The Llanelly Railway and Dock Company was an early Welsh railway system. It opened its first short line and a wet dock at Llanelly in 1834, and soon went on to build a longer line from Llanelly to serve pits in the Amman Valley, and then on to Llandilo, reached in 1857. The Llanelly company leased and worked the Vale of Towy Railway on to Llandovery, from 1858.
Responding to competitive pressure the company obtained authorisation to connect its network to Swansea and Carmarthen, but the failure of a contractor put the company into financial difficulty, and a financial reconstruction later led to the Swansea and Carmarthen lines passing to the London and North Western Railway, while the original core system was taken over by the Great Western Railway.
The line from Swansea to Llandovery became part of the Central Wales Line connecting to Shrewsbury and the north-west, but after the 1960s only the Llanelli to Llandovery line and short colliery connections in the Amman Valley remained in use.
Before 1971 many place names had Anglicised spelling. The railway system was slow to convert the names of railway locations. For consistency, this article generally uses contemporary spellings.
Prior to the Llanelly Dock Company
In the eighteenth century minerals had been extracted in the area around Llanelly, and smelting of metals was taking place locally well before the end of that century. Conveyance of heavy minerals over the primitive roads of the day was an expensive and difficult business. Alexander Raby purchased mineral-bearing lands about 1795 and constructed tramways to bring the minerals to a smelting plant he owned at Furnace, near Llanelly. The tramways were wooden waggonways, and they extended to a harbour at Llanelly for onward transport of the finished product by coastal shipping.
There were extensive mineral deposits further inland at Cross Hands, and exploitation of the minerals needed a longer railway; the distance was 16 miles and Raby was the prime mover in the formation of the Carmarthenshire Tramroad for the purpose. The Tramroad was the first railway in Wales to obtain an authorising Act of Parliament, which it did in June 1802; the capital was £250,000.
Charles Nevill came to Llanelly and in 1804 established a copper works with an associated harbour facility.
There were extensive deposits of anthracite coal at Llangennech on the River Loughor estuary east of Llanelly, and about this time an expansion of the mining there took place, with associated construction of short tramroads. The Llangennech Coal Company was formed, and concentrated on shipping from Spitty (or Yspitty) on the Loughor. However the available quays were suitable only for small vessels, and the main trade was lighterage to Llanelly Harbour for transhipment, incurring additional expense.
When it was decided to develop the St Davids pit above Dafen, the opportunity to improve transport to the sea showed itself; a railway directly from Dafen to a new quay at Machynis Pool (now spelt Machynys) was feasible; there would need to be an incline down from St Davids to Dafen.
The Llanelly Railroad and Dock Company
The proprietors of the Llangennech Coal Company promoted a Bill in Parliament, to make a wet dock for vessels up to 300 tons at Machynis with wharves and warehouses, and build the railway to St Davids. The Act was passed on 19 June 1828, authorising the Llanelly Railroad and Dock Company, with share capital of £14,000. Only horse traction could be used. At the time of the Committee hearings 83% of the capital had already been subscribed. The upper terminal was described as Gelly Gille Farm.
Priestley reported on the Act:
This work was projected for the purpose of conveying the minerals and other productions of the country near its line to the sea, and the dock was for the readier shipment and landing of the exports and imports to be conveyed thereon... [By the authorising act] the proprietors are incorporated under the style of "The Llanelly Railroad and Dock Company.”... The dock [is] to be so constructed as to be large enough for ships of three hundred tons burthen, with slips, poles, beacons, warping and mooring buoys, chains and capstans, and the company are to build wharfs, warehouses and other works necessary for the purposes of the act.