ignoring the half, this is ABC and DE. (You should easily be able to see this from the top if you do not like the look of going down the slopes).
(SWM is the "Engineers Line Reference", a three letter code that is assigned to each railway route to uniquely identify it. SWM stands for 'South Wales Mainline'. This part of the route is actually SWM2, but the 2 is hidden behind the electrical duct).
Waypoint 2 (Optional): The wall
Installation of electrification required new masts, which, of course, required space alongside the railway! Alongside here the railway had no available space on this side, so the solution adopted was to demolish sections of the wall and build the masts where the wall was, then re-build the wall around the masts, narrowing the pavement.
Some construction projects sadly pay little attention to what the final result looks like, but here the old and new walls have been blended really nicely to make it almost look as if it had always been like that. It great to see the work that has been done here, to make this look nice.
There's no numbers to collect here, but the point of the cache is to see interesting railway stuff, so do have a look!
Waypoint 3: The mast stands alone.
As per waypoint 2, there was little space available inside the railway boundary, but here a different solution was adopted, with this one single mast being placed outside the railway boundary instead, forming an interesting feature in this little corner of otherwise fairly boring pavement. It's impressive though, showing how strong the masts are and how much force they are designed to withstand. Robust and strong engineering. Have a close look. All quite wonderful if you ask me (although I am a railway engineer - can you tell yet‽).
As per structures, each OLE (Overhead Line Electrification) mast has a unique identifier, but because the railway likes to be inconsistent, OLE naming uses kilometres and metres instead of miles and chains.
Look up at the mast and you’ll see an identifying plate attached to it. You’ll see that same SWM again, which, as above, is the route the mast is on. Then you’ll see the kilometres and then the metres values. The top line is FGH and the second is IJK.
(Under that you’ll also see the letters ‘UM’. The whole mast across the railway has the same identifier, but the supports on each side have separate sub-identifiers. The UM here stands for “Up Main”, the name of the track nearest to this mast.)
Waypoint 4 - Wayfinding
This is placed purely to help you find the right footpath to follow, assuming you are doing these in order. Head along here. The path will lead you downwards and under the railway towards the next waypoint.
Waypoint 5 - Old Green Mural
This is a fascinating mural that hides away down here where not many people know it exists. Do stop and admire!
You will see two trains depicted. Both locomotives have numbers on them. The one on the left is L and the one on the right MN.
If you want to learn more about these lovely mosaics and other Newport artefacts, read here: https://sites.google.com/site/artnewportprojects/public-art-in-newport/2-notes
If you are enjoying the mosaics, please also go around the passageway to the right as there are more to admire.
One you're ready to move on, go through the passageway behind you towards the next waypoint.
Waypoint 6 - The brick train
Here, a train has been carved into the brickwork of the wall. This must have taken a very long time to create and looks wonderful, but again it's tucked out of the way where many people wont know it exists.
The train has a number on its cab - this is OPQR.
Waypoint 7 (Optional) - The station
Note: There are significant works going on around the station at present, meaning it’s hard to predict what is and is not accessible at any time, and what is usable as a source of numbers for caching. I’ve thus made this waypoint into an optional one until the works are complete and I can reinstate something to find here too, so for the moment, there’s no info to find here.
You can't do a cache about railway without admiring the new station of course, but also recognising that the old station is still partly in situ and looking a bit worse for wear now. The new building on the West end of the platforms is an impressive ETFE-roofed structure, designed to look much more modern than the old building on the East end that it replaced. The old building is brick/stone and now, sadly, quite run down.
At this waypoint you will be looking at what used to be part of the main station until 2010. The building with the peaked roof is where the old footbridge used to be, but this was removed in 2018 to make way for the new electric overhead wires. The building is now closed off and boarded up, which is a shame as the architecture here is, or at least was, quite pretty. The entrance was slightly further to the East, latterly through what is now the Information Station and formerly through it’s own building, of which I’ve found a lovely old photo here: http://www.newportpast.com/gallery/photos/php/photo_page.php?search=rail&pos=54
It's worth walking up to the new station if you’ve not been there too. It’s quite an impressive building. The station has an interesting history - a read of the Wikipedia article is a good use of a few minutes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newport_railway_station
The cache
So, that's it. I've made you walk enough! I hope you have enjoyed the tour.
The cache is not too far away and can be found at:
N 51 ((N+I+A)/H) O . ((A+B)/F) (C+G) L
W 02 (D+F) (E+G+M) . (R-Q-P-A) J (K-O)
You can check your answers for this puzzle on GeoChecker.com
Please replace the cache exactly as found. Thank you!