Crossing the river Wye the Wireworks Branch (The main line ran between Chepstow and Monmouth) was a short lived line. It was opened in 1874 although it was officially opened in 1876 due to the fact that the branch was completed before the Wye Valley Line which it branched off from. The short line became known as the Wireworks Branch even though by the time the branch had opened the wireworks it was meant to serve had gone out of business. It struggled on until 1935 when the rails buckled in the heat of summer. The tracks remained mostly dormant until 1941 when they were sent for use on the railways of the Western Front of World War II, but were sunk in transit across the English Channel
