Rhondda and Swansea Bay Railway

The Rhondda and Swansea Bay Railway was a Welsh railway company formed to connect the upper end of the Rhondda Fawr with Swansea, with the chief objective of transporting coal and other minerals to Swansea docks. It was incorporated in 1882, but at first the connection to Swansea from Briton Ferry was refused.

The construction required the formation of a tunnel nearly two miles long through difficult geological conditions, but the line opened from Treherbert through the tunnel to Port Talbot and Aberavon in 1890. Authorisation to extend to Swansea, and also Neath, was secured and those lines opened in 1894 (goods) and 1895.

The line suffered operational challenges and was never greatly profitable, but it arranged for the Great Western Railway to operate the line and guarantee good dividends from 1906. The GWR incorporated the line's infrastructure in widening its own lines at Court Sart and at Swansea docks. As it was heavily dependent on buoyant coal mining activity, the line declined sharply after 1945, and it was progressively truncated. The Rhondda Tunnel suffered a collapse in 1968 and the upper part of the line closed. A short section of the original route is in use near Briton Ferry and in the Swansea docks complex.

Although coal and iron had been extracted for some centuries, the first industrialisation of mining in the Afan Valley was in 1811 when Samuel Lettston obtained a lease of land at Cwmavon and in 1819 established a blast furnace there in 1819. Part of the output was conveyed to Aberavon on the Mynydd Bychan tramroad, a horse-operated wooden waggonway that had been in existence since about 1750. In 1824 transport efficiency was improved by the opening of what became known as the Cwmavon Tramroad, three miles in length and again horse-operated. The iron company expanded and became known as Vigurs and Co.

It was reported in 1830 that a new railway was under construction, from Oakwood (near Pontrhydyfen) to Aberavon, for the purpose of transporting coal from coalfields above Pontrhydyfen. This became known as the Oakwood Railway, but the colliery business was unsuccessful and the railway fell into disuse.

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