The Burry Port & Gwendraeth Valley Railway.

[Mountain]

This line first began by donkeys taking coal from the mines in panniers to the coast. As coal demand increased and so did the various mines, a better means of bulk transport was needed so canals were dug, the most famous being Kymers canal.
Railways then came along and the canal was filled in and a railway was placed on top, which rather unsurprisingly used to flood!
Now the line also had another trait in that due to it initially having been designed for canal use, some of its bridges were lower than the standard loading gauge height by a full 10 inches, so due to this difficulty, and due to the regular flooding where whole areas of the lower section of the line were underwater, even in summer, that locomotive choice was understandably limited, but this in itself ended up having an unusual effect in that into preservation there are a fair number of survivors which were either built for this line, or adapted and lowered specifically for use on this line. So I will briefly go through the history of these interesting locomotives. (The survivors in their various forms of condition).

So let's make a start....

The earliest pair of locos we know to have worked on the railway were bought new BUT were not built with this line in mind. They were actually interesting locomotives being two standard gauge Double Fairlies which so far were recorded as the earliest locomotives known of this design to have been built, and they predate the Ffestiniog examples by many years! It is because of these standard gauge examples that the Ffestiniog had noticed, and looked to see if it was possible to have narrow gauge versions of the design for their line, as these were powerful locos equivalent of being two locos, but only requiring one pair of locomotive crew to run them so could save their railways money as a long term investment. But the BP&GV railway initially bought these locomotives because they were offered to them at a bargain price, as they had been built to be used abroad, but with the British Empire having found itself at awar with the country they were intended to be sold to, the builders happened to need to find new buyers for them so offered them for sale.
One of these locos was an 0-4-4-0 and the other was a larger 0-6-6-0. Now the knowledge about these two impressive locomotives had been completely forgotten about until a gentleman who started an effort in order to preserve the line came in touch with a local who happened to have an old photograph dating right back in years which showed these two locomotives working at Burry Port. This started off a search as the boiler barrels were rumoured to still exist as culverts somewhere near the harbour, and these two boiler barrel remains of these two locomotives have since been found! Not sure if one can call these "Survivors", but I thought I would mention it. And also not sure how far up the line these large locomotives were used, but even if something else was used in the earlier days of the line, the masses of dock lines with huge trains of coal waggons that needed to be shunted kept these two engines busy for a great many years!
Now looking online the records the little information is not exactly correct as it only shows the details of the smaller of the two locos, yet said there were two of them. I know the other was an 0-6-6-0 as I was shown a copy of an early photo taken at Burry Port, but this does show useful data.
While this data only shows the information on the 0-4-4-0 and not the larger 0-6-6-0, it is really surprizing that any information has been found, so the site owner mush be congratulated on his research, so here is a link below.

https://www.steamlocomotive.com/locobas ... lroad=bpgv

Also to note, the double fairlie designed locomotives also found their way abroad.

https://historypoints.org/index.php?pag ... orks-neath

Now the next know survivor was a miracle locomotive built in the year 1900. It was a small 0-6-0 outside cylinder edge saddle tank built by Avonside. As coal output increased, more powerful larger 0-6-0 locomotives were purchased and this little 0-6-0ST found itself surplus to use, so it was sold into colliery service around 1915(?) which eventually the collieries were absorbed by the coal board so it became an NCB loco, and kept in good working condition by the NCB who values Steam traction for shunting in some of the South Wales collieries because of their free access to fuel. After most of the collieries closed in the 1980's the loco was obtained by a museum. It had not long been fitted with a new boiler purchased from the origional manufacturer who were still trading at the time, and it sat at the back of this museum until the museum decided it had too many locomotives to restore. It was purchased from the museum and one day it is hoped will run again on the Burry Port and Gwendraeth Valley Railway line.

https://preservedbritishsteamlocomotive ... y-railway/

This is NOT the only survivor in reasonably complete condition (But is the only survivor purposefully built for the railway from birth. The rest of the survivors below had been used elsewhere before being adapted (Where neccessary) for use on the BP&GV, some of which required considerable work to reduce their height to make them fit, but nevertheless had successful lives and became part of the BP&GV railway scene)
When the GWR took over the line, it ran the then existing fleet of BPGVR locos being run on the line, which consisted of the larger 0-6-0ST locos along with 0-6-0T locos which had been built by industrial loco builders, but the GWR decided to also allocate and run its class of 16xx pannier tanks on the line to which they were found to be most suitable. The sole surviving 16xx loco which is in good condition used to run on this very line! Unfortunately the small fleet of industrial locos the line had purchased in the past were scrapped by B.R. under their dieselization plan, BUT here is where more surviving miracles took place!
Class 03's were preferred for many years because they could run through floods! So right from when they were first used (1950's-'60's?) these were a success. They did need to reduce the height of the cabs though to fit under the low bridges, but these were seen either triple headed witt around 53 to 64 screaming steel sided coal waggons behind of the two side door variety (21T?) and the occasional single door 16T was seen with a BR brakevan at the rear, OR in the other direction they would run double headed in front with the third loco coupled at the back with the brake van. Further up the line (Though it could be after the lower Burry Port section closed, and the branch to Kidwelly was re-opened as this allowed access and while the rest of the line also flooded, it was rarely to the same depth, I saw old rusty hopper wagons being pulled. This was not so often though as the main rusty waggons were the steel flat sided coal wagons which were all unfitred types, and were a varied mixture. Mostly 2 side door types, but I think I saw the odd one the same size with one side door? 16T types did stand out more in the formation as these were smaller. All these wagons screamed in the days when the Burry Port section was in use as they slowly went past, as I was told by a guard who worked them that they would be fully greased up before they set off, but by the time they got back to Burry Port, the wagons axleboxes were entirely washed out of grease! We would hear those trains as the slowly came down the line when they were a few miles away!
Now some of these cut down 03's were rescued and survived into preservation. In all the years I believe 12 were cut down for this use and all had the wider cast metal chimney pot style exhausts. When the earliest examples became worn out and only any good for spares, more class 03's were cut down to replace them. Nearly all had their window pillars cut down in length by around 10 inches giving them a slightly squat look compared to a standard class 03, not that one would notice, but one example (I believe may have been one of the first to be cut down?) had the bottom of its cab reduced in height instead.

Once the Kidwelly section was re-opened in 1984, they could then consider bringing up more powerful locos. They were able to bring class 37's as far as the washeries in Coed Bach, as did an interesting industrial class 07 shunter used to shunt the trains of wagons in the washeries sidings with its orange flashing light, but these locos could go no further, as the first of the low bridges was at Pontnewydd a mile or two further up the line.
The decided to replace the aging 03's by cutting down some equally old class 08's, as they had so many 08's on the rails in those days they were seen as the ideal candidate. Now the 08's could not go through floods any higher than their electric traction motors as they are diesel electrically driven, so I remember a guard telling me when working one up the line through a flooded section, that he was with the driver ready to check to ensure the motors were clear of the water. He could not quite see, so he jumped out of the cab to stand on the railway bank which seemed a good idea at the time. He looked and found the motors were clear of the water, only to then look to get back onto the locomotive. Well. Jumping onto a large grassy bank is not to difficult, but try jumping from a bank onto a small door of a locomotive! Err! He got absolutely soaked as he didn't make it!
There were three class 08's cut down for the line. The were named after places along the route. "KIDWELLY", "COED BACH" AND "CWM MAWR". (Spell checker kept changing those names!)
All three 08's survive though in various conditions awaiting to be restored, the one having its central wheels missing etc.

(At one time before the GWR took over the line,, Cournel Stephens owned and ran the line and info has been recorded on this excellent website).

https://colonelstephenssociety.co.uk/ro ... stock.html

https://colonelstephenssociety.co.uk/bu ... opics.html

[Mountain]

Here are links about the bridge hit by a standard height class 08 as it was sent in hased from Landore to rescue a stranded cut down 08 without anyone realizing this standard height class 08 was too high!

https://paulbigland.blog/2019/03/17/one-of-those-days/

And the rebuilt bridge over the railway as it stands now.

https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6938675

Anyone wanting to visit be aware that just south of this bridge on the single track road is another older bridge giving this rural hamlet its name, which spans over the nearby river. The canal used to go where the railway now goes under the bridge in the phot in the link to the website. The river bridge has a sharp 90 degree turn that motorists in cars need to take just the right angle to get round. It also has a fairly low max weight limit.

But this railway bridge. I remember when in my first job, a workmate who was older than me and who was training me had rode back home that way one winters evening (I think it was in 1990 or 1991 (?)) and he phoned me when he got back as he was puzzled as he said he had jumped the bridge on his bike. Now it was completely dark with no street lamps back then, and the bicycle lamps in those days hardly did much! We both fitted two large Ever Ready front lights to our mountain bikes that took two D cell batteries each, and only used the two lights if we had to. In fog I would point the left light down to pick out the grass verge and the right to see the road slightly further ahead, as the beam gave us a little rectangle of light, if we put black tape over the top of the Lens, as if one didn't put black tape over the top of the lights one could not hope to see a thing (Bicycle light regulations specify front lights must shine towards ones face so one can see that ones light(s) is still working. Obviously whoever made this regulation didn't do much riding in the dark where there were no streetlights).
Anyway! As he had jumped the bridge he phoned me as he said something was odd, because he never remembered jumping that bridge before, and he said he would go that way in the morning to check.
The next morning he arrived rather late (As can happen when cycling as one can pick up a puncture etc), and when he arrived he said
"The bridge is closed. There is a train stuck under it!"
The loco had to remain there for some time as it was holding the remains of the bridge in place, and it took several months before the bridge had been rebuilt so local people could use the road again.

What really puzzled us all though was as the bridge was 10 inches too low for a standard locomotive to fit, and the loco that hit the bridge had basically demolished it, why didn't they rebuild the bridge 10 inches higher when they basically had to rebuild the whole bridge? If the railway were rebuilding it they would have done that. Why did the local athority not do this? They actually raised the road height when rebuilding this bridge so an extra 10 inches would hardly have cost them much more? We couldn't believe it that the bridge was rebuilt to the same 10 inches too low height!
Years later when I went down to look at the area with a gentleman I know who is spearheading the movement to restore the line, we both were looking at the bridge and commenting how easy it would be to raise it 10 inches in height!
He surveyed all the bridges on the line and found only this bridge at Pontnewydd and the funny angled bridge at Pontyberem were too low. Pontnewydd track bed can't be lowered as it already floods as the track is right on top of where the old canal was, but if the ground under the bridge area at Pontyberem could possibly be lowered, if nothing structural in regards to the bridge is touched, then it could potentially be possible to achieve. Though it would all involve a lot of work and funds, so it might be cheaper to stick to reducing the height of any stock that will eventually run on the line, as there is already a gradually increasing amount of stock in various places and conditions awaiting to one day run on this line, as it is also part of the lines rather unique character! It makes me smile when there is me, slowly increasing my collection of models, and the gentleman I know is slowly increasing the collection of the real thing! Makes me smile to think of it! But it will be great when trains will run up the Gwendraeth again, as it is a most splendidly scenic route!