Carmarthenshire is a county in the south-west of Wales. The three largest towns are Llanelli, Carmarthen and Ammanford. Carmarthen is the county town and administrative centre. The county is known as the "Garden of Wales" and is also home to the National Botanic Garden of Wales.
The Swansea Vale Railway (SVR) was a railway line connecting the port of Swansea in South Wales to industries and coalfields along the River Tawe on the northern margin of Swansea, by taking over a tramroad in 1846. It was extended to Brynamman in 1868. Passengers were carried from 1860, and a loop line through Morriston was built.
The Burry Port and Gwendraeth Valley Railway (BP&GVR) was a mineral railway company that constructed a railway line in Carmarthenshire, Wales, by conversion of a canal, to connect collieries and limestone pits to the sea at Kidwelly. It extended its network to include Burry Port, Trimsaran and a brickworks at Pwll, later extending to Sandy near Llanelli. For a time the company worked the separate Gwendraeth Valleys Railway. The BP&GVR was notable because of the very low height of some overbridges, a legacy of the canal conversion.
The River Gwendraeth is a river in Carmarthenshire in West Wales.
The Llanelly Railway and Dock Company was an early Welsh railway system. It opened its first short line and a wet dock at Llanelly in 1834, and soon went on to build a longer line from Llanelly to serve pits in the Amman Valley, and then on to Llandilo, reached in 1857. The Llanelly company leased and worked the Vale of Towy Railway on to Llandovery, from 1858.
This article is a timeline of Llanelli history. For a full article on the town, see Llanelli.
The Llanelli and Mynydd Mawr Railway is a heritage railway whose stated aims are to re-instate as much as possible of the former Llanelly and Mynydd Mawr Railway which closed in 1989.
The Carmarthen and Cardigan Railway was a 7 ft 1⁄4 in broad gauge railway line in Wales that was intended to connect Carmarthen on the South Wales Railway with Cardigan. In fact, it was unable to raise the necessary capital and was loss-making from the time of opening the first short section of its line in 1860, and it was in receivership for much of its life. It eventually reached Llandysul in 1864 but was not extended further during its independent existence.
The South Wales Railway was a main line railway which opened in stages from 1850, connecting the Great Western Railway from Gloucester to South Wales. It was constructed on the broad gauge. An original aspiration was to reach Fishguard to engender an Irish ferry transit and transatlantic trade, but the latter did not materialise for many years, and never became an important sector of the business. Neyland was the western terminus of the line until 1906.
Penwyllt is a hamlet located in the upper Swansea Valley in Wales. It lies within a part of the Brecon Beacons National Park in the traditional county of Brecknockshire; currently administered as part of the unitary authority of Powys.
The Kidwelly and Llanelly Canal was a canal and tramroad system in Carmarthenshire, Wales, built to carry anthracite coal to the coast for onward transportation by coastal ships. It began life as Kymer's Canal in 1766, which linked pits at Pwll y Llygod to a dock near Kidwelly. Access to the dock gradually became more difficult as the estuary silted up, and an extension to Llanelli was authorised in 1812. Progress was slow, and the new canal was linked to a harbour at Pembrey built by Thomas Gaunt in the 1820s, until the company's own harbour at Burry Port was completed in 1832. Tramways served a number of collieries to the east of Burry Port.
The Llanelly and Mynydd Mawr Railway was authorised in 1875. It made use of part of the long defunct Carmarthenshire Railway or Tramroad of 1801. The older line began running trains in 1803, and was a plateway of about 4 ft gauge, with horse traction, for the purpose of bringing minerals from the Mynydd Mawr to the sea for onward shipment at Llanelly Docks.
The Monmouthshire Railway and Canal Company was a canal and railway company that operated a canal and a network of railways in the Western Valley and Eastern Valley of Newport, Monmouthshire. It started as the Monmouthshire Canal Navigation and opened canals from Newport to Pontypool and to Crumlin from 1796. Numerous tramroads connected nearby pits and ironworks with the canal.
The Sirhowy Tramroad was a plateway built to convey the products of ironworks at Tredegar to Newport, South Wales. It opened in 1805 between Tredegar and Nine Mile Point, a location west of Risca, from where the Monmouthshire Canal Company operated a tramroad to Newport. The Sirhowy Tramroad was operated at first by horse traction, but early locomotives were used, and a passenger service was operated.
Tumble, is a village situated south of Cross Hands near the towns of Carmarthen and Llanelli in Carmarthenshire, Wales. Tumble, along with Cross Hands is part of the community of Llannon. The population, including Drefach was 4,302.
Llanelly and District Electric Tramways operated a standard gauge tramway service in Llanelli, Wales, between 1908 and 1933. It was the successor to a 3 ft gauge horse tramway, which ran from 1882 until 1908. A complex series of negotiations took place in the early 1900s, resulting in the horse tramway being converted to an electric tramway. Standard gauge horse trams were run initially, until the company completed North Dock power station, which supplied electricity to the tramway. Two of the employees who worked on the construction went on to found Balfour Beatty.
The Merthyr Tramroad was a 9.75-mile-long (15.69 km) line that opened in 1802, connecting the private lines belonging to the Dowlais and Penydarren Ironworks with the Glamorganshire Canal at Abercynon, also serving the Plymouth Ironworks along the way. It is famous as the line, on which Richard Trevithick's experimental locomotive hauled the first train to carry a load. It was largely superseded when the Taff Vale Railway opened in 1841, and sections gradually went out of use over two decades, from about 1851.
The Great Western Railway was a railway company that was dominant in West Wales, in the United Kingdom.
