West Wales Line

West Wales lines
Train passing over Tenby Viaduct
Overview
Type	Heavy Rail
System	National Rail
Locale	Wales Swansea Carmarthenshire Pembrokeshire
Operation
Opened	1868
Owner	Network Rail
Technical
Number of tracks	Double track Swansea to Clarbeston Road (remainder single line)
Track gauge	4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge

The West Wales lines (Welsh: Llinellau Gorllewin Cymru) are a group of railway lines from Swansea through Carmarthenshire to Pembrokeshire, West Wales. The main part runs from Swansea to Carmarthen and Whitland, where it becomes three branches to Fishguard, Milford Haven and Pembroke Dock.

Before the rail cuts of the 1960s, the routes were more extensive, with the towns of Cardigan, Newcastle Emlyn and Llandysul also served, and with a cross-country route from Carmarthen to Aberystwyth, via Lampeter.

The cities, towns and villages served by the route are listed below. Towns in italics are served by InterCity express services.

All stations on this line are served by at least one of the two Intercity services that run down this line on Summer Saturdays.

The railway to west Wales was first projected in 1844, and the proposal was for a line to run from the Great Western Railway near Gloucester to Fishguard, with a branch from Whitland to Pembroke. The railway was called the South Wales Railway, and although it was in theory independent of the G.W.R, in practice it was very closely linked. This was shown by the fact that Isambard Kingdom Brunel was the engineer, and the line was laid to the 7 ft (2,134 mm) broad gauge.

Construction began in 1847, but the company ran into financial difficulties. In addition, the Irish potato famine reduced the prospective revenue from Anglo-Irish traffic. As a result, instead of completing the line to the proposed port at Fishguard, the Haverfordwest branch was extended to Neyland, where a harbour could be provided more cheaply.

The line from Swansea opened as far as Carmarthen on 11 October 1852; then to Haverfordwest on 2 January 1854; and finally to its terminus at Neyland on 15 April 1856. At first, the railway was leased to the G.W.R., but in 1863 the two companies were amalgamated.