AN ABANDONED railway station at Carno will be looked at by Transport Secretary Ken Skates in a step towards a potential re-opening.

A fresh petition, calling for the re-opening of Carno Station, was presented to Welsh Government’s Petitions Committee on Wednesday.

Six members of Carno Station Action Group travelled down to the Senedd in Cardiff to present the petition that has more than 800 signatures.

This is the second petition to be delivered to Cardiff following the original back in 2007, which also held around 800 signatures.

John Ellison, of the Carno Station Action Group, said: “We are pleased to announce that Ken Skates has agreed that Carno Station should go forward to stage two of the appraisal process.”

The group received a letter from the transport secretary on Tuesday confirming the move.

The last time the action group appraised the cost of re-opening the station it was estimated to be about £1.7 million.

The letter has come after a busy several months campaigning, the latest petition was started by the group in May.

Mr Ellison added: “The idea is that it is the 10 year anniversary of the original petition. We have put an awful lot of work into it.”

The station was closed in 1963 by Lord Beechings but still has an almost hourly train pass by it every day.

“The stretch of line between Caersws and Machynlleth is the longest stretch of line in Wales without a station,” said Mr Ellison.

Shortly after the latest petition was announced, a new appraisal scheme was brought in for stations and a shortlist of 12 was formed, unfortunately this did not include Carno at the time.