The Railways of West Wales - Pembrokeshire

[rogerfarnworth]

In the early Autumn of 2022, we had a two week holiday in West Wales and I took the opportunity to have a look at a number of old railways. I walked lengths of some and spent hours whiling away the time looking at old photos. This thread is the result and this is the first article which looks at transport prior to the railway age, with a significant focus on tramways/tramroads .....

 

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2022/09/13/railways-in-west-wales-part-1a-pembrokeshire-mines-quarries-and-their-railways-before-the-railway-age/

 

Elsewhere in the UK, a usual pattern of development was for river traffic to be supplemented by tramroads and canals which then, often when traffic warranted it, were replaced by railways. It did not exactly work out like that in Pembrokeshire. ... We start with a quick look at the history of industrial transport of the County before the railways. ...

[rogerfarnworth]

This next post about Pembrokeshire's Railways covers the mainline railways of the county:

 

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2022/09/13/railways-in-west-wales-part-1b-pembrokeshire-mines-quarries-and-their-railways-the-mainline-railways/

[rogerfarnworth]

The next post in this series begins a short series of articles covering the industrial railways of Pembrokeshire.  It covers the industrial railways in the vicinity of Milford Haven and can be found on this thread:

 

Quote

In 1790 an Act of Parliament granted William Hamilton permission to: ‘make and provide Quays, Docks, Piers and other erections and establish a Market with proper Roads and Avenues’. Several plans were proposed for the construction of quays, piers and all weather docks in the first half of the 19th century, but nothing was done. In an attempt of kick start the town to life the Milford Improvement Bill of 1857 led to the construction of a pier and two wooden bridges: Black Bridge and Hakin Bridge, both now replaced by modern structures.

Edited September 26, 2022 by rogerfarnworth

[The Stationmaster]

Don't forget that for may years the most important railway location in West Wales was Neyland - by far the busiest port and an important railway centre as well even tho' it was at the end of the main line route (which remained the main line route until it was closed).  A fascinating place in railway terms as it retained separate arrival and departure platforms to the end (although the arrival platform was later signalled to handle departures) and with the engine shed between the Down and Up running lines.  

 

Alas it's railway history and interest nowadays seems to be relatively neglected which is a shame in view of how busy and important it once was.

[rogerfarnworth]

Thanks Mike.

 

The next couple of posts in this series focus on the Saundersfoot Railway and can be found on this thread:

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/174473-the-saundersfoot-railway

[The Stationmaster]

I see a comment about an early route to the Fishguard area has appeared in the Saundersfoot Railway thread.   In looking a bit further into that I have found a number of discrepancies in the Wiki article.

 

The South Wales Railway was incorporated in 1845 and is shown in GWR records to commence at Grange Court.  In the original Act the railway was shown to run to Fishguard but that was authprised to be abandoned  in Section 29 the Company's 1852 Act while section 7 of that Act authorised the extension from Haverfordwest to Neyland.  section104 of the Company's 1855 Act authorised it to be leased to the GWR and this was implemented by an agreement between the two companies made on 28 February 1862.  The SWR amalgamated with the GWR one year later on 1 August 1863.   Interestingly ferries previously running from Milford Haven to Ireland transferred to Neyland soon after the railway opened and it became the major port dealing with traffic to/from southern Ireland

 

The story of the North Pembrokeshire and Fishguard Rlwy, originally incorporated as the Rosebush & Fishguard Rlwy in August 1878 was the next company to propose  a line to Fishguard (actually to Goodwick) from Rosebush and this company was very clearly working closely with GWr as either of them was authorised to take over the Narberth and Maenchlog Rlwy thus securing the route between Narberth Road and Rosebush.  However the powers lapsed and were recreated by a further Act in 1886;  the first section, from Clynderwen to Letterston, didn't open until April 1895 while in the meanwhile the Fishguard & Rosslare had received its authorisation in 1893 empowering it to make an end-on junction with the North Pembrokeshire 3 chains beyond the latter station at Goodwick.  This latter section and the new harbour at Fishguard opened in August 1906.

 The North Pembrokeshire was vested in the GWR from February 1898 so the effectively the GWR completed the final section of the North Pembrokeshire - from Letterston to Fishguard & Goodwick - as it didn't open until August 1899.

[rogerfarnworth]

Pembrokeshire again. ... The Porthgain Clifftop Tramway ...

 

I have heard from a few people that I have not covered the Clifftop Tramway at Porthgain, Pembrokeshire. Here is a short article about the line. ...

 

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2022/10/29/porthgain-clifftop-tramway/

 

Much of this article is summarised from a book by R.C. Jermy - "The Railways of Porthgain and Abereiddi."

[adanapress]

The Trecwn RNAD branch and its narrpw gauge extension further up the valley was interesting,  particularly the standard gauge terminus,  large-ish but with no facilities whatever!. .

[Cymru Rails]

Thank you for putting these together, Roger. I am from Pembrokeshire and am planning to one day re-create several of the locomotives which were used in the steam age of Pembrokeshire. Your blog has provided a great resource for Pembrokeshire's railway history for me :)