Whitland and Cardigan Railway

Cardigan

Summit

Glogue Slate Quarry

Whitland

West Wales Line from Fishguard to Swansea

Pembroke and Tenby Railway

The Whitland & Cardigan Railway was a 27.5 miles (44.3 km) long railway branch line in West Wales. It was built in two stages, at first as the Whitland and Taf Vale Railway from quarries at Glogue to Whitland on the South Wales Main Line, opening in 1873, at first for goods and minerals only but later for passengers too. The line was extended to Cardigan, opening in 1886, and the company name changed to reflect that.

Although a dividend was paid, the Company was always short of cash and huge borrowings made it unable to pay its way; it was taken over by the Great Western Railway in 1886. Still considerably loss-making, it closed to passengers in 1962 and completely in 1963.

Although coastal shipping was possible, the road system serving Cardigan at the beginning of the nineteenth century was primitive and unsatisfactory. The South Wales Railway opened its broad gauge main line to Carmarthen in 1852, with the expressed intention of continuing to Fishguard; this was intended to connect to railways in the south of Ireland, but economic events resulted in a change of western terminal to Neyland, on Milford Haven. (Neyland was known as New Milford at first.)

The Carmarthen and Cardigan Railway was formed to build a broad gauge branch line from Carmarthen to Cardigan, and it was authorised by Act of 1 July 1854, with share capital of £300,000. At first this was to build as far as Newcastle Emlyn only; the intention was to obtain further authorisation and investment later to complete the line to Cardigan. Although the Parliamentary Act authorised the share capital, actually persuading investors to commit the money proved extremely difficult, and the Company was unable to proceed with the construction as far or as fast as it intended. In fact the line opened as far as Conwil on 3 September 1860 and to Llandyssil on 3 June 1864. The company never managed to build further than that point, although it was later taken over by the Great Western Railway, which extended the line to Newcastle Emlyn on 1 July 1895. The idea of completing beyond that point to Cardigan had long since been abandoned.

Although the area of west Wales near Cardigan was predominantly agricultural, there was already some mineral extraction in the eighteenth century. Lead and silver mines had long existed near Llanfyrnach, and by the nineteenth century the workings had become extensive. At Glogue there were slate quarries. Both of these locations were in the Taf Valley which provided a natural line of transportation to coastal shipping at Carmarthen Bay or at Cardigan or Newport. After the opening of the South Wales Railway in 1854 from Carmarthen to Haverfordwest the slate was also transported away by rail from Narberth Road.

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Wikipedia