Station to Station project captures valleys’ life on camera

Documentary photography students at the University of South Wales have travelled on two of Wales’s best known railway lines to capture portraits of everyday life in the South Wales valleys.

The Station to Station project – a collaboration with Transport for Wales, Rhondda Cynon Taf Council and Caerphilly County Borough Council – saw the students spend three days travelling along the Treherbert and Rhymney Valley train lines, meeting people in the surrounding communities and documenting their activities.

The project, now in its fifth year, aims to tell stories through pictures, offering an insight into contemporary life in the valleys – from street scenes and landscapes to portraits and close ups, textures and details.

Students’ work from Station to Station will also form part of Railway 200 – a national campaign celebrating the 200th anniversary of the world’s first passenger railway journey under steam power.

Railway 200 will see a range of activities and events taking place across Wales and its borders during 2025, to celebrate rail’s remarkable past, its role today, and its importance to a sustainable future.

The students were mentored by experienced documentary photographers Janire Najera and Rhiannon Adam, who each took a group to different locations along the train lines and provided guidance on finding interesting subjects to photograph.

Chris Lord, 31, is from Pontcanna, Cardiff, and is in his first year of the BA (Hons) Documentary Photography degree. A trained aircraft engineer, Chris decided on a complete career change after becoming interested in photography a few years ago.

He said: “I travel on the valleys line quite regularly as I enjoy mountain biking, and use the train to get to my favourite cycling routes, so I’m fairly familiar with the valleys. I’m hoping this project will allow me to capture portraits within different areas of the Rhondda, and use the realness of documentary photography to portray that person’s heritage.”

Bnar Sidiq, 42, is originally from Kurdistan and is in her third year of the course. She decided to study Documentary Photography after working as a photojournalist in her home city of Sulaimanyah, where there was a shortage of professional female photographers.

She said: “I want to focus on the heritage of the railway, as it contains so much industrial history. I am looking forward to meeting people in the communities of the Rhondda valleys to find out more about them and use my images to tell their stories.”

Dr Louise Moon, Railway 200 Programme Lead for Transport for Wales, said: “We are delighted to be supporting USW with their Station to Station project in the year of Railway 200, to help us celebrate 200 years of the modern railway, and its people and places.

“As we undergo our own transformation while delivering the South Wales Metro project, we are excited to see how the students have captured the changes in our rail infrastructure across the Valleys network, communities, and landscapes and their everyday stories.”

Karin Bareman, researcher and lecturer in Documentary Photography at USW, added: “We have once again worked closely with Transport for Wales on this year’s Station to Station project, who have generously donated train tickets to our students, and are co-funding a publication that will include the best photographs from the past five years of documenting valleys life.

“An exciting development for 2025 is that our students have been able to see the electrification of the train lines as part of the South Wales Metro works, which has helped inspire them to capture the ongoing transformation of the rail network.”

A selection of images from the Station to Station Project

Image by Chris Lord for Station to Station

Image by Bnar Sidiq for Station to Station

Image by Louis McAllister for Station to Station

Image by Hoda Alshaibani for Station to Station

Image by Katy Morton for Station to Station

Image by Beth Davies for Station to Station