Dates of operation 1803–1844 Length 11.5 mi (18.5 km) Locale Wales | Track gauge 4 ft (1,219 mm) Headquarters Llanelli | |
Successor Llanelly and Mynydd Mawr Railway | ||
The Carmarthenshire Railway was a horse-worked plateway built in South Wales in 1803.
History
The Carmarthenshire Railway or Tramroad was authorised under an Act of Parliament of 3 June 1802 – the first granted for a public railway in Wales – to acquire the existing Carmarthenshire Dock at Llanelly and its feeder tramroad built by Alexander Raby by 1799, thus incidentally becoming the world’s first dock-owning public railway company. The first 1.5 mi (2.4 km) from Cwmddyche ironworks down to the sea was open in May 1803 – the first stretch of public railway in use in Britain – and construction ceased in 1805 when the line had reached Gorslas. The engineer was named James Barnes and the gauge was approximately 4 ft (1,219 mm).
The line ceased to operate in or before 1844 and portions of its course were utilised by the Llanelly and Mynydd Mawr Railway, opened in 1881.