South West Wales Main Line

1. The failure of the Fishguard enterprise , and a long period of stagnant UK - Eire traffics in the 20thC , further diluted by air and road competition. No more boat trains from London !
2. An overall declining population for much of the 20thC , the major changes in rural production - especially from fresh milk routed to the London markets by rail , and the transfer to road of the meat traffic. Live cattle from both Eire and "domestically" was a reasonable flow for many years
3. Loss of local freight in general terms - not just domestic coal , but block "imported" fertiliser and feedstock.
4. The development of oil etc imports - healthy for a few decades . Largely replaced by pipelines to the Midlands etc.
5. Huge investment in roads - not just the M4 east of Pont Abraham (Ammanford area) - but significant widening etc of the A40.
6. Most passenger service now , going via Swansea - extend West Wales to Cardiff and beyond by at least 40 mins , sometimes requiring a change and easily beaten by the roads mentioned above.
7. No other major industries developed suited to rail - a small Pembrokeshire coal field served local needs , but local sea traders took the rest. Long defunct in any case.

ChiefPlanner said:

West of Swansea - there have been major structural changes in the economy , and therefore the train services - both freight and passenger. I speak as a Carmarthenshire born ex resident also - but on the edge of the anthracite coalfield.

What became the GWR had quite high hopes for the area , but acquired some of the lines which were locally financed (e.g Pembroke - Tenby) and made a considerable investment at the turn of the last century when there were very high hopes of Fishguard becoming a transatlantic port. Various factors have negated some of these investments.

1. The failure of the Fishguard enterprise , and a long period of stagnant UK - Eire traffics in the 20thC , further diluted by air and road competition. No more boat trains from London !
2. An overall declining population for much of the 20thC , the major changes in rural production - especially from fresh milk routed to the London markets by rail , and the transfer to road of the meat traffic. Live cattle from both Eire and "domestically" was a reasonable flow for many years
3. Loss of local freight in general terms - not just domestic coal , but block "imported" fertiliser and feedstock.
4. The development of oil etc imports - healthy for a few decades . Largely replaced by pipelines to the Midlands etc.
5. Huge investment in roads - not just the M4 east of Pont Abraham (Ammanford area) - but significant widening etc of the A40.
6. Most passenger service now , going via Swansea - extend West Wales to Cardiff and beyond by at least 40 mins , sometimes requiring a change and easily beaten by the roads mentioned above.
7. No other major industries developed suited to rail - a small Pembrokeshire coal field served local needs , but local sea traders took the rest. Long defunct in any case.

I would argue that better use of the Swansea District and consequent accelerating of "West Wales" services on the M4 corridor would certainly assist , - but the market is not a large one. You still need to serve local communities in any case. Subsidy per passenger journey in TfW land is pretty high in any case.

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Bald Rick said:

Spot on Guv.

Re the roads - with both Fishguard and Pembroke being main ferry ports for Ireland, improvement to the road links attracted European money. I can (just) remember travelling to Pembrokeshire as a kid in the back of the family Allegro in 1976, and it taking well over 3 hours for the 100 or so miles from the then end of the M4 east of Cardiff to Tenby. It was 1980 before the Cardiff and Bridgend bypasses opened, and then throughout the 80s improvements to the A48 into and around Carmarthen, the A40 towards StClears, and around Whitland, and the Kilgetty bypass on the A477 to Pembroke. It was the 90s before the Crosshands bypass on the A48 was done, and the Briton Ferry part of the M4, then later more works to the A40 and A477, with the Red Roses bypass being the last part of the latter 6 years ago.

This now means that the car journey time from Cardiff is well under 2 hours except on the busiest summer days when the queues at Pontarddulais and Carmarthen are still bad (but no worse than they were in the late 1970s). All the other queues from back then - around Cardiff, Bridgend, Briton Ferry (twice), Crosshands, Bancyfelin and the worst of all up the valley from Llanddowor to Red Roses.

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ChiefPlanner said:

Very impressed with your detailed knowledge. Note that until the Lougher bridge rebuild and doubling of the line between towards Llandeilo Junction - the last major rail investment in SW Wales was the opening of Port Talbot Panel in 1969 /1973. Says it all really.

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Taunton said:

However has the Swansea District line survived countless efficiencies? It bypasses the most significant point west of Cardiff, and the numbers of passengers who take the train because of the small reduction in time, who would not do so if it ran via Swansea, must be very small. And I believe it's a quite lengthy double track throughout. I suspect a significant number of the decision makers in London, Milton Keynes and Cardiff don't even know it exists.

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30907 said:

There's no passengers booked that way, but the line serves a handful of freight facilities - and has the potential to host a faster service to Llanelli and beyond. It woild be unwise to chop it just yet!

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Bobdogs said:

Thanks for all the replies and information therein.I remember travelling by car to Gulf Hebrandston in 1984 from the West Midlands. I had to do a job in the refinery which took no more than half an hour. I started out at 5 in the morning and didn't get home until 9 at night. After the M50, if I recall correctly, it was single carriageway all the way along the Heads of the Vallies and west to Milford Haven.

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Bald Rick said:

If you went via Heads of Valleys you would have had a stretch after the M50 towards Usk. Then after the Heads of Valleys you would have popped out at Skewen and had about 15 miles of M4, and a short bit of dual carriage way on the A48 past Pontarddulais. I think there was some dual carriageway between Carmarthen and St Clears at that point, but the Bancyfelin bypass may have been under construction (I think it opened in 1985).

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ChiefPlanner said:

Trivial point - when they were building the M4 bit from Ynysforgan towards Pont Abraham - they stumbled across a shallow coal seam - they were delighted , as the carefully excavated coal helped defray the construction cost by about zero, zero % ....

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Bald Rick said:

Same happened with the Kilgetty bypass - you can see the seam (Anthracite IIRC) in one of the cuttings near Stepaside.

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ChiefPlanner said:

West of Swansea - there have been major structural changes in the economy , and therefore the train services - both freight and passenger. I speak as a Carmarthenshire born ex resident also - but on the edge of the anthracite coalfield.

What became the GWR had quite high hopes for the area , but acquired some of the lines which were locally financed (e.g Pembroke - Tenby) and made a considerable investment at the turn of the last century when there were very high hopes of Fishguard becoming a transatlantic port. Various factors have negated some of these investments.

1. The failure of the Fishguard enterprise , and a long period of stagnant UK - Eire traffics in the 20thC , further diluted by air and road competition. No more boat trains from London !
2. An overall declining population for much of the 20thC , the major changes in rural production - especially from fresh milk routed to the London markets by rail , and the transfer to road of the meat traffic. Live cattle from both Eire and "domestically" was a reasonable flow for many years
3. Loss of local freight in general terms - not just domestic coal , but block "imported" fertiliser and feedstock.
4. The development of oil etc imports - healthy for a few decades . Largely replaced by pipelines to the Midlands etc.
5. Huge investment in roads - not just the M4 east of Pont Abraham (Ammanford area) - but significant widening etc of the A40.
6. Most passenger service now , going via Swansea - extend West Wales to Cardiff and beyond by at least 40 mins , sometimes requiring a change and easily beaten by the roads mentioned above.
7. No other major industries developed suited to rail - a small Pembrokeshire coal field served local needs , but local sea traders took the rest. Long defunct in any case.

I would argue that better use of the Swansea District and consequent accelerating of "West Wales" services on the M4 corridor would certainly assist , - but the market is not a large one. You still need to serve local communities in any case. Subsidy per passenger journey in TfW land is pretty high in any case.

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muddythefish said:

I know Pembrokeshire railways well from childhood holidays in the 1960s and 1970s though sadly I missed the final days of the Neyland line,.

Gosh, the lines were busy. Spent many happy hours in the signal boxes at Johnston and Clarbeston Road watching the traffic and pulling off the signals when the friendly signalmen allowed.

As far as I recall, there were 4 or 5 Albion - Waterston Gulf tanks each way, plus regular traffic to Esso at Herbrandston and another refinery which I can't recall. There was a down mixed freight through Johnston to Milford Haven at about 10.30am, often with fish traffic, and a return service in the early evening. Haverfordwest (a busy yard) generated 2 outward mixed frieghts in the evening, often loading to 30 or 40 vans.

The Milford line also had the London sleeper each way. Regular passenger trains were usually loco and 3 coaches.

The Fishguard line had the Irish boat train, Irish freightliner, London Motorail and mixed goods from Margam including Irish meat through Clarbeston between 12.30p and 2pm to connect with the boat sailings.

All these trains were usually in the hands of Hymeks and Brush Type 4s and sometimes the EE Class 3s, although they were less common then. Westerns made appearances on the Fishguard boat train but I can't recall seeing one on the Milford line. DMUs occasionally saw service to MH but passenger trains were usually 3 comfortable compartment coaches and a Hymek - wonderful.

Milford line was double throughout from Clarbeston to Johnston, and single from there to MH and the various refineries

Clarbeston Road was my favourite location and it wasn't unusual to see 3 or 4 trains an hour for hours on end. The combination of the MH and Fishguard traffic from 12 - 2pm made it seems like a busy main line .

it saddens me that all this traffic has largely gone, though the Fishguard line has more passenger services than in those days. It is hardly surprising when the roads to west Wales have had so much investment compared to rail.

Superb photo of Neyland circa 1964 shortly after closure. You could catch a train (and sleeper I believe) from this small Pembrokeshire community to Paddington every day, pulled by an ex GWR County class 4-6-0s or similar. It was busy with goods too. Those were the days.....

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Bobdogs said:

You're right about there being 3 refineries close to Milford Haven; Esso on a site west of Milford Haven, closed in 1983, now the site of the South Hook LPG terminal; Gulf (later Chevron) in Waterston, closed in 1997, the refinery was dismantled and shipped to Pakistan, now a storage depot and Amoco, now Murco, closed in 2015, now also a storage and distribution depot, the only one using rail services.
The last time I was in Chevron was about 10 years ago. The rail link towards the junction with the Milford Haven branch was still intact but locked off behind a set of rusty gates but all the sidings were still intact. When I first went there in 2000 it looked as if the rail link hadn't been used for years.
You can see the now dismantled branch formation to Esso alongside the road that forms the Murco site border.
Between Clarbeston Road and Fishguard there was a branch towards an ex Royal Navy ordinance depot built in1938 to supply shells and mines Somewhere on YouTube there is a drone film over the depot. Because of the spark risk, the Internal lines within the depot were constructed using copper.

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muddythefish said:

It's incredible that Waterston closed - it was so busy back then.

I saw the Murco site a few years ago but thought that was the old Herbrandston Esso site. Are they different?

The old ordnance site was RNAD Trecwn, built on the line of the original former North Pembrokeshire and Fishguard Railway. Had a look once, in the 1960s, a fascinating place with more than 400 workers in a remote location at the height of the Cold war. There were some old GW coaches in the yard, used for workers trains into Fishguard.

The site was sold off for development in 2002 I believe.

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