The Taff Vale Railway was begun at Pontypridd in 1837, being the firstmajor locomotive railway into Wales, and with Isambard Kingdom Brunel as its chief engineer. It opened in 1841, running a line from Merthyr Tydfil to Cardiff, primarily to serve the ironworks, and later for the transportation of coal to Cardiff docks. In 1907 a reconstruction of Pontypridd station was begun, and at its peak it dealt with 11,000 passangers a day and had seven platforms. When built the main, island platform was the longest in the world, and still is the longest in the western region. Remodelled during 1970s.

A long, distictively curved platform, 14 bays long, eight bays of which have canopies carried on I-section steel piers standing on cast-iron, fluted, oval bases. The lightly trussed steel roof has segmental principals and a boarded underside, while the caopies have deep ogee valancing.

There are six buildings including a ticket office, station masters office, waiting room and toilets, all built in the free Egyptian revival style of red brick and terracotta. These buildings are decorated with parapets, deep bracket cornices, panelled pilasters and high plinths. The openings have labels over lugged and tapered architraves and consist mainly of panelled doors and T-framed windows.
At the south end is the two bay toilet block, to the north is the largest building of nine bays which formed the ticket office, the north wall of which is decorated by a terracotta panel sporting an urn holding foliage. The station masters office is six bayed, on the south side of each end bay being opposing stairs leading down from the platform to ground/street level. These have tall, panelled gate piers, the western set with a Baroque style overthrow and sliding lattice gates. There are side railings with simple Art Nouveau detail, which were made by Bayliss Lt of Wolverhampton. There is another stair further to the north with similar piers and overthrow, with the lettering 'Way Out'. The lower level is faced with white tiles.
(Based on CADW listing description) S Fielding RCAHMW 23/05/2005