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Stenlake Publishing - Burry Port & Gwendreath Valley Railway and its Antecedent Canals – Volume One: The Canals


Burry Port & Gwendreath Valley Railway and its Antecedent Canals – Volume One: The Canals



Author : Ray Bowen
ISBN : 9780853615774
Cover : paperback
Price : £12.95

The author’s father was posted to Burry Port in 1933 to work over the Old Company, the erstwhile Burry Port & Gwendreath Valley Railway. He was passionately interested in any form of history. His four year sojourn at Burry Port was particularly interesting for him, as there he was operating over a route which had been a canal and had evolved into a railway with its many eccentricities. Conditions were often so difficult with flooding that his father on occasions was not sure whether he was an engine driver or a bargee! The author would accompany him on footplate trips over the Gwendreath. Features of the old canal works and other interesting industrial items would be pointed out to him.

Many years later the seeds planted in his young mind have brought this important work on the company’s history to fruition. This first volume deals with the earliest years: the canal history.

Four substantial canals fulfilled the needs f t he expanding anthracite mining industry which was to become world renowned. The Kidwell & Llanlly Canal & Tramroad Co. became the main waterway. From Burry Port it was carried out over two substantial aqueducts and was lifted by three massive inclines to Cwmmawr. By 1866 this waterway was transformed into the Burry Port & Gwendreath Valley Railway Co. Although experiencing great operating difficulties because of the limited canal bridge clearances and constant flooding, the company became an efficient and immensely profitable passenger-carrying system.

A5, 184 pages, 56 photographs/plans etc.

Burry Port & Gwendreath Valley Railway and its Antecedent Canals – Volume One: The Canals
£12.95