The Great Western Railway was a railway company that was dominant in West Wales, in the United Kingdom.
The main line from Swansea to Neyland, a port on Milford Haven Waterway, was opened as a broad-gauge line by the South Wales Railway from 1852, and that company merged with the Great Western Railway in 1862. The main line was converted to "narrow gauge" (later known as "standard gauge") in 1872, and most of the original main line is in use today.
Several independent lines were opened in West Wales, and at the "grouping" of the railways in 1923 most of them were absorbed by the Great Western Railway. Some of them were chiefly mineral railways, and many have closed as the industries they served declined. Some rural routes too have closed, but branch lines to Pembroke and Milford Haven, and a main line extension to Fishguard are still in operation.
Predecessor waggonways and canals Although the economy of south-west Wales was predominantly agricultural, there were areas of mineral extraction. This chiefly consisted of coal in the area north of Llanelly and around Saundersfoot. Limestone was also quarried around Llanelly, and on a smaller scale further west and north. In the eighteenth century transport to market dominated these industries, and only locations close to water were successful. Primitive waggonways were built conveying the mineral over relatively short distances directly to the coast.
The first short part of the Carmarthenshire Railway had been opened in 1803, giving a plateway tramroad connection between coal pits and a quay at Llanelly. By 1805 the line had reached Cross Hands, high on Mynydd Mawr (Carmarthenshire), bringing good quality anthracite down from there to the sea. For a time the line flourished, but by 1832 it was in decline, and part of the lower alignment had been used for a new edge railway, while the upper parts had become derelict.
Other mineral lines now became dominant in the area, and the Carmarthenshire Railway ceased to play an important role in the traffic.
In 1812, the Kidwelly and Llanelly Canal and Tramroad Company was authorised by the Kidwelly and Llanelly Canal and Tramroad Company Act 1812 (52 Geo. 3. c. clxxiii), to build a canal serving Llanelly, with feeder waggonways serving pits. Two horse-operated waggonway branches, probably of 4 ft 2 in gauge, were built to Burry Port harbour in 1832. One of them ran north to Cwmcapel and the other east to Sandy, near Llanelly. At this point it connected with the Cille Colliery waggonway on the Stradey Estate.M R C Price, Llanelly & Mynydd Mawr Railway, Oakwood Press, Usk, 1992 Michael Denman, Railways Around Llanelli: A History of the Railways of East Carmarthenshire. The Wider View, Huntingdon, 2000, D S M Barrie, revised Peter Baughan, A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain: volume 12: South Wales, David St John Thomas, Nairn, 1994, Raymond Bowen, The Burry Port and Gwendreath Valley Railway and its Antecedent Canals, Oakwood Press, Usk, 2001,
Llanelly Railway and Dock Company
A small group of promoters obtained an act of Parliament, the Llanelly Railway and Dock Act 1828 (9 Geo. 4. c. xci), to make a dock at Llanelly, and the Llanelly Railroad and Dock Company built the dock and a two-mile railway connecting coal pits at Dafen to it; there was a rope-worked incline from St Davids Pit down to Dafen. This was an edge railway, and traction was limited to horses.
Emboldened by the success of the initial line, the company decided to build a more ambitious line from the Llanelly Dock to pits further to the north-east. The company changed its name at this time to the Llanelly Railway and Dock Company, by an act of Parliament, the Llanelly Railway and Dock Company Act 1835 (5 & 6 Will. 4. c. xcvi), of 21 August 1835. This second line, separate from the Dafen line, opened as far as Pontardulais in 1839, extending to Duffryn and Cwmamman on 6 May 1840. In the following two years an eastward extension to pits in the Amman Valley was opened, and in 1842 a westward branch to the Great Mountain (Mynydd Mawr) was constructed.
The company operated trains itself, now using steam locomotives, and from 1850 a passenger service was run.Michael Denman, The Llanelly Railway and Dock Company: The Heart of Wales Pioneer. The Wider View, Ilminster, 2012,
South Wales Railway
Origins
The Great Western Railway completed its first main line between London and Bristol in 1841, and already during the construction period thought had been given to branches and extensions. The Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway had opened part of its line, from Swindon to Cirencester, and was continuing construction to Gloucester and Cheltenham. In 1843 the Cheltenham company was absorbed by the Great Western Railway, and now planning turned to the means of reaching South Wales.
In 1844, the South Wales Railway was proposed, to run from Standish, south of Gloucester on the Cheltenham line, through Chepstow, Newport, Cardiff, and Neath, passing close to Swansea and Carmarthen, to Fishguard. There was to be a branch from Whitland to Pembroke. The Great Western Railway and its associated companies used the broad gauge, unlike most other lines in Great Britain, which used the narrow gauge, later called standard gauge.
Although the South Wales Railway was to be an independent company, it was supported by the GWR and had many mutual directors and investors, and its engineer was Isambard Kingdom Brunel. In fact when it was authorised by the South Wales Railway Act 1845 (8 & 9 Vict. c. cxc), the GWR was to subscribe £600,000 of the £2.8 million capital of the company. There was to be a swing bridge over the River Loughor (between Gowerton and Llanelly) and a drawbridge over the River Towy near Carmarthen.E T MacDermot, History of the Great Western Railway: Volume I: 1833 to 1963: Part II. Great Western Railway, London, 1927
There were difficulties about the selection of route east of Newport, and a further act of Parliament, the South Wales Railway Amendment Act 1846 (9 & 10 Vict. c. ccxxxix), followed; this also authorised a branch from Landore to Swansea, and a Haverfordwest branch from near the later Clarbeston Road. A perpetual lease of the line to the Great Western Railway was agreed at this time, on the basis of a rent of 5% on the capital of £4 million (shares and loans combined) and half of any surplus profit. This arrangement was to commence on the line reaching Fishguard, and meantime the GWR would work the line on behalf of the SWR.E T MacDermot, History of the Great Western Railway: Volume I: 1833 to 1963: Part I. Great Western Railway, London, 1927
Gauge of the South Wales Railway In 1846, the Gauge Commission, established by Parliament, reported. The commission had been charged to consider the future track gauge of railways in Great Britain. The existence of the broad gauge throughout the Great Western Railway system and its allies, and the narrow gauge (as it was then called) on most other lines, resulted in inconvenience at the break-of-gauge: locations where the two systems met. While this was an inconvenience for passenger traffic, it was a serious problem for goods and mineral traffic, which had to be manually transshipped.
The commissioners found that the break of gauge was "a serious evil" and recommended that no further railway should be constructed on the broad gauge system, and that "some equitable means should be found of producing such entire uniformity of gauge or of adopting such other course as would admit of the Narrow Gauge carriages passing, without interruption or danger, along the Broad Gauge Lines."Gauge Commissioners' Report, quoted in MacDermot, volume I part I, page 235
The report appeared to call into question the gauge of the already authorised South Wales Railway, but the Lords of the Board of Trade, having considered the matter, modified the policy. It was their opinion that the SWR should be made on the broad gauge, and the resulting act, the Railway Regulation (Gauge) Act 1846 (9 & 10 Vict. c. 57) stated that the railways authorised
by an Act passed in the last session of Parliament, intituled An Act for making a railway to be called "The South Wales Railway" [and a modifying Act] intituled "An Act for completing the Line of the South Wales Railway", and to authorize the Construction of an Extension and certain Alterations of the said Railway, and certain Branch Railways in Connexion therewith... shall be constructed on the Gauge of Seven Feet.An Act for Regulating the Gauge of Railways (18th August 1846)
Accordingly, the line was built on the broad gauge, with far-reaching consequences.
The Western terminal As well as serving the industry and commerce of south and south-west Wales, the South Wales Railway was intended to link with a ferry between Fishguard and a harbour in Ireland in the Wexford area. By providing a transport medium between southern Ireland and the GWR network, it was hoped to secure the Post Office contract for mail between London and Dublin. This relied on a partner railway in Ireland, the Waterford, Wexford, Wicklow and Dublin Railway Company. Fishguard Bay was considered to be a suitable location for the development of a ferry port, and Brunel contemplated developing a transatlantic shipping business using Fishguard.
In 1845, there was a catastrophic failure of the potato crop on which a majority of Irish people depended for a living; this resulted in mass starvation and commercial depression, which deepened the following year. The economy in Ireland worsened considerably, and coincidentally the general economic climate throughout the United KingdomAt this period the United Kingdom consisted of Great Britain and all of Ireland. worsened considerably making the raising of money extremely difficult.Ernie Shepherd, Fishguard and Rosslare Railways and Harbours Company: An Illustrated History, Colourpoint Books, Newtownards, 2015,
The Irish railway promoters saw that it was hopeless to try to raise money for their railway, and for the time being indicated that they would be unable to pursue the link on the Irish side. The South Wales directors saw that building a line as far as Fishguard was futile, and approached the GWR proposing that the 5% guarantee should come into effect on the line reaching Swansea, and not Fishguard. The GWR were not amenable to this extension of their liability and declined. The South Wales Railway company naturally had to consider its position, and a certain alienation from the GWR took place at this time, signalised by the resignation of certain shared directors whose positions were now untenable.K A Murray and D B McNeill, Great Southern & Western Railway, Irish Railway Record Society, Dublin, 1976,
First opening of the South Wales Railway Construction of the first section of the South Wales Railway, between Chepstow and Swansea, had been proceeding and it opened for traffic on 18 June 1850. The crossing of the River Wye at Chepstow was not ready, and this section was therefore isolated from the rest of the railway system for two years, until the river was bridged, on 19 July 1852.
The Great Western Railway had been working the Bristol and Exeter Railway by contract, but the B&ER had taken over its own working; accordingly the GWR had a temporary surplus of rolling stock, and was able to work the SWR line from its opening.